Link to article here.

TxDOT head: 'Tolls are freedom'
By Terri Hall
Examiner.com

Sometimes you have to ask yourself, what Kool-Aid are some people drinking? The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Executive Director Phil Wilson told hundreds of transportation industry enthusiasts during his keynote address at the San Antonio Mobility Coalition (SAMCo) luncheon yesterday, that tolls equal freedom.

“Tolls are tool that the legislature elected by the people voted on...which the MPO comprised of elected officials made the decision to go spend...so there’s a local voice in the process that’s not TxDOT driven,” Wilson argued.

Read more: TxDOT exec Wilson calls tolls 'freedom'

Link to article here.

Cintra tries to sell San Antonio on SH 130
By Terri Hall
Examiner.com

“There are few things that Governor Perry and President Obama agree on, but both oppose an increase in the motor fuels tax,” began Chris Lippincott, former Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) public information officer and the new public relations point man for Spain-based Cintra, the concession company for the first privatized toll road in Texas -- State Highway 130, segments 5 & 6, from Mustang Ridge to I-10 in Seguin. Lippincott was the guest speaker and chief cheerleader for Cintra’s toll road set to open this fall at yesterday’s luncheon hosted by the oldest transportation group in San Antonio, the San Antonio Transportation Association, established in 1921.

As its new spokesperson, Lippincott is the Texas face to a foreign company that’s been the center of controversy in Texas since the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC) development rights were first awarded to Cintra in 2005. SH 130 is the first public private partnership (P3) tied to the Trans Texas Corridor, TTC-35, signed in the midst of a heated legislative session that eventually slapped a moratorium on such contracts in 2007.

Read more: Cintra markets SH 130 in San Antonio

Link to article here.

The reason for this 85 MPH speed limit is money, money, money -- M-O-N-E-Y. TxDOT entered into a controversial public private partnership with Spain-based Cintra in 2007 that has a provision where it pays TxDOT an extra $100 million incentive if it changed the posted speed limits on the privately operated tollway to 85 MPH. TxDOT also decreased the speed limit from 65 MPH down to 55 MPH on the adjacent free route, US 183 that runs through Lockhart. So now speed limits are being determined based on the almighty dollar instead upon public safety. This is Rick Perry's crony capitalism on display in plain sight.

New Texas road to have nation's fastest speed limit

Thursday, September 6, 2012 | Updated: Thursday, September 6, 2012 7:28pm

By Carol Christian

Feared by some, fancied by others, a stretch of Texas toll road will open soon with the highest speed limit in the country - 85 mph.

The Texas Transportation Commission recently set the new speed limit for a 41-mile stretch of Texas 130 between the Austin suburb of Mustang Ridge and Interstate 10 at Seguin. Driving at the 85 limit, a motorist could travel the entire distance in less 29 minutes. But that time will be shaved further by the obvious: Many drivers will hit at least 90 on the speedometer, believing troopers will not ticket anyone for exceeding the limit by just a tad.

Read more: Texas SH 130 now 85 MPH, fastest speed in the nation

Link to article here.

Here it is in ink, finally. Vindication that what we've been saying for years is indeed true. TxDOT is manipulating speed limits for profit, slowing down the free alternatives alongside a privately-run tollway for which the Department gets a greater share of the toll revenues if it increases speeds on the tollway. Even worse, a Spanish company, Cintra, chose the slower speed limit for its competing route, not a TxDOT engineering study. Smells a whole lot like collusion and conflicts of interest than serving the public interest. This is what public private partnerships reap upon the freedom of travel of Texans.

Read more: TxDOT slows free routes alongside SH 130 tollway

Link to article here.

Notice how Rick Perry backpeddles and asks his Transportation Commission to honor the law passed by Texas lawmakers to allow disabled vets to use toll roads for free. Yet he doesn't care about the rest of Texans who can't afford his punitive new taxes in the hands of his unelected commission and the unelected toll authority boards who imposed new toll taxes without our consent.

How much sense does a toll hike make when there are already not enough users of these three toll roads to even pay for the debt service payments? All Texans have bailed out these roads to the tune of $100 million in gas taxes already. Increasing rates will knock even more drivers off of these roads, not attract more traffic. This defies simple economics.

Read more: Tolls set to go up on Austin toll roads - disabled vets will get a free pass

Link to article here.

So the Chicago Mayor and City Council act like all this taxpayer money capitalizing this infrastructure trust isn't going to cost taxpayers anything. The taxpayers will have to pay hefty tolls and user fees to for-profit corporations in order to pay back this money.

If these were such good investments, the private sector would undertake them themselves. By virtue of the government setting up funds of tax-free loans to private companies demonstrates these privatization schemes are nothing more than public money for private profits. The fact they're shrouded in secrecy, being railroaded over public objections, and not allowed to come under proper public scrutiny only serves to verify taxpayers suspicions...

Read more: Chicago 'Infrastructure Trust' shrouded in secrecy

Link to article here.

Tolls set to go up in September
By Mike Morris
Updated 11:07 a.m., Friday, July 13, 2012

Starting in September, that jaunt on a Harris County toll road might save you time, but it won't spare your change.

Unless Commissioners Court intervenes, rates at main-lane toll plazas on the Sam Houston, Westpark Tollway, Hardy Toll Road and the one toll booth on the Fort Bend Parkway inside Harris County are scheduled to increase Sept. 8 from $1.30 to $1.40 for EZ Tag users and from $1.50 to $1.75 for cash customers.

Rates would jump from $4 to $5 during peak hours on the Katy Freeway's managed lanes.

Westbound peak hours are scheduled to shift one hour earlier, to run from to 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Off-peak rates on the managed lanes would not change, nor would rates on the Ship Channel bridge.

Read more: Houston toll rates set to go up in September

Link to article here.

So with the average American middle class family losing 40% of their wealth, with no path to recovery for a generation, who is going to pay back all the debt on these toll roads? There will never be enough actual users of the road to pay off the debt. So we can expect more punitive taxes and bailouts, by the shrinking middle class, while the wealthy elites get mobility and the ability to write-off their use of empty, unobstructed toll roads on their expense accounts...

Read more: Shrinking middle class means toll roads will serve the rich

Link to article here.

Again, Texas taxpayers get hit with unaffordable toll taxes to take Texas toll roads, but visitors from Mexico will get a free pass.

Mexican Drivers May Avoid Tolls on El Paso Toll Road

• by Aman Batheja, Texas Tribune
• August 27, 2012

As El Paso prepares for its first toll lanes, officials in the border city are struggling with a question that, for geographical reasons, has been less of a concern in Dallas, Austin or Houston, where toll roads are prevalent and proliferating: Will Mexican drivers get a free ride?

Read more: Mexican drivers can avoid paying tolls in El Paso

Link to article here.

Once again, TxDOT is making speed limit decisions based on profit potential, not public safety. Cintra, the company awarded the 50+ year public private partnership contract, the first ever in Texas, will pay out a $100 million pay-off and a higher share of the toll revenues to TxDOT if it raises the speed limit on Cintra's SH 130 to 85 MPH, the highest in the U.S. SH 130 is the first leg of the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35 project, and even in the bill to repeal the Trans Texas Corridor last year, this provision to allow speeds up to 85 MPH remained in statute so the state could make extra money off manipulating speed limits.

Kinda makes you feel like you need to take a shower, huh? Yep, special interests rule in Texas, profits and cronyism, not public safety, rule the day...

Read more: Texas may have first 85 MPH toll road