Link to article here.

Texans for boycott of first foreign-owned toll road
By Terri Hall
November 12, 2012
Examiner.com

Today marks the first day Spanish toll operator, Cintra, starts charging Texas commuters tolls to use SH 130. San Antonio-based Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom (TURF) and Austin-based Texans for Accountable Government (TAG) object to Texas’ first foreign-owned toll road, especially since SH 130 is part of the original Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35 (see it here). Though Cintra invented an innocuous sounding name, like the SH 130 Concession Company, make no mistake, a Spanish company, Cintra, controls and operates SH 130 for the next HALF CENTURY -- and some say it represents a multi-generational theft of public assets.

These controversial contracts called public private partnerships (P3s) will usher in the new railroad robber barons of our time -- private toll companies operating state-sanctioned monopolies and charging Texans a premium to drive. This is about our right to travel being trampled on by well-connected special interests with ties to the Texas Governor Rick Perry's office.

Read more: Texans to boycott first foreign-owned toll road

Link to article here.

Change in public HOV policy smooths way for private toll roads
By Terri Hall
November 8, 2012
Examiner.com

It’s been a long time coming, but don’t tell Dallas and Ft. Worth commuters that.

North Texas officials say the days of a free ride on HOV lanes were numbered from the beginning, but most area commuters don’t know that and haven’t a clue what’s coming outside the handful who happened to catch the poorly attended public meetings on the proposed increase in occupancy requirements for a free ride to go from two people (HOV+2) to three (HOV+3). Officials are also considering allowing single occupancy vehicles (SOV) to use HOV lanes -- if they pay a toll.

Read more: HOV policy changes to benefit private tollway

Link to article here.

Government quietly planning new round of road tolls policed by cameras
UK Daily Mail Online
November 10, 2012

Motorists will be expected to pay a new round of pay-as-you-drive charges under plans being drawn up by the Government and councils, it has been claimed.

Proposals already exist for three new tolling schemes under which, like London's Congestion Charge, drivers will have to pay online or via their mobile phone.

But ministers plan to roll out more similar schemes, according to the small print of a tender document drawn up by the Highways Agency. 


Motoring groups criticised the decision as another front in the so-called 'war on the motorist'.

Read more: England quietly plans new round of road tolls

Link to article here.

Perry's budget compact should dictate adjustment to gas tax
By Terri Hall
Examiner.com
November 5, 2012

Texas Governor Rick Perry recently announced his support for ending diversions to the state motor fuel tax, a practice that’s starved traditional road funds and allowed him to push tolling and road privatization. So why now? Attempting to shore up his conservative credentials after being attacked for smoke and mirrors ‘balanced’ budgets, a massive business tax hike, and wasteful special interest slush funds like the Texas Enterprise Fund during his run for president, Perry added halting the raid of gas taxes for non-transportation purposes to his Texas Budget Compact, calling it a matter of truth in budgeting.

Read more: Perry's budget compact should dictate adjustment to gas tax

Link to article here.

Spain's empty highways lead to bankruptcy

October 28, 2012
Phys.org

At the Leganes toll booth outside Madrid, the workers scan the horizon for cars. In Spain's recession, the stream of paying drivers has slowed to a trickle and the toll road is all but bankrupt.

Like the housing bubble, pumped up until it burst in 2008, and its speculation-funded phantom airports, the folly of Spain's road-building boom too is now being laid bare in vast stretches of tarmac.

Read more: Spain's highway bubble: Empty highways lead to bankruptcy

SH 130, Texas' first foreign-owned tollway, has quickly become hog alley. It doesn't take a highway engineer to figure out this road and its posted speed limit of 85 MPH is UNSAFE and will cause a whole lot of damage to vehicles and possibly fatalities.

On Texas 130, road hogs are the feral kind
By Vianna Davila
Express-News
Updated 4:50 p.m., Friday, October 26, 2012

The opening of the Texas 130 toll road extension went off without a hitch Wednesday, with no major collisions to speak of.

But when night fell, the wildlife came out.

Vehicles and animals collided at least three times somewhere along the 41-mile road that connects southern Austin to Seguin and boasts an 85-mph speed limit — the fastest in the country.

Two hogs were hit, and one vehicle struck a deer.

No drivers were injured. The animals may not have been so lucky, though their exact fates are unknown.

On Thursday afternoon, the first vehicle rollover occurred, not far from Interstate 10.

Read more: Texas first foreign-owned tollway now hog alley

Below is a series of news coverage of the opening of SH 130's southern leg -- the first foreign-owned toll road in Texas. With the speed limit set at 85 MPH, for which TxDOT received a $100 million pay-off from the tollway's private operator, Spain-based Cintra, the road's safety has already been drawn into question. Many trucking companies have forbidden their drivers from using SH 130 -- the very trucks the tollway was designed to attract to get them off of congested I-35 in Austin. So SH 130 is once again, the poster child for FAILED toll road policy in Texas.

Link to article here.

As toll road opens, a question lingers: is 85 mph safe?
By Ben Wear
Austin American Statesman
October 23, 2012

How fast is too fast?

Around noon Wednesday, workers will begin moving barricades at entrances and exits on the new 41-mile-long section of the Texas 130 tollway south of Austin, and drivers will begin doing something they’ve never done legally in Texas: go 85 mph.

The Legislature, based on a law it passed last year, thought driving that speed -- a higher limit than any other road in America -- will be safe, or at least sufficiently safe to justify the time savings and other economic benefits it could bring to drivers and the state. That includes a $100 million payment to the Texas Department of Transportation (tied to the higher speed limit) from the company that built the tollway, will operate it and will pocket most of the toll revenue for the next 50 years.

Read more: America's fastest road officially open

Link to article here.

This project is a TOTAL fraud upon the public. The private corporation getting this golden goose isn't putting in ONE dime of its own money. It will be 100% paid for with public money, yet Virginians will be charged a DOUBLE TAX toll to use the lanes. Public private partnerships are a BIG RIP-OFF and corporate welfare for special interests with political connections. Look who's applauding the deal, certainly the average commuter...

U.S. 460 toll project to begin in 2014
Tolls would be $3.69 for cars and $11.72 for trucks for the 55-mile stretch between Petersburg and Suffolk.
By: PETER BACQUÉ | Richmond Times-Dispatch
Published: October 16, 2012

Nearly two decades in the making, construction should start on the $1.396 billion U.S. 460 project in 2014, with the road opening in 2018, according to the state's Office of Transportation Public-Private Partnerships.

Drivers will pay $3.69 for cars to use the 55-mile road between Petersburg and Suffolk and $11.72 for trucks.

The road-user fee is 6.7 cents a mile for cars and 21.3 cents a mile for trucks. The fee will be collected electronically — by E-ZPass — making charging a toll figured to the cent practical.

Read more: Another P3 for Virginians, $7 a day in new taxes

Link to article here.

This affirms, tolling is about control, not freedom, punishing people with cars, and a socialistic redistribution of wealth for mass transit projects.

"The toll is meant to replace the "3-in-1" carpooling system that required three passengers for every car in designated areas within the business district during peak hours. The city also has moved to ban parking on major streets...The road-pricing plan is meant to cut down the number of automobile trips by 30 percent while generating millions from car owners to fund a monorail system and other public transportation projects."

Indonesia to Implement Congestion Tax
Jakarta, Indonesia to begin implementing congestion tax in 2013.
11/2/2012
The Newspaper.com

Indonesia is set to become the next country to implement a congestion tax in its capital city. The provincial government in Jakarta announced on Sunday that the legislation required to set up the electronic road pricing (ERP) system has been adopted and the program will be put in place next year.

"It doesn't take long time, as long as Jakarta government has prepared the implementation draft technically," Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo said.

Read more: Congestion tolling comes to Indonesia

Link to article here.

Report Labels Indiana Toll Road an Intergenerational Cash Transfer
Financial analysis of Indiana Toll Road lease finds its true costs shifted heavily to future generations.
10/22/2012
TheNewspaper.com

A College of William and Mary professor believes the toll road public-private partnerships currently in vogue among transportation bureaucrats may end up costing the public a great deal of money in the long run. John B. Gilmour makes the case in the journal Public Administration Review, using the Indiana Toll Road as an example.

In 2006, the road was leased for 75 years to Macquarie-Cintra, a consortium of Australian and Spanish tolling companies, in return for an up-front payment of $3.8 billion to the state government. At the time, Governor Mitch Daniels (R) hailed the project as innovative. Far from being innovative, Gilmour argues the practice is medieval.

Read more: Study: Indiana Toll Road intergenerational transfer of wealth