Link to article here.

Perry calls for end to gas tax diversions - Really?
By Terri Hall
October 20, 2012
Examiner.com

After starving & raiding the gas tax for his entire administration, Texas Governor Rick Perry has finally decided to get on board with ending diversions of our state gas tax for non-transportation purposes. Conservatives have been crying foul for over a decade to end the raid of our gas taxes for things that have nothing to do with transportation. So while this is a welcome announcement, it’s a bit late in the game.

Gas tax diversions are part of the reason there’s a structural shortfall in funding for roads. Twenty-five percent of the state motor fuels tax goes to public schools per the Texas Constitution, which represents approximately $750 million a year. Perry and the Texas legislature have habitually raided an additional five to ten percent on top of the education diversions for things that have nothing to do with transportation like pensions, enhancing employee benefits in the Attorney General’s Office and for computers in the Comptroller’s Office. These non-education diversions topped $1 billion a year in the last budget.

Read more: Perry finally calls for end to gas tax diversions

Link to article here.

Shelton Requests Criminal Investigation of Davis, NTTA

by Aman Batheja and Emily Ramshaw
October 3, 2012
Texas Tribune

State Rep. Mark Shelton, R-Fort Worth, on Wednesday called for a criminal investigation into his election opponent, state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, and the North Texas Tollway Authority that contracts with Davis’ law firm.

Read more: Davis accused of conflicts of interest with toll agency

The San Antonio City Council has indefinitely extended its loan to the Alamo RMA until they can repay it. This guarantees toll roads without a public vote.

Compare this to what they said last year... Watch the 'flip-flop'! Where is the public vote and study the City Council promised?

Read more: Alamo RMA gets a free pass... AGAIN!

Link to article here.

Yet another public private partnership goes to Cintra. This time for a toll project in Virginia. The sheer volume of U.S. roads under the control of a single foreign company is stunning and ought to be sobering. Wake up America, you're being sold to the highest bidder and will have to report to a Board of Directors in Spain to get around our great country!

Read more: Cintra nabs US 460 in Virginia

Link to column here.

'To big to fail' must not become institutional, according to George Will. He ponders how to prevent taxpayers bailing out every major industry heretofore into posterity. Public private partnerships are precisely how these major corporations offload their risk to the taxpayers, and we'll end up with corporate socialism if we don't put a stop to the TBTF stronghold on Washington.

Read more: George Will: 'Too big to fail' needs to stop

Link to article here.

Lest anyone think this is a partisan issue, there has been no change in transportation policy across the two Bush Administrations and the Obama Administration. All have promoted public private partnerships and toll roads as the panacea for road funding 'shortfalls.' Apparently, Romney will be no different. 

Mitt Romney taps Bushies for transpo advice
By: Kathryn A. Wolfe
October 11, 2012 03:14 PM EDT
Politico

Mitt Romney isn’t talking much about roads, runways or bridges — but behind the scenes he’s engaged a brain trust of transportation advisers who are.

The people advising him — though Romney’s campaign stresses that the team is informal — read like a who’s who of senior policymakers from President George W. Bush’s Department of Transportation. The agency at that time was heavily focused on privatization and maximum involvement of the private sector.

For the most part, the entire presidential campaign has been relatively quiet on the transportation front. Romney has talked about his desire to cut subsidies for Amtrak, and President Barack Obama has echoed his past positions — using the “peace dividend” to pay for more infrastructure investment, boosting transit and promoting high-speed rail.

Read more: Romney seeks advice from Bush staffers on roads

Link to article here.

Though this doesn't involve transportation directly, it sheds light on the power of corporations over public policy and the cronyism that grips Austin and Washington. Public private partnerships are a form of corporate welfare that put taxpayers on the hook for losses and privatizes and even guarantees private profits.

How corporations are crippling U.S. prosperity

By David Worthington | October 15, 2012, 7:21 PM PDT
Smart Planet.com

A dearth of competition in major U.S. industries and a government that’s policy making has been severely corrupted by moneyed interests has led to depressed wages and stifled innovation, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist says in a new book.

In essence, you’re being ripped off, and those responsible are taking everyone’s money while assuming very little risk.

David Cay Johnston was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for reporting the inequalities and loopholes that exist in the U.S. tax code and exposing corporate tax evasion. His latest work, The Fine Print: How Big companies Use “Plain English” to Rob You Blind, examines his findings about how the U.S. economy has strayed away from capitalism and into “corporate socialism,” where the free market, its engine of prosperity, has stalled.

Read more: Book: Corporations are crippling American prosperity

Link to article here.

Cintra snags I-35 in Fort Worth
By Terri Hall
Examiner.com

The Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) just announced that it inked a deal with Spanish toll operator, Cintra, for yet another toll project in North Texas -- this time on Interstate 35 W in Fort Worth. That brings the total toll projects in the hands of a single company in Dallas-Ft. Worth alone to five: Hwy 121, Hwy 183, I-820, I-635 and now I-35W. These chokepoints represent some of the most congested roads in the Metroplex, and four of the five were handed to Cintra without competitive bidding.

The LBJ project on I-635 is a standalone toll project, but the North Tarrant Express development agreement known as a public private partnership (P3) involves the other four highways, which were all awarded to Cintra in one master comprehensive development agreement with each highway subsequently negotiated using ‘facility agreements.’

Read more: Cintra gets its claws on I-35 in DFW

Link to article here.

New Texas 130 section to open Oct. 24

By Ben Wear

Austin American Statesman - October 11, 2012

The southern 41 miles of the Texas 130 tollway will open on the afternoon of Oct. 24, according to a Facebook post Thursday from the company that built the four-lane road under a long-term lease with the Texas Department of Transportation.

The road, which runs from the southern end of the existing Texas 130 at Mustang Ridge to Interstate 10 near Seguin, will remain free to drive until Nov. 11, Seguin Mayor Betty Ann Matthies said in a video on the SH 130 Concession Company’s Facebook page. After that, it will cost cars and two-axle trucks about 15 cents a mile to drive the road, Matthies said. Larger trucks will pay up to five times that figure, depending on the number of axles.

At 15 cents a mile, the 41 miles will cost $6.17. The rates were set in a 2007 contract between TxDOT and the concession company, and are allowed to increase annually at a percentage tied to growth of the state’s gross domestic product.

Read more: TxDOT gets $100 million pay-off for 85 MPH speed limit

There's nothing innovative about this toll road. It uses the same financing structure that brought us the subprime mortgage crisis -- a public private partnership where government teams up with private corporations in an arrangement that guarantees the private entity's profits. Solyndra was another. They use schemes like non-compete agreements that limit and even prohibit the expansion of free roads surrounding the tollway in order to guarantee congestion on the free lanes and drive more traffic to the toll road. So just as Solomon said, there's nothing new under the sun -- and corporate cronyism and corruption in government is certainly not 'innovative.'

Innovative toll road is only a partial fix

Express-News Editorial Board

Updated 12:40 a.m., Wednesday, October 3, 2012

If you are driving from the San Antonio area to a destination on Interstate 35 north of Austin, or vice versa, then the option of paying a toll to bypass the capital's traffic might be attractive. It might be especially attractive if you can legally travel 85 mph on a portion of the toll road.

That's the option drivers will have sometime in the next month or so, thanks to an innovative public-private partnership that will complete Texas 130 from I-35 near Georgetown to I-10 just east of Seguin.

Read more: SH 130 toll road to open Nov. 11