The move to expand MoPac Boulevard, which for several years has crawled along like 5 p.m. traffic on that overloaded highway, is about to enter the express lane.

"I would characterize it as a green-light go," Mike Heiligenstein, executive director of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, said last week.

A federally required environmental study is in its final stages, with approval likely in the fall. The mobility authority, deputized by the Texas Department of Transportation to develop the project, has refined what it will do: add a fourth express toll lane on each side of MoPac (Loop 1) from just north of Lady Bird Lake to near Parmer Lane in far North Austin.

Wilbur Smith Assoc forecasting record slammed in report for Reston VA group

Couple's fight with pipeline company pits Texans' love of oil vs. love of land

• What is eminent domain?

• Once used mainly to make way for roads and highways, the "public good" of supplying the rest of the country with oil and gas allows pipeline companies to compel landowners to sell. If they don't reach an agreement, the company ...

What is eminent domain?

Once used mainly to make way for roads and highways, the "public good" of supplying the rest of the country with oil and gas allows pipeline companies to compel landowners to sell. If they don't reach an agreement, the company can sue for condemnation of the property, forcing a sale.

The land is taken in a 50-foot wide easement, with a pipeline running down the center of it.

If the landowners and the company don't reach an agreement beforehand, the case is heard by three special commissioners. The commissioners are local landowners charged with determining what the land is worth and what the landowners should be paid in damages for the property.

They decide what the land being taken for an easement is worth. If the landowners and the company agree on the ruling, the matter is settled. If either side does not agree they can appeal to district court, then the court of appeals and, finally, the Texas Supreme Court.

President Barack Obama might have rejected the enormous Keystone XL pipeline, at least for now, but that doesn't mean heavy crude from Canada won't be flowing into Texas' refineries later this year.

TransCanada Corp. — the Canadian company that proposed building the $7 billion, 830,000 barrel-a-day pipeline — has some ideas that could lead to moving oil from the oil sands region in northern Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf Coast of Texas without the blessing of the president, the company said.

"We are still very much committed to building this pipeline," TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha said in an interview with the American-Statesman.

But building the full Keystone XL pipeline could take a long time. So in the meantime, TransCanada is talking about alternatives.

One possibility of getting bituminous sands — a substance made of clay, sand, water and heavy black viscous oil that is sometimes referred to as "tar sands" or "oil sands" — to refineries in Houston and Port Arthur involves building only the southern stretch of the proposed Keystone XL.

Funding transportation: Gas tax vs. tolls

Thursday - 1/26/2012, 5:59am  ET

Adam Tuss, wtop.com

WASHINGTON - A new report says the easiest way to raise more money to fix crumbling roads and bridges and aging transit systems is to make drivers pay at the pump.

The report prepared for the Transportation Planning Board of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments says indexing gas taxes to the rate of inflation is the best way to increase transportation revenues.

However, a report by transportation police group Cambridge Systematics says that's the best solution for the short term.

In the long run, the report says the region will have to look toward transportation funding streams tied to how much drivers use the roads, not to how much gasoline they buy.

That could mean solutions like a vehicle miles traveled fee, where drivers would have to pay a tax per mile driven.

From the report:

"New financing mechanisms are important in view of the anticipated shift away from petroleum-based fuels. Broad-based user fees that are not dependent on fuel consumption but on the use of the system (will become necessary)."

Still, there remains the issue of actually implementing these policies and that won't be easy.

"The greatest challenge to the region is the existence of multiple jurisdictions at several levels, each with its own tax base, tax structure, and tax policy," the report says.