08.15.09
Hutchison disappoints on transportation
The DMN reports on GOP Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s speech at yesterday’s Transportation Summit in Dallas, Hutchison lambastes governor’s transportation policies. At this point she has no plan for transportation, other than more toll roads, and is sounding like Carol Strayhorn, circa 2006.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison called the transportation policies of Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Department of Transportation “arrogant” Friday, arguing they are not in the best interest of the state’s property owners or taxpayers.
Hutchison, who next week will formally announce her candidacy for governor, said she disagreed with the 1,500-mile Trans Texas Corridor proposal, once the centerpiece of Perry’s transportation vision.
“It is the biggest land grab that we have had since the beginning of our state,” she told participants at the Transportation & Infrastructure Summit in Irving.
The Trans Texas Corridor project was killed last year, but parts of it remain, and Hutchison’s campaign has used it as an example of Perry’s bad judgment.
“Using toll roads as a permanent tax raise is not good public policy,” she said. “A 50-year lease on a toll road is never meant to be a free road. That is Governor Perry’s transportation strategy, and I disagree with it.”
Hutchison added that development agreements with private companies for toll roads must protect “local sovereignty and state taxpayers.”
[...]
For much of her speech, Hutchison contrasted her position on the development of toll roads with Perry.
She said, for instance, that she didn’t mind using private companies to build roads, as long as local sovereignty and taxpayers were protected.
That’s a pretty disappointing speech for Texans that are looking for a different direction on transportation in Texas. There’s was no new policy in this speech as it’s being reported. She never mentioned the gas tax, therefore Hutchison’s plan for funding new roads must be using toll taxes. Very disappointing.
KBH, the anti-toll road crusader – Off the Kuff said,
September 10, 2009 at 5:34 am
[...] the TTC before now, when it’s politically useful for her. Being against the TTC is easy, but having an alternative plan, which she doesn’t, is where it gets complicated. The anti-tollers already have a champion [...]