12.21.09
More TxDOT inanity
I must admit that I was a little taken aback by the title of Ben Wear’s weekly transportation column in today’s AAS, A truck toll break might offer I-35 relief. I thought it would make me mad – how dare they give truckers a break I thought. But Wear did a good job of making the case. After all one of the main reasons we were always told, over and over, that a road East of Austin like SH 130 was built was as a bypass around Austin by 18-wheelers – to get a significant portions of the truck traffic off of I-35. But it wasn’t meant to be, the response from TxDOT to Wear’s suggestion wound up making me mad anyway.
t’s easy to understand why [trucks don't drive on SH 130]. For one thing, a large chunk of trucks entering the Austin area on I-35 carry loads bound for points within the metro area. Texas 130 would be out of the way for them. But even for those 18-wheelers simply passing through, the toll bypass is both 12 miles longer — meaning more diesel cost — and carries a toll of about $26 .
Big rigs, you see, have a toll rate four times that of two-axle vehicles. Every time I write about this, I hear from people suggesting that TxDOT lower or eliminate this truck toll to get more of them off I-35. So I looked into it.
Turns out TxDOT could lower or eliminate the truck toll. The agency’s legal agreement with bond investors requires only that it make enough in tolls to cover its debt payments along with a 40 percent cushion called “coverage.” The three-tollway system of Texas 130, Texas 45 North and Loop 1, while not a wild financial success, is making much more than that.
I asked Mark Tomlinson , TxDOT’s toll division director, if the agency has discussed some sort of truck toll rate cut. Yes, he said, they had, and it’s not out of the question. Is it about to happen?
No, Tomlinson said, saying that it’s no slam-dunk that a toll cut would lure trucks off I-35. It might be worth finding out.
Far be it from them to try and devise a plan so the road can be used as it was intended. They could even use some of the millions of dollars in advertising money that TxDOT has to help truckers understand the new toll strategy.
Amerloc said,
December 21, 2009 at 10:17 pm
It’s interesting having two homes, each next door to truckers.
The winter neighbor is a WilCo-based Teamster. He runs with a TxTag, uses the toll roads; but then, it’s a company-paid TxTag.
The summer neighbor drives his own rig back and forth between the Rio Grande Valley and a little this side of the Canadian border. He hates I-35 through Austin. Refuses to drive it. But he won’t pay a toll if he doesn’t have to, either. So he jumps over to US 95 well south of here, and hooks back up with I-35 at Temple: more miles but less time.
Or he goes west and takes 387.
But either way, TxDOT doesn’t get it: they’re screwing the locals with the tolls, and jacking up prices for their neighbors. The long-haul truckers are avoiding the entire mess. And the tolls.
Of course, my story is only anecdotal evidence, and proves nothing that it wouldn’t take TxDot a gajillion dollars to ascertain through survey contracts paid to private companies…
wcnews said,
December 21, 2009 at 10:52 pm
It may be anecdotal, but it seems consistent with what Wear observed. And your observations ring true to me. I drive 95 sometimes btwn Bastrop and Taylor and there’s not a lot of truck traffic, but some, so it’s probably a decent way to get around 35 through Austin.