08.15.07

Toll Road Items, Including Krusee Coming To Dell

Posted in Around The State, Bad Government Republicans, Privatization, Road Issues at 11:04 pm by wcnews

I drove the western section of SH 45 today and the flashing portable signs made it clear, literally, that the free ride is over, August 24th is the last day to ride free.

With that work done, toll charges on the western part of Texas 45 North will begin Aug. 25. It will cost 75 cents at the main toll plaza west of Parmer, or 67.5 cents with a toll tag. There also will be several entrance and exit ramps with a 50-cent cash charge, or 45 cents for toll tag users.

Sal’s back and he has a couple of doozies. First he points us to this article in the Tyler Paper on what Sen. Kevin Eltife (R-Tyler) had to say regarding toll roads and the gas tax.

Toll roads will not solve Texas’ roadway woes, state Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, told the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce board of directors on Tuesday.

The state must take care of its infrastructure needs, and Eltife said he has always supported indexing the gasoline tax to inflation to ensure funding to handle those needs.

“I think we need to get back to the basics in this state and pay for road and bridge improvements,” he said.

“We ought to index the gas tax to inflation, we should build our own roads,” Eltife said. “The toll roads are a piece of the puzzle; without question they’re a piece of the transportation puzzle in the state of Texas. But 20 years ago we were the envy of the country because we paid cash for all our road improvements.”

Paying cash for roads and bridges is the “conservative thing to do,” he said. Borrowing money is not.

Texas has not raised the gasoline tax in nine or 10 years, and it is falling further behind on its infrastructure needs, Eltife said, adding politicians need to have the courage to say what the needs are and explain how the state will pay for them.

Until Texas does that, it will continue to fall behind in infrastructure, he said.

“You’re not going to get there when you only have 30 percent of the funding you need in TxDOT (Texas Department of Transportation) to fund it,” he said. “And the answer isn’t to hide behind toll roads and selling toll roads to private contractors.”

Eltife said this makes no sense.

“Toll roads are a huge cash cow for this state,” he said. “Why do you want to give that future cash to a private contractor? We are not a broke state; we have a lot of money. We can go borrow $3 billion to build those toll roads, and in 20 years when they’re paid for that cash stream will go to TxDOT for future road improvements.”

Eltife also mentioned a couple of disagreements with Gov. Rick Perry, one being his opposition to the Trans-Texas Corridor, which Perry supports.

Good stuff. Tolls can play a part but we the majority of our transportation infrastructure should be paid for by the gas tax. Keep it up Sen. Eltife.

Now to Rep. Krusee. Apparently the disastrous design of his toll road (SH 45) where it intersects IH 35 has made 5 o’clock rush hour worse than it was before. He’s coming to speak to Dell employees on August 23rd. This from and email Sal received.

“People are pretty frustrated here, they gave us entrance and exit ramps to the Toll, but closed our Entrance Ramps to I-35 (how nice).

We have Dell (Largest employer in Round Rock, a Super Walmart, a Target, an HEB, and 3 large shopping centers at this I-35 intersection, and they took our entrance ramp ti I-35 away!!!! Now at 5pm we have at least 5,000 Dell employees all fighting through two access road intersections to get to an I-35 entrance ramp.”

Should be interesting to hear Krusee rave about his toll roads to the drivers that have to suffer through them every day.

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