12.04.06
Editorial Back and Forth On Tolls In The SAEN
This is a great response to a previous Editorial in the SAEN from Terri Hall of the San Antonio Toll Party - here’s their blog, Perry’s toll road proposals will fleece Texas taxpayers. Here’s a little bit:
When tolls increase the cost of a project anywhere from 40 percent to 100 percent more than constructing it as a nontoll project, when we pay 1 cent to 3 cents per mile under gas taxes versus 25 cents or more per mile on a toll road (per TxDOT’s own studies and admission it’ll charge “whatever the market will bear”) and when TxDOT uses noncompete agreements allowing the private entity control over the free lanes (including downgrading free lanes to frontage roads, slowing speed limits, increasing stop light times and prohibiting the state from upgrading or improving free lanes/roads near the tollway), it’s a no-brainer to conclude the taxpayer is getting fleeced!
This governor’s toll and “innovative financing” scheme is destroying our public freeway system. This new version of tolling is about generating more taxes (a toll is a tax) for the state while engaging in a revenue-sharing scheme that also lines the pockets of private and foreign companies (many based here in San Antonio), not about providing safe, efficient transportation all Texans can use.
It’s time for the public’s concerns to be addressed, not swept under the rug or sidestepped to “give toll roads a chance.”