1/28/2006

HOUSTON CHRON: Toll-road foes crank up intensity in San Antonio. (Click Here)

at 1/28/2006

1 comment:

Sal Costello said...

Dear John,

I enjoyed your article this morning, but, you missed one important element.

The new tolls that shift our freeways to tollways are not like any other toll road that we've seen in this country.

Traditional toll roads have been brand new roads utilized as a means of raising money to pay for them. With traditional toll roads, investors pay to build it only after viability studies warrant the investment, and the toll revenue pays for the road. The public also gets a choice between the toll road and a public expressway.

In contrast, Gov. Perry's new 'Freeway Tolls' permanently take the option of a free expressway away from us. Freeway tolls privatize and toll our public highways. Freeway tolls are created using our tax dollars, and they come without viability studies, and the tax booths will never be removed. The revenue is a slush fund that does NOT go back into the toll road people are driving on. Freeway tolls generate revenue, they don't solve congestion.

The Comptroller found that Regional Mobility Authorities (freeway tolling authorities) are new unaccountable bureaucracies that set the toll rate for the roads we've already paid for. A double tax. The unelected board members of the first freeway tolling authority in Texas were found to give NO BID contracts to themselves and their friends: http://www.window.state.tx.us/specialrpt/ctrma05/

Our group is not an anti-toll group, we are FOR traditional toll roads, we are not for Gov. Perry's double tax tolls that convert our public highways into tax collecting machines.

Sincerely,
Sal Costello
Founder of People for Efficient Transportation (TexasTollParty.com)
Austin, TX

8:43 AM, January 28, 2006

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