2/02/2007

Found TxDOT Internal Presentation Exposes TxDOT Lie


Remember the free alternative routes TxDOT always promises? Phase I tolls are now open and many folks in Central Texas are realizing TxDOT has not delivered.

Gov. Perry and his band of thieves at TxDOT haven’t been telling the truth about these freeway toll conversions.

Check the TxDOT internal presentation slide above. Read the headline, "Limiting the Alternatives (Supply)." By limiting the free alternative with congested frontage roads with stop lights, and having discontinuous frontage roads, they force our families to drive the tolled expressway. Growing traffic congestion at frontage road stop lights now benefit TxDOT, since they've gotten into the revenue generation business. Some say TxDOT is now altering the timing of the lights on the frontage roads to boost revenue on the new freeway tolls.

Are all toll roads bad? No.

With traditional toll roads, the public has a choice between the toll road and a public expressway (no stop lights). In contrast, Perry’s experimental 'freeway tolls' permanently take the public expressway, and call congested frontage roads with stop lights a reasonable alternative.

The new Central Texas tolled expressways were funded with our city, county and state tax dollars intended for free roads.

For example, TxDOT, the same agency that overestimated their need by $30 Billion dollars, has been saying they’ve run out of money for years.

"TxDOT has a funding crisis and has run out of money."
Delvin Dennis, TxDOT Deputy District Engineer, 8/04

But, I’ve seen TxDOT’s bank accounts filled with Billions of our gas tax dollars (and the state now has a $14 Billion surplus).

What is the Con?

TxDOT hides the billions, intended for freeways, by allocating the dollars to tollways first then they claim we're broke and need to toll everything.

Another example: When Sen. Kirk Watson was mayor of Austin in the year 2000, he went out to sell the citizens Prop 1 bonds. Watson promised that the bonds would pay for our roads, and help us get our of the horrible traffic congestion. Since then $67 million of the bonds have been diverted to pay for toll roads. The words “Toll Roads” were not in the ballot language WE voted for. (email me at sal@texastollparty.com to get the city document that proves this fact).

The politicos tell us we’ve run out of freeway money, after they steal it to pay for toll roads, and their contributors get fat off toll profits. The politicos and special interest pals treat us as resources to be harvested, and they make more.

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4 comments:

Unknown said...

I personally have experienced the light metering strategy. Basically roads that used to have a 55 or 50 mile per hour limit have been ratcheted down to 45. The lights seem to be strictly metered on a time based basis, rather than having pads to sense vehicles overhead and alter the metering based on need. Confirming the strategy outlined in these documents their strategy of directly discouraging easy traffic flow on alternative (non-tolled) routes.

They laughably have a 10 mile per hour speed limit set at the intersection of 1325/Mopac and Merriltown road which is a particularly difficult speed limit to justify considering the fact that most cars idle around the corner easily double that speed.

The Cedar Park situation is a particularly tangled mess of roads as well as incorrect signage, and similarly low speed limits. Arguably the speed limits there are for safety reasons as there is still a large amount of construction debris and barricading of unsafe roadway placed under the 183 portion of the T(r)oll system.

For an example of the general difficulty of use though, in the Lakeline Mall area, while heading north on the frontage, an orange sign will alert you to the fact that the next signal is the location of the Lakeline Drive intersection. In reality the indicated road is actually the next next signal.

Does probably generate a confused mobb of traffic to the peripheral stores of the Mall complex itself which isn't terribly bad for commercial interests. I don't find that bad necessarily as I'm sure the economy of Cedar Park has suffered under this long gouging of their roadways.

Sal Costello said...

FROM DANNY:

In short....received a bill for a car we traded in at a dealer about 2 months before the alleged occurred date of driving on 2 toll roads. Phoned the state and was told if did not pay, would be charged with a misdemeanor, that the owner was responsible for ANY law violation whatsoever as long as registered in my name, even speeding (they could not tell me what law) , that most people were paying even if they no longer owned the car, and that it was my responsibility to see that the TX DMV updated it's records even after papers were submitted to DMV that showed ownership change.

Danny

Richard Reeves said...

Excerpt from fraterm's previous post:
"Arguably the speed limits there are for safety reasons as there is still a large amount of construction debris and barricading of unsafe roadway placed under the 183 portion of the T(r)oll system."
We'll see how long it takes to resolve the "under construction" mess. The years long debacle at Ben White and I-35 come to mind.

On the issue of free alternates, in early 2006 I had to buy two brand new MAPSCOs(2006 editions). Just for grins, I carefully looked at routes 130 and 45 and noticed that they have and are succeeding in building discontinuous service roads (so-called free alternates).

If you want proof of their true manipulative intent, it's as close as your nearest 2006 MAPSCO.

Richard Reeves

Anonymous said...

Look hard at the Hillsboro project. How many years has that been going on. What the hell is taking so long to redo a few miles of highway. If they can make it as crappy as possible for long enough then all the misinformed drivers who drive that area will believe that we need the TTC and probably be ok with it. I have been traveling I-35 thru Hillsboro on a regular basis for years and find it very hard to believe that it would take this long for this project. Take a look at the I-30 project in Arlington. This project is just flying along at lightning speed. Why the difference? Jerry Jones and the city of Arlington have that much pull. Screw the taxpaying public who need to have that bottleneck of a highway through Hillsboro fixed. Kiss the a$$ of Jerry Jones and the Cowboys and jump thru hoops to double time the I-30/Cowboy Stadium project. Just an observation