10/10/2007

HOUSTON CHRON reports TxDOT hired a firm to film plates, send surveys — a move some call sneaky

TxDOT, eager to Toll Tax Texas interstate I-35, begins to track, trace, and poll I-35 drivers.

Think Hutchison's bill stops TxDOT from tolling I-35? Think again. There is a loophole that allows TxDOT to use our gas tax dollars to build new toll lanes. That's a Double Tax.

Alliance Transportation Group Inc. did the study for TxDOT for $800k and has refused to divlulge ownership to one reporter.

From the HOUSTON CHRON article, "TxDOT hired a firm to film plates, send surveys — a move some call sneaky" today:

"TxDOT hired a firm to film plates, send surveys — a move some call sneaky": Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said, "It's one thing to study traffic patterns, but to ask all this personal information of people makes you wonder why they are doing it. ... This is more than Orwell ever imagined."

"With TxDOT continuing to spill forth that they have no money to build highways, I find it very interesting they have a lot of money to do mailings to 150,000 people and ad campaigns of $8 (million) and $9 million," she (Rep. Lois Kolkhorst) said.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Sal...

I saw this news story this morning on News 8 and I was thouroughly hacked. This is so fascist! In the news story, TxDOT claimed they would destroy the liscence plate information taken from drivers on I-35. But whose to say they will...seems like Homeland Security might want to know who was driving on I-35...maybe TxDOT will send them a copy.

Anyways, you can add this Bulls**t to the resume of Mike Heath...President of Alliance Transportation Group, who has offices in Lake Charles, LA and a corporate office in north Austin off of Metric Blvd. For those of you who received this "survey", feel free to call Mike Heath at (512)821-2081 and tell him how you really feel about your personal information being stolen from you as you drove down the FREEway recently.

Thanks for all the work you do Sal. We need more diligent people like you in public office.

Sal Costello said...

I can promise you that I will NOT be running for any office, ever.

I don't work well with snakes. And, I've been told that the corrupt politicos that hate me with a passion would heavily back any opponent I'd have with loads of dough.

: )

Anonymous said...

Good news today from television news broadcasting Channel 7. Texas has found there is a 1.8 Billion Dollar surplus in the current budget. Bad news, however, is that the legislature must figure how it is to be miss-spent while they could be facing the truth that there is money for road expansion and no need for toll roads.

Anonymous said...

If they send me one I am going to pee on it and mail it back to them.

Anonymous said...

I read in the SA Express-News about the I-35 photographing of traffic and mailing survey.... I got one from travelling I-10,,, what bothered me,, was the TxDot registration for my license plate was registered with my "mailing address",, but the mailout I received was sent to my physical address that I only used on my drivers license.... this , to me, means a private contractor had access to DPS records , instead of Tx Dot records.... WHAT THE HECK IS REALLY GOING ON ? a recent article I read in the newspaper was a new project to take insurance records to realtime status so that roadside stops by DPS could verify liability status,,, maybe the photo op was actually a beta test to find vehicles without insurance.....they are either stupid or up to something....