SH 130 TOLL: The Big Fat Texas Boondoogle (Thanks to Gov. Perry, Kirk Watson and others)

From TIME Magazine to a blogger called "Dead Dog Walking", just about every knows there's a problem with the new 130 toll road in East Central Texas. Except the Statesman has yet to report the issues of low traffic and the fact that SH 130 toll has already failed based on the official statement for 130 bonds from 2002 (see below).

"Dead Dog Walking" Blogger takes the new Central Texas Toll Road 130 for a test run, and sees almost NO traffic and $9.00 a day taken out of his pocket for the round trip cost. I did the same test run last week, and saw shockingly low traffic, and it was 5:10pm on a weekday! "Dead Dog Walking" says:

Austin has decided to add toll roads to ease the congestion on the I-35 corridor from just north of Georgetown to south of Austin. Toll road 130 now runs from Georgetown to hwy 71... Just north of downtown where all the congestion actually is. Well the good news for me (or so I thought) is that I live just west of where the toll road stops, so maybe I could save time and headaches....

and

...Third toll booth... $1.50. Now I'm scrambling in my cup holders and on the dash to find enough change. Not only that but I'm up to $4.50 each way. That's $9 round trip. That's almost double what I spend on lunch.

I work six days a week. That comes to $54... About the same amout that I spend on gas in the same time period. Over $200 a month. That's more than my light bill... And I have an old, non energy effecient house.

Totaled up that is a whopping $2800 a year. I could buy a huge Plasma screen TV. I could fly home to North Carolina to see Ma every other month. I could go to Europe on vacation.

And most people have NO IDEA that Sen. Waton's Prop 1 from the year 2000 diverted $67 million bond dollars (promised for freeways) into the 130 and 45N toll roads. The other tolls across Texas also spend our tax AND Bond dollars (that were promised to be spent of free roads!).

TIME Magazine did an article in 2004 about the $1.5 Billion dollar SH 130 called "The next wave in super highways or a Big, Fat Texas Boondoggle?".

Here's the real kicker about SH 130...

An Official Statement for SH 130 bonds from 2002 says the revenue forecasts in the Traffic and Revenue Report are based on the "assumption that motor fuel will remain in adequate supply" and "motor fuel prices will not exceed $2.50 per gallon", over the next 40 years.

Read that last sentence again, and you tell me what gas costs per gallon TODAY - not to mention what it might cost in the coming decades.