More tolled lanes ahead
More tolled lanes ahead
Written by Rachel Youens Saturday, 07 July 2007
Prosperity and growth are taking a toll on Austin. With crowding on Central Texas roads escalating and the budget to build new roads dropping, additional tolled lanes on the busiest roads are on the horizon.
The toll projects just completed in Austin are just phase one of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization’s 2030 Mobility Plan. CAMPO is Austin’s federally required metropolitan planning organization whose job is to coordinate long-range regional transportation projects.
Now phase two, which includes MoPac and US 183, was placed on TxDOT’s list of projects this June, and the projects in this phase could begin construction as soon as 2008, according to CAMPO.
The 2030 plan was accepted in 2005, but only after some opposition. Even though public feedback gathered by CAMPO for the phase two tolls was 90 percent against tolling, the CAMPO board, made up of city council members, state representatives and other officials, voted 16 to 7 in favor of including the tolls. Now these toll roads and lanes in the 2030 plan await acceptance into TxDOT’s State Transportation Improvement Plan.
Pay-as-you-go vs. tolls
Approximately 3.2 billion dollars of the budget planned for CAMPO’s 2030 plan comes from tolls. Most transportation projects run on a pay-as-you-go system where projects are only paid for with currently available funds.
One example TxDOT Director of Planning and Development Wesley Burford offers for the disadvantage of the pay-as-you-go system is US 183. Because the department could only spend what it had, the road has been built in sections that have taken 15 years to finish.
Compare this to 183A Toll, which took two years to construct, or Toll 45, which took four years. The system makes large-scale projects difficult to fund without years of saving.
“Tolling allows for infrastructure to be put on the ground more quickly,” Burford said. “The projects can happen today rather than 50 years from today. Some of the projects we have on the candidate list weren’t even on the horizon because there was never enough money, and it would be a long time before we could save enough to build them.”
Besides making the construction of roads go faster, privatization and tolling also helps with the disparity between what the state needs and what it can afford. According to Burford, the nation is in a funding crisis for roads.
“China is in a rebuilding renaissance and have capitalized most of the world’s steel, so we’re having trouble finding it for steel reinforcements,” Burford said. “Also, when the cost of oil goes up, our costs skyrocket. We use a lot of fossil fuels in the process of road construction; there’s fuel for freight and oil to make asphalt.”
A portion of the money the federal government had allocated to state transportation organizations was rescinded, creating another major problem. Generally, the government authorizes the state to spend a certain amount it will reimburse. TxDOT set its series of projects according to the expected funding, but after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. government had to juggle funds for the city’s rebuilding and consequently lowered road funding by about $6 million dollars, with more cuts to come.
And finally, as more people get cars that run more efficiently, the number of miles they put on the road versus how much gas they buy doesn’t add up to enough funding in gas tax.
“The number of miles traveled on roads is over double what it was in the last 25 years,” Burford said. “The number of miles of new highway to respond to that is almost nil. Demand is tremendously outstripping number of facilities. You just can’t keep up.”
Other options
One option for gaining additional money would be raising the state gas tax. Rep. Mike Krusee of Williamson County, who is on the CAMPO board and chairman of the House Committee on Transportation, actually submitted a bill to do this, but the legislature rejected the increase. In CAMPO’s 2030 plan, it anticipates a gas tax increase, and includes $1.1 billion in funding coming from the hike. The Texas gas tax is 20 cents, and has not been raised since 1991. Krusee attributes the rejection of the bill to legislators’ fear of their constituents’ reactions to higher taxes.
“Within two years when the legislature reconvenes, there will be a pretty clear example in difference in quality of life and prosperity between the north Austin area, where the toll roads are, and the areas south of Austin,” Krusee said. “People’s property value in the north will increase, and more jobs will be created.”
Changes to toll roads
Although a newly signed bill, Senate Bill 792, puts a moratorium on new comprehensive development agreements, such as the one signed with Cintra-Zachry for the Austin-area toll roads, it does not put a moratorium on toll roads altogether.
The bill gives more control over tolled projects to the local tolling authority in each area. In the Austin area this tolling authority is the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority. Private companies can no longer sign agreements that allow them to fund, run and collect money from toll roads for the next 50 years, as is the case for Cintra-Zachry. SB 792 changes private companies’ role more to that of a banker, which can give the money for the project but cannot collect tolls. The local toll authority is charged with collecting the tolls and paying the private investor.
“One of the problems with the new changes is that the regional mobility authorities may find private capital a little less excited to come in and act as a bank when they may have less control on their investment,” Burford said. “Right now, pressure is on the investors to be efficient with their construction and management of the toll roads. If they aren’t allowed to do that, then they’re just the bank, and the pressure is on TxDOT and the regional mobility authority to be efficient.”
Any tolling projects that the local tolling authority would like to consider must be approved by TxDOT. In June, TxDOT released a list of 87 projects under consideration, eight of which are in Austin and follow CAMPO’s phase two suggestions.
Krusee has long been an advocate of toll roads, and said the city has dragged their feet on their construction by doing lots of studies.
“Austin has basically had a self-imposed moratorium,” Krusee said. “They’ve had the opportunity to build roads for years and haven’t. Williamson County built their system of toll roads five years ago. And Austin hasn’t chosen to build any yet. They’ve been in a CAMPO study mode for years now, all the studies keep coming out the same.”
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