The Statesman’s Ben Wear reports that the Texas Transportation Commission may be considering lowering tolls for trucks on SH 130 in order to lure more trucks from I-35. The article has an interesting discussion on what level of tolling would result in more trucks taking 130 at what result to overall toll revenues.
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/truck-relief-on-i-35-maybe-a-little-718333.html
Wear notes that financially 130 is in the red. He reports, “The 2002 financial prospectus for investors who put $2.2 billion into Texas 130, Loop 1 and Texas 45 North showed initial toll rates unchanged until 2015, when a 50 percent increase was scheduled. Transportation commissioners have the power to raise rates before then, but they aren't talking publicly about doing so. But they might be considering it privately. According to figures from TxDOT Chief Financial Officer James Bass, the three-road system has required $68 million in tax money to balance the books over the first three years.”
So why is it a good idea to continue to build toll roads where taxpayers will be paying the investors? By the way, ground has been broken on the tolled interchange at 290 East and 183—a tolled interchange being paid for by taxpayer stimulus money.
Showing posts with label SH 130. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SH 130. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
If not dead, at least Corridor is wounded
Yesterday, from the Texas Transportation Forum, the Statesman’s Ben Wear report is headlined “Trans-Texas Corridor R.I.P.” To read the whole thing, go to
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/traffic/index.html
“The Trans-Texas Corridor, as a name and as a guiding concept of the state’s transportation future, is dead, TxDOT executive director Amadeo Saenz told an audience of more than a thousand this morning at an Austin hotel.”
Showing that the issue will still be an issue in the 2010 governor’s race, “A spokesman for . . . U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, said that in fact the name isn’t the problem but rather the cross-state tollways associated with it and the rural land that would be needed to build them.”
As we reported at the time, “Outgoing Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick had created a stir a few months ago by declaring in an election forum that the Trans-Texas Corridor was dead. TxDOT officials at the time said, well, no, not exactly.”
“Saenz, at the Texas Transportation Forum at the Hilton Hotel, confirmed that the corridor’s death — or at least the death of its name — had in fact not been exaggerated.”
As described by TxDOT, the original Trans-Texas Corridor “vision,” or “nightmare” as residents called it, will not be pushed anymore. What TxDOT will do is “a series of smaller projects.” Included as one of these smaller projects will be SH 130, which is completed through Williamson County. This announcement seems to confirm what some have already been saying—that 130, and only 130, with no more land taken for any more Corridor development, will be the route of TTC-35 through Williamson County.
Replacing Perry’s 2002 plan, called “Crossroads of the Americas,” which called for 4,000 miles of 1,200-foot wide corridors criss-crossing the state, is a new document called “Innovative Connectivity in Texas/Vision 2009. You can see it at
http://www.keeptexasmoving.com/var/files/File/Vision_2009_Brochure.pdf
The “Innovative Connectivity” brochure is not a white flag on TxDOT’s part, but does mark a recognition that its grandiose schemes were unrealistic pipe dreams. One encouraging point is the statement on page 3 that the right of way for new projects would rarely exceed 600 feet (the approximate width of a freeway with access roads, e.g. SH 130 at Pecan Street east of Pflugerville), rather than the quarter of a mile envisioned by TTC planners. On pages 8-9, TxDOT commits to using existing ROW whenever possible, before “breaking new ground,” a concept at odds with the TTC vision. When the TTC was first being introduced in 2003 to a small Austin gathering, unpublicized and attended by very few members of the public, TxDOT rolled out the TTC as a “green fields project.”
Corridor Watch’s David Stall says,"We think that today is a huge leap forward in getting control over transportation projects and seeing that they serve a transportation need and not just a revenue-generating role . . .The reality is the move that's been made today turns it from a statewide massive corridor project into a much more reasonable transportation project, which they should have been from the beginning.”
He continues,"We still need to particularly be wary of public-private partnerships which are to line the pockets of Wall Street financiers more than provide transportation for ordinary Texans.”
He calls today’s announcement “a major victory for farmers and ranchers.”
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/traffic/index.html
“The Trans-Texas Corridor, as a name and as a guiding concept of the state’s transportation future, is dead, TxDOT executive director Amadeo Saenz told an audience of more than a thousand this morning at an Austin hotel.”
Showing that the issue will still be an issue in the 2010 governor’s race, “A spokesman for . . . U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, said that in fact the name isn’t the problem but rather the cross-state tollways associated with it and the rural land that would be needed to build them.”
As we reported at the time, “Outgoing Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick had created a stir a few months ago by declaring in an election forum that the Trans-Texas Corridor was dead. TxDOT officials at the time said, well, no, not exactly.”
“Saenz, at the Texas Transportation Forum at the Hilton Hotel, confirmed that the corridor’s death — or at least the death of its name — had in fact not been exaggerated.”
As described by TxDOT, the original Trans-Texas Corridor “vision,” or “nightmare” as residents called it, will not be pushed anymore. What TxDOT will do is “a series of smaller projects.” Included as one of these smaller projects will be SH 130, which is completed through Williamson County. This announcement seems to confirm what some have already been saying—that 130, and only 130, with no more land taken for any more Corridor development, will be the route of TTC-35 through Williamson County.
Replacing Perry’s 2002 plan, called “Crossroads of the Americas,” which called for 4,000 miles of 1,200-foot wide corridors criss-crossing the state, is a new document called “Innovative Connectivity in Texas/Vision 2009. You can see it at
http://www.keeptexasmoving.com/var/files/File/Vision_2009_Brochure.pdf
The “Innovative Connectivity” brochure is not a white flag on TxDOT’s part, but does mark a recognition that its grandiose schemes were unrealistic pipe dreams. One encouraging point is the statement on page 3 that the right of way for new projects would rarely exceed 600 feet (the approximate width of a freeway with access roads, e.g. SH 130 at Pecan Street east of Pflugerville), rather than the quarter of a mile envisioned by TTC planners. On pages 8-9, TxDOT commits to using existing ROW whenever possible, before “breaking new ground,” a concept at odds with the TTC vision. When the TTC was first being introduced in 2003 to a small Austin gathering, unpublicized and attended by very few members of the public, TxDOT rolled out the TTC as a “green fields project.”
Corridor Watch’s David Stall says,"We think that today is a huge leap forward in getting control over transportation projects and seeing that they serve a transportation need and not just a revenue-generating role . . .The reality is the move that's been made today turns it from a statewide massive corridor project into a much more reasonable transportation project, which they should have been from the beginning.”
He continues,"We still need to particularly be wary of public-private partnerships which are to line the pockets of Wall Street financiers more than provide transportation for ordinary Texans.”
He calls today’s announcement “a major victory for farmers and ranchers.”
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