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Upcoming Critical CAMPO Vote Will Show if Anyone is Listening
Monday October 8th 2007

By Charles McClure
Lake Travis View

Building free, public roads has been a cornerstone of basic government function since the Romans laid down the first bricks on the Apian Way.
But don’t tell the State of Texas. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is too busy having a crisis to be bothered. Legislators assure us there’s no money in the bank. New revenues from traditional sources would mean higher taxes and no one will surely stand for that.
Clearly, the best option is to build toll roads — or at least that’s the company line. Gov. Rick Perry heard a voice from on high and began laying the groundwork for the Trans Texas Corridor, despite the fact none of his subjects seem to want it built. Never mind, there’s cash to be made. As fast as we can build it, let’s sell it to Spain. Word is the federal government is strapped for cash too. Perhaps we can put the Louisiana Purchase back on the block.
It’s safe to say that toll roads are about as popular as a protracted ground war in Southeast Asia. Taxpayers like the notion even less because they realize the Texas Legislature has dissolved into a dysfunctional mess over the past decade. Taking their cue from disgraced Tom DeLay, lawmakers traded in a history of bipartisanship and efficiency for petty bickering and political oneupsmanship.
Road funding in Texas has been a fiasco since the early-1990s, laced with non-existent leadership, bad policy and poor management, more interested in buttering the palms of campaign contributors than serving the public’s wishes.
In 2001, the allegedly conservative Legislature created a layer of new bureaucracies called Regional Mobility Authorities, which have best been described as “double taxation without accountability.”
In our neck of the woods, the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA) is the hired gun extolling the virtues of toll roads to a completely unreceptive public. Regional mobility authorities (RMAs) are just what modern lawmakers love — an agency that is not directly accountable to the people of Texas. No voter approval is required for their creation; no voter approval is required for the selection of their board members or staff; and no voter approval is required for the selection and funding of their toll projects.
Then there needed to be plans, and in this area, the Capital Area Metro Planning Organization was born. In concert with CTRMA and TxDOT, CAMPO went right to work, attempting to redesignate previously free thoroughfares as toll roads, even though they were already paid for using traditional means like gasoline taxes. In Austin, plans were floated to turn Brodie Lane and Mopac into a toll roads. Only massive public outcry prevented these plans from being realized. And just down Texas 71, our neighbors in Oak Hill are fighting tooth and nail to prevent U.S. 290 from tolling, a plan that, as it is, would obliterate the community they love beyond recognition.
Oak Hill folks have been proactive, going so far as to offer an alternative plan for U.S. 290 that most independent observers agree is a far better road design. But those folks needn’t bother — TxDOT has taken its cue from RMAs and elected officials alike — they’re only pretending to listen. They nod their heads, then do their masters’ bidding.
But all these organizations have few options, given the directives they face. It is true that traditional sources like gasoline taxes have been tapped by other necessities like court-mandated education funding. And make no mistake, it is a fact, given the current circumstances, that there are radically insufficient funds to build new roads that will pave the way for the millions of anticipated newcomers headed toward Central Texas. That is to say nothing of the cash it takes to pay for ongoing maintenance of existing roads.
Pct. 3 Commissioner Gerald Daugherty rightly fears that scenario is exactly what he will be forced to face if CAMPO kills current toll road plans at its Oct. 8 meeting. Without tolls, he said it will also be all but impossible to see safety concerns on Texas 71 properly addressed.
So will CAMPO approve plans that virtually no one in the area wants? Only time will tell. But if the wishes of citizens really mattered, and the guess here is they don’t, toll roads would surely fail. Lawmakers would be forced to look at other options and that will certainly mean additional taxes in some shape or form. That, in turn, would mean legislators would have to think outside of the box. That’s not exactly their fortË.
The feeling here is that citizens may prefer that route than seeing foreign-owned or even privatized toll roads running straight up the state’s wazoo in every direction. It is also worth mentioning that the history of privatized roads is not worth bragging about — in fact, the track record is abysmal.
While that reality of new state taxes may be a downer — and I am a fan of low taxation — free, accessible roads, in the long run, are a better for Texas. Besides, it’s what the people want, as if that mattered...