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Posted: 01/24/2005
McCracken wants independent study of toll plan
By Ben Wear
Austin American Statesman
Monday, January 24, 2005
Austin City Council Member Brewster McCracken, who voted for a Central Texas toll road plan last summer but soon reversed his stance, will ask the area's governing transportation board tonight to put the plan on hold and commission an independent study.
McCracken and his staff, having studied various maps and documents published by the Texas Department of Transportation and Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization throughout the past two years, say that several of the roads in the plan were shown as having funds ready to go in earlier documents and then later listed as having insufficient funding for construction.
His point is that those changes might have been made to buttress the case for putting toll charges on U.S. 183 (Ed Bluestein Boulevard), Texas 71 and U.S. 290 West.
McCracken says those same documents show that converting those roads to turnpikes, along with a section of U.S. 290 East and the future Texas 45 Southwest, would have the effect of transferring about $1.3 billion in state maintenance and operations costs to Central Texas toll payers.
Supporters of the plan have always acknowledged that costs of the roads would be borne locally if they become toll roads. But they have argued that the roads will be built much sooner as toll roads and that years from now, the roads would generate profits that could be used to build other roads or rail projects. And Amadeo Saenz Jr., the Transportation Department's engineering director, sent a letter today to the CAMPO board "unequivocally" stating that the Austin district would see no reduction in maintenance or other funding due to putting tolls on "on-state system facilities." However, because the Central Texas toll roads would be operated by the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, not the Transportation Department, it is unclear if the Austin roads would fall under Saenz's definition.
The organization board, which approved what was at the time a seven-road turnpike plan in July by a 16-7 vote, this evening will consider removing from the plan a section of MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) at William Cannon Boulevard that has generated the most controversy in the months since that vote. Given that toll plans for Loop 360 have been put on an indefinite hold, that would leave five roads in the plan.
However, there are environmental concerns about Texas 45 Southwest, including a pending lawsuit by the SOS Alliance regarding a threatened cave spider found just yards from the road's proposed path. That could mean that the road can have only two lanes and would not be subject to tolls, leaving just four roads in the plan. And McCracken contends that three of those roads are basically already fully funded, or nearly so.
The board, in a meeting that begins at 6 p.m. at the Joe C. Thompson Center on the University of Texas campus, will also consider setting a public hearing in February on McCracken's proposal for the study. A final decision, if the board decides to allow the public hearing, could not be made under the board's rules until March.
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