A recent proposal by the Texas Department of
Transportation to buy back stretches of federal interstate
highway and convert them to toll roads
generates a double take: It hardly seems a serious
idea. Yet in its congressional legislative agenda,
TxDOT seeks authorizing legislation to do
exactly that.
The inequity in allowing
investors or the state to profit from a resource already
bought and paid for through public tax dollars
reveals the disturbing degree to which the
department would capitalize on the open road.
Legislators need to face the
politically unpalatable need to find an adequate source of tax
revenue to build and maintain highways.
Instead, Texas and other states
have embarked on public-private
collaborations that have raised eyebrows and
questions about cronyism,
transparency, accountability, public control and fair value.
Texas legislators passed a
two-year moratorium on toll roads in the last session.
While weakened by numerous loopholes, the pause offers
a chance to take a closer look at
this approach.
Former Mayor Bob Lanier, who once chaired the Texas
Transportation Commission, TxDOT's governing board, said
there is a place for creating new toll roads to expand capacity.
However, he said, in striking a balance
between public and private support,
it is critical to watch the money and
where it goes. There's a danger to urban areas
such as Houston, Lanier said, when the state seeks to borrow
more than the cost of building the road. The excess is likely to
end up funding projects outside our area or even be diverted to
general use.
The congressional legislation TxDOT seeks would shift
decision-making about this process from the federal government
to the state, and state
law still requires approval from the voters and county
commissioners to create toll roads.
County Judge Ed Emmett said he is in total support of
U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's response to TxDOT's request —
a bill that would ban states from
converting existing interstate highways to toll roads.
Hutchison's bill might well be needed
to prevent an egregious
tilt toward inserting the profit motive
into public transportation policy. The political
climate does not favor financing our vital public highway system
by such straightforward measures as indexing the gasoline tax
for inflation. If voters prefer
paying at the toll booth rather than the gas pump, they
may get their wish.
A lot of fine print in respected policy studies
demonstrates that route is by far the most
expensive.
