Texas Transit Association

The future of transportation in North Texas may include more toll roads - even on highways where motorists don’t pay to drive now. Two state lawmakers filed bills that would create a regional transportation authority to oversee the construction of roads and rail lines. The six-county North Texas Regional Mobility Authority could supersede the powers of tollway and transit agencies already in place.

Bills propose adding toll roads in N. Texas;
Measures face hurdles, call for regional agency, fees on most interstates
The Dallas Morning News March 15, 2003, Saturday

The bills face several hurdles both locally and nationally, and critics said the legislation isn’t right for North Texas. Adding tolls to freeways would require congressional approval.

Under the proposal, most major interstates in Collin, Dallas, Denton, Parker, Rockwall and Tarrant counties would be subject to having tollbooths.

“If we don’t start looking for money to affect our region’s roads and to do something to enhane our mass-transit network, we’re not going to meet the needs of the future,” said state Sen. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth, author of one of the bills.

“Some reviews I have seen show that people will vote to increase costs in their own region if the money is used in their own region.”

Mr. Brimer’s bill also would allow voters to decide whether they want their cities to join the mobility authority and whether to place tollbooths on existing roads.

“It won’t fly,” said Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano. “This is not the time to be talking about it, and I’ve been talking about regionalism forever.”

Many of the bills’ goals could be reached with agreements among existing agencies. State legislation allows the Texas Transportation Commission to place tolls on freeways.

“We don’t need someone trying to overlay something on what we’ve already done,” said Collin County Judge Ron Harris, who also serves as chairman of the Dallas Regional Mobility Coalition, a local lobbying and transportation planning group.

State Rep. Steve Wolens, D-Dallas, filed the House version of Mr. Brimer’s Senate bill. Mr. Wolens said North Texas must do something soon because of its smog problems that could result in the loss of federal highway funds - a development that would devastate the region’s economy. Adding more rail lines would help get more people out of their cars and could improve air quality, he said.

Mr. Brimer said that without changing its highway funding methods, Texas will soon run out of money to build highways because it must pay more money to maintain roads.

“We’ve got to look at North Texas as a region and not as a collection of cities,” Mr. Wolens said. “The absence of public debate on this means we will go nowhere on regional transportation.”

If either bill is passed, cities that do not belong to a transit agency could rely on the new toll roads to help them raise money for transit. The goal is to raise an equivalent amount of a 1 percent sales tax, the amount now paid by Dallas Area Rapid Transit member cities.

Mr. Brimer said that putting tolls back on Interstate 30, for example, could raise about $ 600 million a year for highway maintenance and for rail projects. The highway opened in 1957 as a turnpike and had tollbooths until 1978.

Other options for transportation financing have been offered this year. Regional leaders have discussed expanding the sales-tax cap to allow more cities to join mass transit.

In addition, state Sen. Jon Lindsay of Houston has filed a bill that would allow residents of urban counties to vote on adding a nickel-per-gallon gas tax that would finance local transportation projects.

The toll road idea was borne of necessity because Gov. Rick Perry has said he will oppose any tax bills, Mr. Wolens said.

“I’m going with user fees on existing roads,” he said. “If the voters don’t want us to do that, we won’t do it. But I’m not going to sit back and wait for the EPA to shut us down.”

Local leaders say they have discussed the issues thoroughly, and they have been taken aback by the speed and breadth of the lawmakers’ proposals.

The county judges of Collin, Dallas, Denton and Tarrant counties have signed a resolution saying they are concerned about the creation of a new umbrella agency without having time to consider all the details.

All of us believe we’ve proven how successful regionalism can be,” Mr. Harris said. “Any bill that doesn’t involve regional consensus and planning is very ill-advised.”

The bills do not directly address the fate of the North Texas Tollway Authority, but several observers said the creation of a new toll authority would jeopardize the existing agency’s future. DART, the Fort Worth Transportation Authority and the Denton County Transportation Authority would not be dissolved unless voters chose to do so.

Creating one umbrella agency may sound like a good idea, but “I’m not sure we will ever get to the point where one agency can address transportation across the region efficiently,” said DART board chairman Robert Pope. “Having another layer of government over transportation is surely not the way to go. But thank goodness people are now talking about this.”