More toll booths coming to Texas highways

More toll booths coming to Texas highways
By Jim Vertuno / Associated Press
November 20, 2004


(snip)
....The Texas Transportation Commission on Thursday adopted the 2005 Statewide Mobility Program, with about $15.4 billion going to the state's eight-largest metropolitan areas over the next decade. The plan was developed from regional plans, nearly all of which include toll roads, and includes $3 billion in bond proceeds - a first for Texas transportation planning.

Transportation Commissioner Hope Andrade of San Antonio called the statewide plan ''visionary and creative.''

But Costello described it differently when talking about the $2.2 billion plan for the Austin area, which includes six new toll roads over the next decade.

''This whole thing is a scam,'' said Costello, whose organized opposition to the toll plan led planners to scrap plans to make the bridge near his house a tollway. ''It stinks, and it reeks, and people know it.''
(snip)

''Traffic congestion in Texas cities is getting so bad it's affecting their ability to attract jobs and deteriorating the quality of life,'' said state Rep. Mike Krusee, the Republican chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

Krusee sponsored the law in 2003 that opened the door for the tollway road expansion.
(snip/...)

http://www.reporter-news.com/abil/nw_state/article/0,1874,ABIL_7974_3342625,00.html
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Here's the same article at an accessible site:

http://www.kristv.com/Global/story.asp?S=2586222

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_{George W. Bush:} letting Texans keep more of their money, which they can feed into bogus toll booths.....

...people have to stop and pay for a road in one area but all the other roads in a city are free. I mean, I realize they are not "Free" but what sets the cost (apart) of building a road in one part of the city as compared to another part. We ALL have to pay for ALL roads so why this ridiculous Toll crap.

I don't know where the hell in Texas HE is talking about but it ain't the highway congestion costing job loss. Newsflash, dude, we have lost jobs from the crappy economy and layoffs...Nortel, Alcatel, American Airlines, EDS..take your pick. And that you get to lay at the doorstep of shrub.
And anyone who has travelled the Dallas North Tollway can tell you, yuo don't move any effin' faster with tollroads, you just get to PAY to sit in a traffic jam instead of doing it for FREE!!!

Dumbshits, all of them.
:grr:

and I can say this with authority, living in Austin currently. They buy into the bullshit no tax argument, then complain when the only way for roads to be built is to put tolls on them.... The biggest fucking whiners are the "Circle C" crowd from south austin. They overwhelmingly vote for the GOP, but the main highway into Austin is getting a Toll put on it just for them....

I think 4 more years of "Reality-Based" legislation will convince them otherwise....

All my relatives voted for Bush, they all have huge cars (gave me much happiness this last year of expensive gas) and now this.

It's going to be sad to see their kids signed up for the perma war. I tried to talk about it with a friend who they listen to more than me but he didn't agree with me either.

I did have an opening to drop a bomb on my two favorite little old lady republicans (my mother and her caregiver) who are really into alternative health. Told them about the repuke plans to change he labeling laws on food. Wide eyes and dropped jaws all around.

How much will it take, really?

every three miles, as soon as they hit top speed, they'll have to slam on their brakes and pay another $1.

I love it. It's huge - goes around the entire west and south side of the city. Very convenient and fast. I use it all the time and have an EZ pass. I can afford it. The bad news is that many people cannot afford it. Many people I work with - hourly employees, especially - either don't use it all because they can't afford it, so they use other roads or freeways that are very crowded or they don't use the EZ pass lanes and sit forever in the cheaper pay as you go lanes on the toll road. So yeah, it benefits those of us who can afford it the most and the lower income people the least. They aren't getting the benefit of an efficient, convenient highway system.

It will become as 2 class society like Mexico

main work for our organization. Because health care premiums are so expensive and because our employer covers the entire premium for the employee, many of our positions are part time instead of full time. So, no, I'm not talking toilet cleaners, I'm talking mainstream jobs - $15-$20/hour - doing the day to day work of our non-profit orgainzation. These people have no health care benefits and no retirement benefits.

The Tollway and the Bush (:puke:) Turnpike here in the Dallas area have been pretty effective at preventing people who can't or won't pay the tolls from moving out of Dallas-proper and into the northern 'burbs. And with a third highway set to become a toll road within a few years, the suburb of Frisco is well on its' way to becoming Texas's very own Stepford.

Of course, Frisco is a town that just two years ago finally changed its high school mascot from the "Fighting Coons" to the "Fighting Raccoons."

some drivers have to pay and others don't. Also they were supposed to get rid of the tollroads about 20 yrs ago and then they never did.