BIKE: Envision Central Texas is being killed by CTRMA scam

[rcbaker]

Remember how folks thought for a brief time that things had changed 
and that the bankers, developers, and land speculators were now willing 
to compromise on their plans to pave over Travis county with new 
freeways to serve suburban sprawl?

Remember how we all went to fill out the Envision Central Texas 
questionaires and sent them in to be counted and and then when they 
were counted, how this area decided to plan for much less expensive 
compact city growth, with lots of transit, bike and ped facilities?

As PT Barnum said, there's a sucker born every minute, and if you 
trusted the Envision Central Texas process to have any effect in an area 
of the state run by entrenched real estate interests, then you're one of 
them. 

In today's Austin Statesman, there is a big front page story by Ben Wear 
(a fine reporter) on how the unelected Central Texas Regional Mobility 
Authority appointed by Rick Perry -- voted unanamously in a big good 'ol 
boy extravanga held earlier in the day to send their $2.2 billion toll road 
plan to CAMPO, who would have to approve it. 

The party line being promoted by the CTRMA crowd, with the active 
assistance of District 14 of TxDOT, is that we have an emergency. We're 
drowning in traffic and need to build lots of new toll roads as fast as 
possible! But we have a window of opportunity now to get all these new 
toll roads ringing the city started in only 36 months by issuing a half 
billion or so in debt along with lots of other matching money (which 
money is illusive on closer investigation). 

The other part of the emergency being promoted by the CTRMA in 
selling the package to CAMPO is that if we don't aggressively seek
Texas Mobility Fund (TMF) money now by getting the toll road package 
started, we will lose all the tons of money in that fund to other parts of 
Texas.

Here is what Ben Wear's story today says: "...The Austin District's share 
of the remaining $2 billion is about $161 million. But Austin can get that 
only for turnpike projects he said, and only if it acts quickly. Otherwise 
Daigh contends that the Texas Transportation Commission might decide 
to send some or all of that money to Dallas or Houston or some other 
areas with active Turnpike projects...". 

Talk about a phony emergency! First TxDOT/CTRMA imagines a huge 
totally hypothetical future amount in a brand new state fund and then 
claims that they could maybe use this hypothetical money as collateral to 
borrow lots more money. So if we don't approve the toll road plan in a 
great hurry, we will lose a fortune in this totally hypothetical money.

Remember how I documented that the TMFmoney only had $44 a few 
weeks ago? I called today and they now have $11, 078.985.03 in this 
account now that we're just past the first quarter of the year. However, 
the Texas Comptroller has not yet officially presented any revenue 
projection report, which is needed to do realistic planning. A lot of the 
fund is supposed to come from increasing DPS fines greatly, and if you 
do that, people will try harder not to get tickets.

But being more than three months into the TMF fund, we might guess 
that the real total Texas income might be only $44 million per year, of 
which our Central Texas portion would be far than less than that, 
presumably. So we're only talking about a little dab of money being 
inflated by being used as collateral for a hypothetical loan and turned 
into a reason for CAMPO to approve billions in new toll roads on an 
emergency basis. 

What a scam. -- Roger