BIKE: toll road plan still in trouble

[Roger Baker]

Making everything a toll road and then continuing to build roads to 
serve sprawl as fast as ever seemed like such an easy solution. But on 
the other hand ----

"The plan they have come up with is that the officials who are in the 
most trouble are going to offer at the next CAMPO meeting some 
mitigation for this awful plan," Keel said of the Sept. 13 meeting. 
"The highest levels of state government are now realizing that this has 
been a political nightmare. They thought this was the goose that would 
lay the golden egg. Instead it's turned into an albatross."

                  
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from statesman.com:

TOLL ROAD PLAN

A change of heart for one toll voter

Council member McCracken voted for plan but now says it is wrong to 
charge tolls on roads built with tax dollars
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By Ben Wear
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Austin City Council Member Brewster McCracken, who in July voted with a 
majority of local officials for a $2.2 billion toll road plan, said 
Wednesday that he now believes that three of the seven roads in that 
plan should not be tollways.

McCracken is the first of the 16 CAMPO members who voted yes to suggest 
a material change in the plan. It was by no means clear Wednesday 
whether his decision represented a ripple or the leading edge of a 
wave.

McCracken said that roads in the plan that have improvements already 
under construction with tax dollars should not be subject to tolls.

That category includes the MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) bridge over William 
Cannon Drive. That project, set for completion in the spring, has 
generated much of the public backlash against the plan and those who 
voted for it, manifested in an attempt to recall McCracken, council 
colleague Danny Thomas and Austin Mayor Will Wynn.

McCracken also would exempt from tolls Texas 71 from Interstate 35 to 
Riverside Drive and a stretch of Ed Bluestein Boulevard from I-35 to 
near Springdale Road, both of which are under construction.

McCracken, like the other 15 members of the Capital Area Metropolitan 
Planning Organization board who voted July 12 to designate the seven 
roads as turnpikes, knew then that these three roads were under 
construction with gasoline tax dollars. Opponents of the plan, 
including other CAMPO members, decried their inclusion in the plan as 
double taxation.

So what changed McCracken's mind?

"If we had turned down the toll plan on July 12, we would have lost 
$561 million (in state funds), and I think that would have been 
irresponsible," McCracken said. "We have now secured the funds, and we 
need to get the details right on this plan. . . . We should have as few 
toll roads as possible. And we also should not be charging people for 
roads that have already been paid for."

Other elected officials who cast what has proved to be an extremely 
tough vote for the plan reacted with surprise and a hint of irritation 
at the news, and they questioned McCracken's basic premise.

"I don't know that the funding has been secured," said state Rep. Mike 
Krusee, R-Round Rock, chairman of the House Transportation Committee 
and the moving force behind both the plan and sweeping changes in state 
law encouraging creation of toll roads. "If that has happened, I would 
imagine the money would be conditioned on actually implementing the 
plan. Before we even consider taking any roads out of the plan, we 
would have to fully examine the economic consequences of doing so. 
Because the plan was a system."

Wynn has been working to craft toll policies that might ease the 
public's anger, including a delay in beginning tolls or perhaps capping 
how much individual drivers might have to pay each day on a particular 
road. But he opposes removing roads from the plan.

"What is the alternative revenue plan?" he said. "Certain roads, 
certainly for some period of time, serve as the donor revenue for us to 
complete this much larger plan to fix our traffic crisis. . . . I think 
(removing three roads) has a huge impact on our ability to fix our 
traffic crisis in our lifetime."

Sal Costello, a Circle C Ranch marketing consultant who has led the 
recall effort, was glad to hear of McCracken's evolving stance. But he 
said the plan should be junked entirely.

"Just pulling out a road or two isn't going to do the trick," Costello 
said. "We just want to start from the beginning."

State Rep. Terry Keel, R-Austin, was on the losing side of the 16-7 
vote in July. Despite the reactions from other toll plan supporters, he 
said McCracken's about-face is part of a larger strategy by officials 
who find themselves under unacceptable public pressure since the vote.

"The plan they have come up with is that the officials who are in the 
most trouble are going to offer at the next CAMPO meeting some 
mitigation for this awful plan," Keel said of the Sept. 13 meeting. 
"The highest levels of state government are now realizing that this has 
been a political nightmare. They thought this was the goose that would 
lay the golden egg. Instead it's turned into an albatross."

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