Divided CAMPO Says Yes to Toll Plan

Toll roads previously approved and scheduled for construction: US 183A above RM 620, TX 45 North to TX 130 East, TX 130 East, TX 45 South East, MoPac extension above Parmer Lane. (solid gray)

Toll road newly approved by CAMPO: TX 45 Southwest, from MoPac to RM 1626. (double grey line)

Existing roads newly approved by CAMPO for tolled segments: US 290 East to TX 130, US 183 (Ed Bluestein Blvd.), TX 71 East to ABIA, MoPac from US 290 West over William Cannon, US 290/71 West to Oak Hill. (broadly dotted lines)

CAMPO approved construction for tolls, but withheld funding pending further review and an additional vote: Loop 360. (narrowly dotted line)
For a larger map click here

In the space of three months and one vote on Monday night – no more than a twinkle of an eye in Austin time – Central Texas leapfrogged ahead of Dallas and Houston as the soon-to-be most proportionally "tolled" region of the state.

Toll roads will happen – if all goes as approved by the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization's Transportation Policy Board on Monday night. The regional transportation planning board gave the green light to the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority's toll-road plan: a complicated $2.2 billion overlay of the region's "greatest hits" road projects, a plan so broad in scope that most simply apply the term "massive" to describe it.

Austin Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos, who chairs the CAMPO board, had to admit to the board and the rowdy, overwhelmingly anti-toll audience that he didn't much like the plan, or at least the part that forced Central Texans to pay via direct tolls for the expansion and extension of their roads. "I wish we didn't have to vote on it, but we do," Barrientos said. "Delay is not any option. I think that has been made clear. The gas tax is not going to be raised. Other jurisdictions around the state will gladly accept our share of the [Texas] Mobility Fund money if we don't act. People will not stop moving to our sweet city."

This was a one-of-a-kind vote, marked by a deluge of apoplectic e-mails from opponents – several feet of them stacked before the seat of rabidly anti-plan Travis Co. Commissioner Gerald Daugherty – that made no effective difference in the final vote. Pushed by an August deadline for Texas Mobility Funds set by the Texas Transportation Commission, CAMPO board members who favored the plan came armed with policy amendments to tweak the most contentious pieces of the toll-road plan. Resolutions approved by the board mandated nontolled alternatives along all toll-road routes, targeted funding for sound walls, environmental retrofitting and express lanes along MoPac, and proposed further study of the Loop 360 corridor – which will require a separate vote later.

Defending his support for the plan, Barrientos pointed out that the region has added only 144 lane miles in the last 14 years. The Central Texas RMA proposal would allow the region to build 260 lane miles in no more than seven years, with unprecedented local input and control. Daugherty's colleague Karen Sonleitner, who, like Barrientos, voted yes, told the board that to take no action would turn future road construction over to the uncertain funding of the Texas Department of Transportation, where projects could be delayed for years and the idea of aesthetic improvements "is the difference between concrete and colored concrete."

Still, the conversation on the 23-member board frequently returned to two themes likely to haunt the RMA in coming months: Can this local board that has proposed so much so quickly be trusted any further than the much-chastised TxDOT? And is TxDOT actually in the critical funding crisis that it claims to be, or is the agency crying wolf?

Even Central Texas RMA officials had to admit that a lot of questions remain to be answered on how the toll roads would play out in actual construction, especially when it comes to the execution of toll lanes on Loop 360 and express lanes on MoPac, as well as the question of whether State Highway 45 Southwest can even be widened. CTRMA Executive Director Mike Heiligenstein stressed that the vote by the CAMPO board is simply the starting point of the discussion process, not the end. Others in the meeting called the board, appointed by Travis and Williamson co. commissioners, unaccountable.

During the discussion, an angry Rep. Terry Keel accused District Engineer Bob Daigh of pushing his own agenda on the toll-road plan, making the financial situation sound more dire than it is, and pushing an earlier deadline than is actually necessary. Barrientos defended Daigh, citing his own conversations with TxDOT officials.

Following the amendments, the final vote was 16-7 in favor of the plan. Voting no with Daugherty were Austin Republican state Reps. Keel, Todd Baxter, and Jack Stick, joined by Austin City Council Member Daryl Slusher and Austin Democratic state Reps. Elliott Naishtat and Eddie Rodriguez. Slusher and Naishtat described the plan as too sweeping to dissect and evaluate in only three months. Slusher added that the plan has the potential to be a "massive boondoggle" if it doesn't work. Rodriguez said, with some regret, that the amendments have improved the plan but that he considers the failure to limit SH 45 Southwest – a segment particularly opposed by area environmentalists hoping to protect the Barton Creek watershed – a "make or break" issue.

Afterward, Heiligenstein said some concerns and questions raised during the vetting of the plan are valid, but that many objections still boiled down to "not in my backyard" syndrome. "Overall, I think it's something [NIMBY] that can be overcome," Heiligenstein said. "It's not easy in some neighborhood areas, but we're doing it on US 183A, and we'll do it with the community at large. I think people need to understand the realities that are facing Austin with the increasing population and the decreased funding."