You are here

Tolling Points

Texas Toll Roads: In It for the Long Haul

By: 
Bill Cramer
Category: 
Stories

This is not the easiest time to operate a tolling agency in the state of Texas. But in an April 5 post in the Waco Tribune, Editor Steve Boggs explains why Texans should be glad, very glad their toll roads will still be there when they need them.

Last month on Tolling Points, Robert Poole of the Reason Foundation warned that Texas’ burgeoning network of tolled highways was in peril. Boggs captures the transition, noting that “the idea of paying tolls to avoid traffic snarls and drive on shiny new roads once captivated our attention. Now toll roads are everyone’s favorite bogeyman.”

Poole pointed to growing public support in Texas for the notion that billions of dollars in annual highway funding should be put in place “without raising taxes, fees, tolls, or debt.” Boggs notes that the state originally embraced tolling because “we faced three choices: 1. Do nothing. 2. Raise taxes. 3. Build self-funded roads. Texas embraced the latter and a network of user-paid toll roads began to take shape, mostly in the [Dallas-Fort Worth] Metroplex and Houston.”

Despite nine bills introduced in the Texas Legislature aimed at phasing out the state’s tolled roads and lanes, “these roads have been hugely popular among the drivers who use them and pay for them,” Boggs adds. “I recently discovered SH 130 and, I promise you, it’s worth every penny in tolls to avoid downtown Austin traffic. When I have to drive in the Metroplex, I seek out toll roads just to keep moving.”

Boggs makes a passionate case for self-funded, standalone, public toll roads, and busts some of the most common myths about tolling. “Every user-fee road built is a road the state doesn’t have to fund with scarce resources,” he says, and the milestone issuance of the North Texas Tollway Authority’s three millionth toll tag last fall was “proof alone that drivers use toll roads en masse.”

First and last, he says, the bottom line for Texas is “woefully inadequate” transportation funding, a $5-billion project backlog, and an essential role for tolling in clearing congestion and driving local economic development.

“The fact that they’ve fallen out of favor doesn’t change that reality,” Boggs writes.

For a deeper dive on transportation finance, register today for IBTTA’s 2015 Transportation Finance & Road Usage Charging Conference, April 26-28 in Portland, OR.

photo credit: Texas Flag via photopin (license)

0 Comments

Be the first person to leave a comment!