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North Tarrant Express or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Toll Roads
Every weekday morning and afternoon, the engines of this great economic machinery of Texas sit still in our cars as our cars' engines idle in traffic jams that started decades ago, crawling continuously even on Sundays and producing that familiar phenomenon known as the brown sunset. It's more than just time wasted. It's energy wasted: fuel for our cars and physical and mental energy for our jobs and for our families. It's money going up in smoke, smoke that squeezes the breath from the ever-increasing number of asthma sufferers in our midst. It's tension built to toxic levels in each of us that sometimes bursts in a fit of roadrage. It's a monster that feeds on itself: congestion causes accidents that cause more congestion, gridlocking freeways and delaying first responders from reaching those in urgent need.
Texas needs to solve its transportation problems before they get even worse. The number one priority for the Texas Legislature should be mandating that tax revenue derived from transportation be dedicated to transportation and only to transportation. The Texas Legislature has made a habit of siphoning revenue derived from transportation and diverting it to unrelated programs and pet projects. It is not acceptable that user taxes (such as the motor fuels tax) and tolls collected on dedicated tollways should benefit any entity other than the transportation sector of the Texas government. Additional funding must also be made available, through not only an increase in the existing motor fuels tax rate, but also by transforming the flat rate to an ad valorem rate. As the challenges to our transportation needs mount, so should our attention to additional sources of revenue increase.
Recent comments delivered by Governor Perry at the GOP convention in Houston discuss the budget surplus our state has. How is it possible to have a surplus with so many urgent transportation problems to address? It defies logic to suggest that Texans' needs are met and tax dollars should be "refunded" when transportation networks such as our Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex system is not only woefully inadequate, but in poor repair as well. Even the most hard boiled cynics hate to think that diversions of transportation taxes and the rationale that new toll roads are the only way to bring new transportation solutions to our area could be related. But start pushing for private operation of public infrastructure - an often bandied solution to "bureaucratic waste" which simply exchanges government inefficiency with private graft and misfeasance - and the jig is up. The state of Texas belongs to Texans and attempts to auction it off to high foreign bidders are insulting to the good people of Texas.
The recent public relations nightmare that was Spanish firm Cintra's acquisition of a proposed toll roadway illuminates a loophole that must be closed. Toll roadways constructed on public land should be owned and operated by the public only. Inviting private interests to operate public infrastructure is the calling card of only the most short-sighted and ill-informed public servants, or the act of an underhanded snake oil salesman looking forward to a payoff. The simple act of commuting to work along these roadways is expensive, but it's a cost some of us have chosen to bear for a variety of reasons, including the time and distance savings. In some cases, the choice of traveling on toll roadways was made without our knowledge or consent. For the Legislature and Governor to regard public roadways as money-making schemes for pet projects or private interests is obscene, given the state of our transportation network.
To better serve our citizens, the Texas Legislature needs to address these urgent transportation needs with dedicated funding in both the short term and in the long term. To accomplish this, we must expand, improve and better maintain our existing roadways beginning today. Right-of-way acquisition for expansion or widening is expensive, but it costs less than new rights-of-way and costs even less than inaction when the hidden costs mentioned above are considered. After all, inaction now is just more expensive action later. In areas where right-of-way acquisition is prohibitive, innovative solutions must be employed to maximize the use of existing land. Austin's double-decked IH-35 and Dallas' cantilevered access roads along US 75 are good examples of how to fit more roadway into a limited space. Dual-use right-of-way, such as Chicago's IH-94, integrates commuter rail and highway traffic seamlessly, where the rails occupy the otherwise unused median that's so common on Texas interstate and state highways. Use what we already have to accomplish our short term goals more efficiently and effectively and to prepare our region for long term solutions.
Where new rights-of-way are needed, toll roads can be successful. However, transforming existing freeways into toll roads should not happen. In those cases where this has occurred, the toll road should revert to a freeway. An excellent example of such a road is SH 121 through The Colony, Plano and Frisco. In the mid 1990s, this was a two-lane blacktop flanked by farmland. As the farmland stopped growing plants and began sprouting tract homes, promises of a new highway in place of that well worn blacktop were uttered daily by home builders and realtors. The families moved in and the lines at the few traffic signals got longer by the day. Soon, wooden stakes appeared along the blacktop and not long after, the construction began. One ordinary day at one ordinary city council meeting, a handful of people said yes to a toll road and goodbye to the freeway that linked their growing city to the places all these new citizens work and play. The resulting uproar didn't change a thing and SH 121 remains unfinished and heavily congested in some areas, partially open in other areas and currently collecting tolls where it is open. How many of those home owners were never informed about the toll plan? How many bought into the location on the promise of excellent freeway access?
As we get on with the near term rehabilitation, improvement and expansion of existing facilities, a second priority for the Texas Legislature emerges. A master transportation plan for the greater Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex must be adopted and complied with to ensure mobility for all our region's residents and visitors. Just as you wouldn't want two ends of a tunnel to be dug without a discussion of how and where the two will meet, allowing individual cities to control the transportation health of a region through bad action or inaction is, at the very least, bad policy. Where some cities might stand in the way of meeting regional transportation needs in the name of keeping the character of their city intact or to avoid a perceived nuisance factor, the Legislature needs to provide the "teeth" a master transportation plan and its governing agency requires. Yes, transportation planners must be thoughtful of the impact thoroughfares have on small communities and consensus should be built if possible, but in absence of an amicable agreement, compliance with a master transportation plan must not be optional. At the other end of the spectrum, special interest transportation projects, such as the massive improvements to the area surrounding the Dallas Cowboys stadium construction project, which serve the needs of a facility that's in use a couple dozen times per year, must not preempt other urgently needed improvements intended to quiet a year-round demand. If developers of such projects wish to pay for highway improvements up front, then one could hardly avoid entertaining their requests. But ultimately the responsibility of the state and region is to all its citizens, not just certain corporate citizens.
As the future needs of our region come into focus, it is apparent that continuous expansion of roadways only cannot be supported. The construction of commuter rail, light rail and HOV lanes is to be applauded, but the methods for achieving transportation alternatives for the combined Collin, Dallas, Denton and Tarrant County metropolis are varied and demonstrate a lack of understanding of the meaning of the word efficiency. Dallas, Fort Worth and Denton all have regional transportation authorities set up to operate what are essentially independent systems. The lack of coordination and standardization between neighboring agencies in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is the stuff of legend, and has led to inaction or delayed action for generations.
For example, the rail systems either currently operating or proposed consist of no less than four distinct, non-interchangeable networks. DART operates articulated light rail vehicles powered by overhead electricity; DART/The T operates a diesel powered heavy rail commuter platform augmented by reconditioned Diesel Multiple Unit railcars under the name Trinity Railway Express; The T has proposed new Diesel Multiple Unit railcars which will interface with - but not interconnect with - proposed DART light rail vehicles at DFW airport; and Denton DCTA has proposed a Diesel Multiple Unit solution, which again, interfaces with but will not interconnect with light rail.
How is it that the wisdom of one of our region's most successful businesses - Southwest Airlines - is lost on our various transit agencies? Southwest standardized their fleet years ago, choosing the Boeing 737 platform as their sole aircraft type. Even when Southwest acquired rival airlines, any aircraft of a type other than Boeing 737 was sold off and replaced with more 737s. The cost of maintaining a parts inventory for one aircraft type is obviously less than the cost of maintaining an inventory for a fleet of many types of aircraft, even from the same manufacturer. Flexibility of which components of their fleet can operate in specific areas and airports to meet the ebb and flow of demand is a non-issue. As a result of Southwest's decision to maintain a uniform fleet, the airline remains competitive in an era of flagging profits, mergers of survival and record bankruptcies.
It is understandable that one size doesn't fit all, especially in a region as diverse as the greater Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. But a little coordination and some thought into future growth should not be too much to ask. Those municipalities now capped out at the state maximum for sales tax are unable to participate in any public transportation initiatives unless they've already been a member city of DART or The T for years. Perhaps they should have signed on years ago, but since the region lives or dies based on the success of the whole of the region, it should be mandatory that all municipalities within the greater Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex - for example, those cities and towns under the jurisdiction of the North Central Texas Council of Governments - be included and pay a proportional share of the burden. If separate transit agencies continue to exist, they must be overseen by and regulated by a single agency responsible for and accountable to the whole region. The current approach is splintered and leaves too much room for duplication, planning errors, lack of interchangeability and, as history shows, the inevitable bad blood that comes up from time to time between cities on either side of county lines. A unified, standardized approach is not only a good idea, it is an imperative if our region is to catch up to other large metro areas like Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston, just to begin to meet the needs of our region.
Such an agency, funded by transportation revenue and tasked with enumerating the challenges of the region, offering uniform, proven solutions to those challenges, must have the authority to implement those actions, not just offer guidelines, suggestions or targets. This regional authority can accommodate the diverse interests of its citizens and put the Dallas - Fort Worth region on a rapid pace toward getting our city streets, highways and our people moving again.
RCH
NRH, TX
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