Study: Austin drivers to pay-by-mile using GPS tracking system

Here it is... the ultimate toll road. GPS logs your miles and bills you a use tax each month. Brilliant! But wait it gets better. You'll actually be tracked everywhere you go, not just if you choose to take a toll road! Wonderful!

Several states.... are studying whether to scrap the gas tax and replace it with pay-by-the-mile user fees, effectively turning the road network into another public utility.

Oregon is finishing a fascinating yearlong study with 280 volunteers who equipped their cars with Global Positioning System tracking devices.

Every time they filled up at two specially equipped stations, per-mile user fees were added -- and the gas tax deducted -- right on the receipt.

A similar $16.5 million study of 2,700 drivers in Austin, Baltimore, Boise, San Diego, eastern Iowa and North Carolina's Research Triangle is set to begin next year.

Motorists will continue to pay gas taxes, but researchers at the University of Iowa will gauge driver responses to a monthly invoice -- not much different than a cellphone bill -- detailing actual miles driven and what they might have paid in per-mile fees.

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Texas $8.5 billion budget surplus... but no money for roads?

No money for roads?

Texas collected $1.5 billion more than projected

Texas Legislature needs to budget this money to the most important needs just like every citizen and business must do. We all have limited funds and we make due by prioritizing and cutting waste in our spending.

Transportation is at the top of the list when it comes to running a productive modern society.

TxDOT and our elected REPs are flat out lying when they say there's no money.

They refuse to cut expenses in unecessary areas and re-direct money meant for roads so they can in turn say there is no money for roads.

THERE"S A SURPLUS FOLKS.... BUDGET ACCORDING TO IMPORTANCE.

State surplus grows by $1.5 billion Austin American-Statesman
State has extra $1.5 billion leftover from last year's budget Houston Chronicle
Texas collected $1.5 billion more than projected KVUE

Highway shortfall is worsening

This stuff makes my blood boil so much that I have to pause before I make a post. There's a budget surplus, politicians won't index the gas tax and on top of that, let's pull more money from the Highway Fund. Oops, not enough money, looks like we'll need to build toll roads in your town. In this case I'll let the article speak for itself.

CAMPO's 2030 plan, ALL TOLLs

According to CAMPO's 2030 plan, only 4 sections of highway will not be tolled in Austin. This is an insane example of poor management of tax dollars. I think I will not have my family living in such a city before to long.

Map:
http://www.campotexas.org/pdfs/Map5-2.pdf

Plan:
http://www.campotexas.org/pdfs/AdoptedMobility2030Plan.pdf

Watson to propose bills for Special Austin district in the Texas 130 corridor:

New taxes coming for those who live around Texas 130 Toll Road

By Kate Miller Morton
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, March 08, 2007

Article Excerts:

Watson plans to file three bills Friday. The most ambitious would allow Austin to create a special district around the toll road (Texas 130) where it could impose its development rules and collect sales and property taxes to pay for roads, streets and utility improvements in the district without being required to provide city services for years.

Watson is also proposing that counties along Texas 130 be granted zoning authority and the ability to levy impact fees and that cities near the toll road be allowed limited-purpose annexations regardless of their size.

The bill has the support of Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Williamson County, who said he supports the idea of creating a special district because otherwise it will be impossible for Austin to keep up with the infrastructure that is needed to plan for growth around the toll road.

Krusee said he knows of no other transportation service districts in the state but also knows of no other case in which so much road has been built in so little time.

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TX Motor Fuel Tax Proposal

2/5/07 - Motor fuel tax

......... One of the more far-reaching proposals would revamp the state gasoline tax so that it automatically increases to reflect inflation.

Sen. John Carona, the Dallas Republican who chairs the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee, said he filed the legislation to give Texas an alternative to toll roads.

Under his proposal, the motor fuel tax would be slightly increased each year to reflect the effects of inflation on highway construction costs. The current tax is 38 cents per gallon – 20 cents for the state and 18 cents for the federal government.

Mr. Carona said the annual tax increase probably would run about a penny or so per gallon, which would cost a typical driver who uses a thousand gallons of gasoline a year an extra $1 per month.

"If we do that over the next 25 years, we'll be able to leverage those additional funds into [highway] bond issues in excess of $45 billion" which he said would cover most estimated transportation needs over that period.

But if the tax is left alone, he said, toll roads will be the state's main option, and it could cost drivers $2 per day.

"The math is pretty obvious," the senator said. "It's not just a little more expensive for Texas drivers, it's a lot more expensive to build toll roads."

Gov. Rick Perry, who envisions a broad network of privately run toll roads across Texas, says that's the best way to meet the state's rapidly growing transportation needs.

Source: KVUE