VinnyVincent

I'd like to know where you are getting your info from because it seems questionable at best. Okay so first the story is that "WE JUST HAVE TO HAVE THAT 400 million otherwise we can't fund the project! We just need that 400 million otherwise we won't be able to expand the road and wait for it...add in three toll road lanes!!!" So wait is the 400 million to build toll lanes, or to expedite the expansion? because I don't think it's for both... Okay so now it's deemed that TxDot has all the money and doesn't really need to ad the toll lanes so now it's time to renegotiate(why is the government negotiating with themselves to begin with?) So the renegotiated deal is 200 million and they retain control of one lane??(BTW my info was not false as you stated, just out dated) How about they stick their 200 million up their ass and metro retains control of the lane and the profit...perhaps we wait a bit longer for completion but why get them involved? What's wrong with that plan? Why does TxDot have to negotiate with them like they are competing companies or something??? It's freaking ridiculous the way the whole thing sounds...

Well, in order to even start considering options I think we need to take the toll option off the table. It's too easy for the people running the show to use that as a solution and half of them are probably getting a kickback for pushing toll roads, so why not right? It's not skin off their back since most politicians are pretty well off....they like having a road with outrageous tolls so they don't have to share with the rest of us peasants. Something I keep mentioning is at least they could maybe sell the bonds off in smaller chunks to individuals like myself. Plenty of private individuals are interested in investing one's or ten's of thousands, but not hundreds of thousands or millions all in one lump sum. While I may not have been around prior to 1983, I have driven from I10 to 290 quite frequently and have taken eldridge pkwy, hwy6 and fry road as an alternative. It's really not much slower than BW8 is during high traffic times, when people are paying 1.75 every few miles to STILL sit in traffic. Oh yeah the road was engineered with traffic! you know that right? The thing was designed to have you eventually be sitting in traffic while paying toll. It's a way to generate money, not make you life easy. Maybe you had a relief for a while(those were the years when someone mentioned that "traffic was less than projected") but keep in mind BW8 as it exists today with stop and go traffic along with all the ADDITIONAL traffic it has attracted to the area was DESIGNED that way. The people who engineered the road actually engineered it intentionally to make traffic worse on the surrounding roads. Think about that for a moment...

Did you see anything explicitly saying it would be tolled for all eternity with and ever increasing fee? Because I'm doubting that's in there. That's what the news article I posted has spelled out very clearly. That didn't happen until 2001. A lot of the other points you made seem irrelevant. SO what if they lost money on another road? Why do they keep aggressively pining away for more toll roads before the current ones are paid off? Why can't we expand 249 or 290 without it being HEAVILY crammed down our throat that the road needs to be tolled? 290 came VERY close to having a three lane toll road in the middle. Luckily we have a lot of concerned tax paying citizens on the NW side who got involved and said "NO!". I know because I attended a few of the meetings before construction started. Why are they doing this? Job security? Lobbyist and special interest group bribery? Whatever the reason, me and you as general citizens, our best interest is not in their minds and I have e a huge problem with that. Either HCTRA needs to disappear or it needs to be HEAVILY regulated. Your first quote says That is NOT the only option! Are these people kidding me!? "oh the state won't fund it and the county can't afford it right out. Gotta sell off some bonds to private investor groups!" That's not only the easy way out, but I suspect it had to do with private interest groups and campaign financing.

SO has the trash and debris been sitting all on the shoulder since 1970? Are the same potholes there from 45 years ago? They don't even clean the road. almost a billion dollars a year and apparently excess funds go to maintain "free" roads, yet they can't even maintain the free section of their own toll road? Sounds like a crock to me. I think they either need to do some seriously trimming down in their operations cost or someone is stealing massive amounts of money if they're bringing in almost a billion a year now and can't even clean trash up off the free section of BW 8.

How is it irrelevant? It's the reason why the road never went free. It was intentionally lumped with a bunch of unrelated mumbo jumbo. You and others claimed that the toll road is voters fault, but it's not. It's the fault of crooked politicians and special interest groups who intentionally buried it inside another ballot. The false premise here is that you all seem to think it was voted in and people knew what they were voting for when that's total malarkey. NO ONE in their right mind would have voted for the current beltway 8 system as it is now.

Bro what are you talking about? Way to derail the conversation with random ramblings and twisted accounts of the info I posted... Did you read the article from ABC13? Here it is again: That's their news article, not mine While they may have signed the ballot to build the road and pay it off in the 80's, apparently we weren't "paying tolls forever" in spite of the fact that it's been paid off for years and years until 2001...

What I'm getting at is that I keep hearing that the state highway fund can't keep up with growth- which is understandable. However it seems like we should be able to construct at least ONE road entirely from the state highway fund. What's being done with this money? Surely it could be used more efficiently.

No I'm not avoiding it at all. BigFootSocks said (sarcastically) that every new single road, bridge, drive thru, and parking lot is now being tolled. He doesn't seem to be too far off. As far as I can tell, there are zero public bridges being constructed that aren't slated to have a toll. The are zero new highways in concept or currently being constructed that don't involve a toll. Drive thru's and parking lots have little to do with toll roads so I'm not sure why he is bringing that up. Perhaps to try to derail the thread from the actual topic which is that as far as I can tell; zero public roads are slated for construction that will not include some kind of toll Correct me if I am wrong...

You both seem to be avoiding the question. Especially skyline. Your google search is the reason I asked the question. There seems to be no clear info on what percentage of the state highway fund is being used to construct toll roads.

Okay so there was no mention of what would happen once they're paid off at all then?(with the exception of the brochure released to the public stating it would be free? Honestly how many of us are reading ballots?) Because according to that news article we were never "paying forever" until 2001 when it got lumped into some random ballot and signed in the middle of the night. Either way at the beginning of this thread you guys stated with such conviction that "we all voted for this" and it was presented that way from the get-go, which now you guys don't seem so sure...

That's what I'm trying to get across here. Surely if anyone would have done a news broadcast at the time saying something along the lines of the reality that we are supposed to just shut up and pay to use this road for eternity, there would have been mobs with pitch forks. Lets be realistic, certainly at the time it would have been reasonable to expect that the toll would be to fund that road and that's it. The fact that they released the brochure demonstrates that there was an attempt to cover up the truth from coming out on a massive scale. The article I posted also mentions an old ran down building in town that houses all kinds of articles and documents showing the arguments about the bonds. I'd like to see if anything on those articles even remotely mentions that the tolls would never go away...when in fact the only thing I hear about that was written in plain everyday english that most people can understand was this brochure.

I can't help notice that virtually every title on the first page in this forum has the word toll in it. Several of our toll roads have been paid off for years and years. Apparently they continue to be tolled to pay for new construction. If that's the case shouldn't we be seeing some new roads being constructed without any tolls?

No they're not idiots, we are for continuing to elect them. Instead of figuring things out the easy thing to do is just keep building toll roads since people like you and me are stupid enough to believe their story about how there's no other way to fund the road.

Well money does change hands seeing how we've paid for BW8 more than seven times over, but the only new roads appearing are somehow more toll roads. So if we pay tolls on a road that been paid for, in order to have money to build new roads, why are all new roads tolled?

Yes. The entire stretch of hwy 290 between BW8 and 610. I drive both 288 and 290 Daily and 290 is far worse. No comparison.

According to Houston19514; the Houston media is a group of bought and paid for liars, but the Houston politicians are totally on the up and up and would never lie It's just that damned general public and the houston media making up stories about why they apparently voted for a toll road they would pay for over and over again where fees just keep increasing over time. You think anyone would vote for that???? Yeah me either.

What are the facts? Was it in the original ballot language that the road would be free and if so why did it get changed in 2001 to where it will no longer become free? You can't unfree something if it were never going to be free to begin with, as you claim.

So what? So your whole point was that the public was not lied to since the brochure came out AFTER the road was voted on. However the public WAS in fact lied to because the road was secretly made to where "you'll be paying tolls forever" in 2001, long after the public voted on a road that would eventually be free and long after the brochure came out, buried in a ballot about unrelated issues. If the original ballot said ANYTHING about the road never becoming free, why was it amended in 2001 to never become free? Ironically at about the time people were starting to wonder why it's still being tolled. Hmmm...I wonder...

On a more serious note lets dissect what you just said; according to your timeline the road was voted on and the brocure came out saying it would be free AFTER the road was voted on. but if I am reading this part right, the part where the road would "never be free" didn't come into effect until 2001... But there's not convincing you...I'm simply showing people reading this that your opinion on the matter is apparently skewed and biased for unknown reasons.

Again why is this NEWS in 2012? How long ago was the road paid off and the general public is just now being made aware that they will be paying tolls forever?

So it's all just some big media conspiracy to rally people against toll roads? Who's paying them off? Did you put on your tin foil hat this morning?

I don't understand how you guys aren't outraged when you look at the facts. BW8 has been paid for seven times over and apparently excess funds are going to free roads in the area. Really? Whens the last time you've drove on the free section of BW8? It's full of potholes, old pavement, damaged expansion joints, trash and debris all on the shoulder....looks like a totally different road. You can visually tell when you enter the free section. How much money does it cost to sweep the freaking trash off the road?! EVERY free road is like this! it's a joke. Trash and debris all over any non-tolled road...so where are the excess funds being used? I'm not seeing it anywhere in houston.

I'm talking about local residents who actually use 288. Bonds could have been sold to everyday people who could afford thousands and not millions. I'd love to invest in local infrastructure if I would get a return and a 288 toll road is obviously going to give a return. Again you are taking something I said and twisting it to suit your agenda of discrediting me and praising toll roads, for reasons I'm not quite sure of... What's happening here is you're getting pissed all over and being told it's raining. Property taxes are getting ridiculous, tolls on roads that have been paid off for years(BW8 anyone) just keep going up, the money is getting put into some massive cookie jar that no one can reasonably track...and you guys are all for it! Totally nuts... You guys say the language in the ballot for BW8 was so clear? People should have understood they would be paying on beltway 8 FOREVER back when it was voted for?? REALLY? Why was this on ABC13 news in 2012 then? null So don't act like I'm some nut job when I say we're being lied to...

You suggesting that shadow tolling could be unprofitable if traffic patterns "just don't work out" is laughable. Of course they're going to work out if it's a "free" road. Especially with all the TOLL roads around. The only time it DOESNT work out is when some private company sees a business opportunity in building a road, in some cases where traffic isn't even bad to begin with,,,what happens is people see the road for what it is and they don't use it. That's not going to happen on "free" roads.

Oh really, so after all that trying that all their lobbyists went through, they eventually WERE stuck with the bill? GReat news! You are speaking as if it were setup that way from the get-go. Nothing could be further from the truth.SH130 video Also keep in mind who the person in the article is that you are quoting: SH 130 Concession Company CEO Alfonso Orol. yeah, he doesn't have any reason to lie, right? LOL Shadow tolling isn't the only thing discussed in those links. You just picked out one topic that doesn't apply(YET) to Texas(and I never said all of the linked info did apply) to try and discredit what I'm saying. Shadow tolling isn't guaranteed profit? Maybe not, but the chance of it NOT being profitable would be slim to none.