HCTRA - 2013 Annual Report

[MaxConcrete]

HCTRA's annual report for FY 2013 was recently posted on their site

https://www.hctra.org/about_reports/

Observations

* Overall traffic count up 4.9% to 428,307,389  (1.173 million/day)
* The Katy managed lanes showed the biggest percent increase in traffic count at 20.2% followed by the Sam Houston Tollway Northeast (18.6%) and the Ship Channel Bridge (10.8%)
* The traffic leaders remained the same as last year: Sam Houston Tollway north (IH 45N to US 290) at 203k vpd, Sam Houston Tollway South (IH 10W to US 59S) at 197k vpd, and Sam Houston Central (US 290 to IH 10) at 161k vpd
* The Westpark Tollway was 119k vpd, up 5.7% but still below its 2008 peak of 125k vpd. Traffic dropped 14.5% from 2008 to 2010 due to the completion of the Katy Freeway expansion in 2008.
* The Fort Bend Parkway connection continued to slowly increase, rising 8.6% to 9471 vpd. But it remains below its 2008 peak of 9987 vpd.
* Hardy Toll Road north increased 4.3% to 50.5k vpd and Hardy Toll Road South increased 4.5% to 58.2k vpd.

* Overall Revenue increased 7.85% to $560.1 million
* Revenue leader was the Sam Houston Tollway North at $93.2 million, up 8.6%, followed by Sam Houston Tollway South at $87.6 million, up 6.3%
* The Katy Managed lanes reported $10.3 million in revenue on a traffic count of 19.3 million. This seems unexpected to me since I thought most traffic was at peak periods when tolls are high.
* Biggest percent gainers were the Katy Managed Lanes at 28.9%, Sam Houston Tollway Northeast at 22.3%, Fort Bend Parkway connection at 12.2% and the Ship Channel Bridge at 10.5%

* $120 million in revenue was transferred out of HCTRA to the Harris county road fund.
"The Commissioners Court approved a $120 million annual allocation for funding of a County thoroughfare program to increase general mobility."
This was down from $133.5 million in 2012.

With Houston's economy booming and traffic congestion worsening, I think a good performance was expected. In fact, I would have expected a somewhat higher traffic increase on the toll roads. But with the cash-cow sections of the Sam Houston Tollway at or near capacity at rush hour, growth will have to come from the facilities with less traffic.
 

[kdog08]

Thanks, good info.