Voters to make call on borrowing $5 billion for roads

AUSTIN — Voters are set to decide by Nov. 6 whether they want to borrow $5 billion to improve Texas roadways.

Some Rio Grande Valley transportation officials are cheering for the measure to pass.

Proposition 12 would authorize the Texas Department of Transportation to issue the multi-billion dollar bonds for a variety of projects.

Dennis Burleson, chairman of the Hidalgo County Regional Mobility Authority, said some of the money might pay for part of the Southern Loop Project that will connect bridges and the Military Highway with U.S. Highway 281.

The loop project is expected to cost around $1.2 billion and be paid for by a combination of sources, including state contributions, driver tolls and local funds that the state repays based on the number of cars that use the road, Burleson said.

“If Proposition 12 passes, the state contribution to the loop is more assured,” Burleson said.

The measure doesn’t specify whether the money would go to building new roads or fixing old ones.

It also doesn’t say what transportation projects or areas of the state get the money. If voters approve Proposition 12, lawmakers would decide those details when they return to Austin in 2009.

In recent years, TxDOT has encouraged local governments to create regional authorities to decide how to build transportation projects the state cannot afford, sometimes using controversial toll projects to pay for them.

The highway department must compete with other state needs for the gasoline tax revenue. It also contends with decreased federal funds and increased costs of completing road projects, said TxDOT spokesman Randall Dillard.

“We’re not going to have enough money to both reduce congestion and maintain our system properly,” he said.

Peggy Venable, director of the Texas office of Americans for Prosperity, said borrowing money to pay for roads, especially when the state has a surplus, is unacceptable.

Building roads is an important responsibility of the state, but lawmakers should find the money in the budget rather than asking the public to borrow it and pay interest on the bonds, she said.

“We simply see this as voters kind of writing a blank check to the Department of Transportation,” Venable said.

Instead, lawmakers should ask for a constitutional amendment to redirect the gasoline tax to exclusively pay for transportation projects rather than continuing to spend part of it on education, she said.

Early voting continues until Friday.

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Elizabeth Pierson Hernandez covers the state capital for Valley Freedom Newspapers. She is based in Austin and can be reached at (512) 323-0622.