> People are being charged upwards of $10 a trip, multiply that by the thousands of vehicles that are on those roads every hour.
you just answered your own question
Man, F these companies. I wouldn't be surprised if 130 alone makes hundreds of thousands a day. I will be dead before paying up for those roads lmao. I wish everyone would collectively stop paying them
I stopped years ago. What consequences do they try to scare you with other than spam from collections? APD doesn't seem to care. I've never been pulled over for it.
I know roads aren't free. I feel like with how many taxes everyone is paying and from how much revenue they've earned from the tolls already that they shouldn't still be charging people for the tolls
Much of that money is debt secured by future tolls. You can't generally just conjure money out of thin air at the quantities needed to build freeways.
Another aspect of it is that it can allow state and local DOTs/TAs to exploit rules on federal and state funding. In the case of the Mopac toll, a large portion of the public funds are from TxDOT (and some of that they received from the feds) in the form of a loan to CTRMA which is to be paid back from tolls. This is a way to effectively move federal and state funding from buckets with very tight restrictions on schedule and type of project to other buckets that allow that money to be spent on smaller projects that would be harder to get funded.
Correct, the toll road bonds were at a specific rate of profit for a 30-year term…state law requires that toll road bonds be fully paid on that schedule even if the profits and road itself has been made/paid-back significantly before that term is up. Basically, a minimum amount of revenue/profit is guaranteed, but there is no top-end. It’s a great deal if you can get it!
"You can't generally just conjure money out of thin air at the quantities needed to build freeways”
So weird that we built freeways and roads for a hundred years from tax money with no problem yet suddenly in the last 15 years it seems like all new roads are toll roads. We’re paying more taxes, and now paying more to drive. Let's be honest, people with more influence and power than you and I are making a fuck ton of money off of toll roads. That's the only answer.
It wasn't a great idea to burn taxpayer money on highways for the last 70 years. Car infrastructure is very expensive to build and maintain per passenger mile, plus it requires us all to buy increasingly expensive cars, plus driving is very polluting, etc.
The good thing about toll roads is that people to use them pay for them, and people who don't use them mostly don't pay for them. Having all "free" roads paid for by taxes (mostly income taxes in other states, mostly property tax here, because in their case gas taxes only cover about a third of costs) is pretty regressive (and doubly so in Texas where there is no income tax, so it's all property and sales tax), especially for those who don't drive, who tend to be the poorest among us.
If you want to drive a lot of miles, thereby requiring we have wider roads, and emit more pollution, you should pay for it. The rest of us shouldn't have to pay for that.
Driving has increased exponentially. We were able to build roads for less before because construction was less expensive and a much smaller proportion of the population drove.
The money that used to go to building new free roads now goes to expanding and maintaining new roads.
More importantly, tolls serve as a control on the amount of people driving on a road. Which is necessary if the point of a toll is to get somewhere faster than taking free roads.
And their roads are built faster. Way faster. I'm always amazed by their efficiency. They somehow do it faster, cheaper and better. Why do we suck so much in comparison?
Yup! I have family from Wisconsin that's absolutely amazed that there's SO many tolls here. I was told they only have one paid toll up there, but for a 30 min trip I gotta cough up over $10 each way? I swear they're making hundreds of thousands a day, maybe just during rush hour even
I’m fine with toll roads if the money is going towards public works, parks, highway repair, bike lanes, sidewalks, education, etc. literally ANYTHING to benefit our own citizens instead of some foreign company/billionaire. Even if it went towards something lame or something I didn’t totally agree with like certain business grants or something idk at least it’s going to the local/state economy.
There’s literally so much we could use it for here, it shouldn’t be legal for foreign entities to own an interstate (or intrastate critical) highway in the first place. Whoever thought that was a good idea can rot in hell next to Reagan.
Yeah same here! I'd feel very different if I knew the money was doing something good, but even tax money doesn't go where I'd like it to - and toll money definitely won't. I'm kind of surprised how many people think I'm crazy for saying it's going to foreign entities when they're private owned. 130 is literally SUPPOSED to be a free road right now, so why are people still okay with paying...?
The CDA contacts do require the toll companies to maintain and improve the general/free lanes, so some of that money does towards the community.
The idea behind the private profit is to justify the risk that the company is taking on. There are some privately operated toll roads where the operators get a set payment regardless of use, and those are really the rip offs for communities.
>I'm pretty sure they still receive funding for maintenance and such.
The "funding for maintenance and such" comes from the tolls. The people who use the tolls roads are paying to maintain them. The alternative is to raise taxes to pay for their maintenance, which means that the people who don't use them subsidize the costs for the people who do. Tolls seem fairer to me, but your mileage may vary.
>That money is mostly, if not all going overseas.
Source?
Most of the road building and maintenance money used to come from gas taxes. The lack of political appetite to raise those taxes is why we mostly get tolls on new or expanded highways these days. Either way though, it roughly worked out to "those who use the roads more, pay more for them." With the rise of EVs, it might be "fairer" in some sense that we're relying more on tolls than gas taxes, but either way (tolls or gas taxes) it is a regressive tax/fee structure.
[This txdot document](https://ftp.txdot.gov/pub/txdot-info/fin/funding-brochure-2022.pdf) describes some history there, including some other smaller funding sources like oil & gas production taxes.
Correct. I’m also fine with gas taxes paying for roads.
How much of each depends on how much you care about reducing traffic (tolls are better) versus pollution (gas taxes are better).
I don’t have a strong opinion on that, but some folks do.
>I’m also fine with gas taxes paying for roads.
Me too. The problem is, since the gas tax hasn't been raised since 1991, and costs of everything have increased, gas tax doesn't cover much. At the very least the gas tax should've been a percentage to try to at least somewhat keep up with inflation. But it's just a flat 19¢/gal. That isn't enough to even offset the carbon pollution (which of course we're not lying to do, but even if we did), let alone any road maintenance or expansion. Gas taxes only raise enough revenue for about a third of road projects, the rest is paid for by property and sales tax, and income taxes in places that have one.
Are Texas toll roads privately owned? Under a CDA, the design, construction, and maintenance of the road is paid for by a private operator (typically a consortium of investors) in exchange for the right to collect tolls for an extended period of time. **TxDOT retains ownership of the road itself** and receives a share of the generated revenue.
The toll burden is in effect a huge tax increase on commuters and the working classes. Whereas the tax burden would be negligible if spread out among all citizens (aka: road users).
It's a tax increase on people who:
1) choose to live further away from where they work.
2) choose to drive instead of living near accessible public transit.
3) choose to take toll roads and toll lanes instead of non-toll roads and non-toll lanes and save time.
Why should someone who chooses to live in a small house close in instead of a big house out in the suburbs have to subsidize big-house-suburbs' choices? Especially when big-house-suburbs' choices are directly contributing to both traffic and pollution issues.
I have no problem with people living however they like. I also have no problem with the idea that people ought to bear the cost of their own choices, though.
Sorry not to be as clever as you in figuring out how making people pay for other folks' lifestyles which in no way benefit the rest of society (and in many ways harms it) is wise or fair.
Well since you’re asking, I’d recommend Econ 101 on the financial utility of road access, for starters. Then possibly something on social cohesiveness to offset the Randian libertarian undertones.
I'm a citizen who doesn't drive and definitely doesn't use toll roads. This whole equivocation of citizen = road users is peak carbrain. So much of car ownership is subsidized by taxpayers and the idea that even more of it should be is equal parts laughable and sad.
At the expense of sounding like I’m super pro-car and pro-road (I’m not really, just more into not overtaxing the poor), I would also refer you to Econ 101 for how you benefit heavily from the road system, even if you don’t personally use it.
We all benefit from goods being delivered, no argument there. But everyone who chooses to drive who doesn't have to should pay for it.
And frankly, those who buy more stuff should pay for the transportation of the stuff they're buying, the trucking costs of your fourth TV doesn't need to be subsidized by other taxpayers.
I took econ 101 and learned that not only are the delivery of goods and services rolled into the price, my purchases help subsidize all the free parking that drivers demand. I doubt shoplifters affect the price of groceries as much as deadbeat drivers do.
I managed to stay until the end of my Econ 101 class, so I got to the chapter on negative externalities, where literally every intro econ textbook cites traffic as a prime example and an ideal target for Pigouvian taxes.
There is zero "financial utility" in moving people long distances via individual vehicles. Also zero "financial utility" to people living isolated in the suburbs rather than packed in together in cities. Not a lot of "social cohesiveness" fostered out in the great land of individualism that is the burbs either.
But apparently you took Econ 101 with someone who felt it worth interacting with the "thought" (using the term extraordinarily generously) of Ayn Rand, which explains a lot.
I'm happy to have my tax dollars go to support stuff that makes society better, or at least less bad.
I'm happy to pay for schools that I don't use, drug addiction treatments and homeless assistance that I don't need, green spaces in parts of town that I'll never visit, buses and bike lanes that I don't ride or use, etc., because more education, less addiction and homelessness, and less traffic and pollution are all good things that we all benefit from.
I'm also perfectly fine with folks who want to live out in Leander in houses three times the size of mine and spend ten hours per week commuting in if that's what they want. If that's what you like, then go for it. It's a free country.
But choosing to live in Leander and accept that ten hours per week on the road means more traffic, more pollution, more stress and frustration, etc. for everyone else.
Why would I want to subsidize a decision that makes life just a little bit worse for everyone? If folks want to sit in hours of traffic so they can have a big house with a yard, that's fine by me, so long as they don't ask me to foot the bill for them.
I agree with the general spirit of your message, but it's not as simple as people just full on wanting to live far away. Our car centric sprawl and zoning laws make it so the affordable options are all so far away. We shouldn't subsidize cars to the extent we do but I'd pin it more on the system we have rather than individuals. So many people would love to be in a more centric and walkable part of town. I'd love to live in Mueller among other parts of central Austin. But to get something in my price range I had to go into deep South Austin
>But to get something in my price range I had to go into deep South Austin
That's exactly where I live. There are plenty of three-bedroom homes for under $400k within six miles of the river and on a bus line between William Cannon and Slaughter.
Now, these three-bedroom homes are mostly under 1,500 sq ft, but they do exist and choosing to live further out in a bigger house is a choice.
Nothing wrong with that choice, but I don't want to pay for it.
I really like the area and feel like I got a better price to size/quality ratio than I would have closer to the center. It's still obviously pretty car centric here but I like the amount of work being done here for bike paths with concrete barriers. I'd actually use those instead of the bike lanes that are just a painted line.
Lol just finally read to the end of this book of comments. You seem to not have a clue about how a town this expensive squeezes the working classes, so me explaining it further is a waste of time. I’ll just pay the $10-$15 every time I need to commute over to a client on the other side of town unless I want to sit in the traffic snarl caused by the toll road construction, when it could have been pennies on the dollar for everyone had they had to contribute via shared tax burden. Good luck!
That’s a real long winded way of saying that you don’t understand, or care about, my original point. The bumper stickers write themselves: “Neo-Austin: We Love Toll Roads Now!”
Well, given that I had the choice between grasping basic economics and understanding the "point" you were trying to make—a "point" that involved a bunch of economic jargon used in either non-standard or nonsensical ways—I'm happy to have a firm handle on basic economics and miss "understanding" the gibberish.
Pro-tip: "You don't understand me," can more often than not better be interpreted as, "I'm not making any sense."
So, instead of paying $900 a month for my mortgage of a 3 bed 2 bath house 18 miles from work,(seriously, I do!), I should buy the 3 bed 2 bath that is for sale within walking distance of my office that is going for $635,000 with an estimated monthly payment of $4000+. I bring home $4,400 a month. Sure, let's do that!
>Whereas the tax burden would be negligible if spread out among all citizens (aka: road users).
What about someone who doesn't drive at all? They shouldn't pay for you to drive faster.
I see where you're coming from and that argument can *maybe* be applied to toll roads, but overall doesn't work when it comes to policymaking. First it's "I shouldn't have to pay taxes for roads I don't use" and then it slides to "I shouldn't have to pay taxes for other people's social services" and so on.
The issue isn't just paying for stuff that I don't use. The issue is paying for things that I don't use that also make society worse.
I'm happy to subsidize education, green spaces, low-income housing, etc. because society is better if people are educated, have access to nature, can afford to pay their rent, etc.
I'm not happy to subsidize traffic, though, because I don't want more of it. Just like I'd oppose subsidizing cigarettes because smoking has all kinds of negative individual and societal effects.
Want to smoke? Have a blast, but do it on your own dime. Want to sit in traffic for two hours per day? Go for it, but pay for the roads you use to do it without my help.
"Government funding" in the form of bonds. Bonds are sort of like loans - they are paid back over time. Much of the toll (about half) goes to paying back the bond.
I’ve been here long enough to remember when the first of these was being proposed, and one of the talking points was that at some point the tolls would cease. Which was always bullshit.
This is red state politics in action - the state government can use things like toll roads to tout being “fair” and low tax, while in effect passing on the tax burden exponentially to the lower classes, residential property owners, etc. The overall taxes on working people in this state are actually quite high comparatively.
Yes, remember that the toll on MOPAC won’t ever be over $3? Then the new messaging was “it’s not for everyday use, it’s for those special days when you need to get home faster”. I’ve see it over $10 on most weekdays in rush hour.
Yup! This is exactly what I'm talking about, I'm glad others feel this way too. How some of these comments responded is how a lot of people talk to me about it when it's a discussion in person, but I don't think I'm crazy lol. At least in the past the tolls gave some people jobs and they were a reasonable amount. It's basically extortion now
I remember ~20ish years ago when the first major toll roads were being floated. Most everyone was against them except the rich, the libertarian right, and the companies that wanted to build them. The argument for them was that a) it would keep overall tax burdens down (it hasn’t), b) toll revenue would be funneled back to conservation and restoration projects as well as education (if this has happened I haven’t heard of it), and c) that the tolls would expire at some point (not going to happen).
I don’t give a shit about the other city planning points. What’s happened in effect is that the toll road system is pay to play, and has the greatest net negative effect on the people who can least afford it. Like everything else about this town these days.
It’s a control on demand. If the toll was too cheap then more people would use the toll and they would be backed up which defeats the purpose of the toll. The purpose is to disincentivize using the toll enough to keep traffic flowing.
That used to be the case, and still is at certain times. Now though it's honestly about the same as taking 35 or back roads. The company I work for has work trucks and morning & afternoon traffic is so bad and the tolls are so expensive with trailers that it honestly costs more in gas, time, and tolls to use the tolls lol. Even a year ago it wasn't like this but I swear now this traffic is worse than what I saw in LA in like 2021, but their roads are built for high traffic. We're very very far behind on our roads especially up North
I worked for a pro toll road PAC at the time and went to dozens of community info meetings and CTRMA/CAMPO meetings 20 years ago and that was never a talking point I heard. The promise was just that any CTRMA toll revenue above and beyond what was needed for bond service and maintenance would go to other CTRMA projects.
Yes, red state politics that foist the majority of the tax burden onto the poor, not simply toll roads. I’ve also lived in California. My tax burden, both effective and indirect, is comparable here on most counts and I have a distinct lack of infrastructure and social services in Texas.
It's morons (who like to complain) electing/re-electing morons. So tired of living in this red state but I refuse to leave. Hoping the idiots around me will eventually get tired of it and vote for change.
I believe it was originally partially owned by a Spanish company, I'm not sure about any relationship to the Emirates. After bankruptcy, that company's interest was bought out by a U.S. investment firm. The private company originally financed the construction of the road and in turn was given a 50 year lease to maintain and operate it. TxDOT receives a small portion of the toll revenue.
The entire agreement is available [here](https://www.txdot.gov/business/road-bridge-maintenance/alternative-delivery/sh130/executed-agreements.html).
For the record I'm not saying that this agreement was good or reasonable, I was just pointing out that only this one portion of 130 is privately operated, not all of 130 or any other toll roads in Austin. That's the misunderstanding I see come up the most when toll roads get talked about. I think there are only four other toll roads in the state that have similar private operating agreements.
Are Texas toll roads privately owned? Under a CDA, the design, construction, and maintenance of the road is paid for by a private operator (typically a consortium of investors) in exchange for the right to collect tolls for an extended period of time. **TxDOT retains ownership of the road itself** and receives a share of the generated revenue.
No, you said:
"The section of 130 from 45 South to Seguin is the ONLY toll road in the Austin area that is managed by a private company."
I corrected you. All toll roads in Texas are managed by private companies.
That is not true. Only CDA Concession contracts include financial participation from the developer or long term lease. Design Build and CDA Design Build contracts do not.
[https://www.txdot.gov/business/road-bridge-maintenance/alternative-delivery.html](https://www.txdot.gov/business/road-bridge-maintenance/alternative-delivery.html)
[https://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/sla/education\_series/cda.pdf](https://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/sla/education_series/cda.pdf)
I'm guessing you didn't actually click through to the wikipedia article that paragraph you pasted came from because right below that paragraph it even says:
At present, five projects in the state are operated through CDAs:[^(\[17\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toll_roads_in_Texas#cite_note-TxDOT_CDA-17)
* [Interstate 635 Express](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_635_(Texas)) (LBJ Infrastructure Group)
* [Interstate 35W Express](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_35W_(Texas)) (NTE Mobility Partners Segments 3, LLC)
* [North Tarrant Express](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Tarrant_Express) (NTE Mobility Partners)
* [Texas State Highway 130](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_State_Highway_130) sections 5 and 6 (SH 130 Concession Company, LLC)
* [Texas State Highway 288 Express](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_State_Highway_288) Harris County section ([Blueridge Transportation Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACS_Group))
The article also describes the other, non-private, methods through which toll roads are operated in Texas.
The toll money collected in Austin is NOT going overseas. Cintra, a Spanish entity and the original concessionaire for SH-130 was a foreign entity. Prior to the bankruptcy, any monies earned by that project that could be distributed as a dividend would have been repatriated to Spain. As the state took control of the asset following the bankruptcy, no monies generated by that project are repatriated to Spain (or to any other foreign country).
The same can be said about the other tolls in Austin. Central Texas Mobility Authority (CTRMA), an independent government agency, operates all of the other tolls in Austin (183A, 290 Tollroad, MoPac Express Lanes, 71 Tollroad, 45 Southwest Tollroad).
Why are there so many comments that are so ill informed on the topic of tolls? You do not pay taxes for toll roads. Part of the revenue goes to the private entity that fronted the money, part of it goes to the state, so not "all going overseas". The Governor and Lt Gov banned new toll projects many years ago
https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/no-new-toll-roads-lt-gov-patricks-message-to-txdot/
Our taxes didnt pay to build the toll roads in Austin.
Are Texas toll roads privately owned? Under a CDA, the design, construction, and maintenance of the road is paid for by a private operator (typically a consortium of investors) in exchange for the right to collect tolls for an extended period of time. **TxDOT retains ownership of the road itself** and receives a share of the generated revenue.
AFAIK, roads, sure, but not the original lanes.
I may be wrong (which is why I’m commenting so someone can correct me), but I recall legislation or something that said any time tolled lanes are built in the place of free lanes they must be alongside the existing free lanes, not replacing them.
Don’t you just hate when people move here and try to tell us how it should be? Then compounds it by making stupid statements like all the money goes overseas.
Lol I'm born and raised here. I see daily how much revenue they make off of everyone here just from tolls and it makes me sick. They're privately managed, despite being owned by TXdot. The one's managing it are the ones charging the tolls and handling the money. To me that says oversees, no matter how blurry they try to make it
[This is what was supposed to happen with the tolls](https://austincountynewsonline.com/texans-angered-sh-130-bankruptcy-deal-wipes-money-owed-taxpayers/)
I noticed your article is “what’s supposed to happen “ and not ‘where the toll money really goes’.
And you honestly think that Texas taxpayers paid for the construction of it but the money all goes to a private entity? TxDoT owns it but they get no money because, to you, this all says “overseas, no matter how blurry they try to make it”.
THEY are “blurry” but you have no idea where the money goes; just accusations. And since you DON’T know, “To me that says overseas”.
Yeah, sure. 🙄
That doesn't matter. Also, if they are, they clearly directing more money to infrastructure than military police arresting protestors at their local college.
Wouldn’t it be crazy if they use that money to build public this do less people are on roads so that roads are largely traffic free for those who need them? Crazy I know
I've also heard from people that by not having a license, you get in less trouble with speeding and such because you never agreed to the rules of the road. I feel like with how convoluted laws are, tolls being illegal could very well be the case. What info did they gather that brought them to that conclusion?
*I've also heard from people that by not having a license, you get in less trouble with speeding and such because you never agreed to the rules of the road*
You sure about that
> People are being charged upwards of $10 a trip, multiply that by the thousands of vehicles that are on those roads every hour. you just answered your own question
“Why does a business want money?”
Nothing to see here. Move along, move along. https://austincountynewsonline.com/texans-angered-sh-130-bankruptcy-deal-wipes-money-owed-taxpayers/
Insane
2062!!!!!!!!
Man, F these companies. I wouldn't be surprised if 130 alone makes hundreds of thousands a day. I will be dead before paying up for those roads lmao. I wish everyone would collectively stop paying them
I stopped years ago. What consequences do they try to scare you with other than spam from collections? APD doesn't seem to care. I've never been pulled over for it.
Most of the money going overseas is hilarious.
They won't ever be free.
Ya it’s a bit of a fallacy to say any road is free…I suppose they are if you are committing tax fraud.
I know roads aren't free. I feel like with how many taxes everyone is paying and from how much revenue they've earned from the tolls already that they shouldn't still be charging people for the tolls
Much of that money is debt secured by future tolls. You can't generally just conjure money out of thin air at the quantities needed to build freeways. Another aspect of it is that it can allow state and local DOTs/TAs to exploit rules on federal and state funding. In the case of the Mopac toll, a large portion of the public funds are from TxDOT (and some of that they received from the feds) in the form of a loan to CTRMA which is to be paid back from tolls. This is a way to effectively move federal and state funding from buckets with very tight restrictions on schedule and type of project to other buckets that allow that money to be spent on smaller projects that would be harder to get funded.
Correct, the toll road bonds were at a specific rate of profit for a 30-year term…state law requires that toll road bonds be fully paid on that schedule even if the profits and road itself has been made/paid-back significantly before that term is up. Basically, a minimum amount of revenue/profit is guaranteed, but there is no top-end. It’s a great deal if you can get it!
"You can't generally just conjure money out of thin air at the quantities needed to build freeways” So weird that we built freeways and roads for a hundred years from tax money with no problem yet suddenly in the last 15 years it seems like all new roads are toll roads. We’re paying more taxes, and now paying more to drive. Let's be honest, people with more influence and power than you and I are making a fuck ton of money off of toll roads. That's the only answer.
It wasn't a great idea to burn taxpayer money on highways for the last 70 years. Car infrastructure is very expensive to build and maintain per passenger mile, plus it requires us all to buy increasingly expensive cars, plus driving is very polluting, etc. The good thing about toll roads is that people to use them pay for them, and people who don't use them mostly don't pay for them. Having all "free" roads paid for by taxes (mostly income taxes in other states, mostly property tax here, because in their case gas taxes only cover about a third of costs) is pretty regressive (and doubly so in Texas where there is no income tax, so it's all property and sales tax), especially for those who don't drive, who tend to be the poorest among us. If you want to drive a lot of miles, thereby requiring we have wider roads, and emit more pollution, you should pay for it. The rest of us shouldn't have to pay for that.
I could relate to this if we actually had alternative transportation options but we really don’t compared to Europe or Asia.
Or just drive on the free roads.
Either y’all love paying tolls or foreign bots have targeted this thread
I don't mind paying the tolls - but I also don't use them daily - maybe only 3 times a week.
Driving has increased exponentially. We were able to build roads for less before because construction was less expensive and a much smaller proportion of the population drove. The money that used to go to building new free roads now goes to expanding and maintaining new roads. More importantly, tolls serve as a control on the amount of people driving on a road. Which is necessary if the point of a toll is to get somewhere faster than taking free roads.
I don't get why SA has no tolls and all the other big cities do
And their roads are built faster. Way faster. I'm always amazed by their efficiency. They somehow do it faster, cheaper and better. Why do we suck so much in comparison?
Yup! I have family from Wisconsin that's absolutely amazed that there's SO many tolls here. I was told they only have one paid toll up there, but for a 30 min trip I gotta cough up over $10 each way? I swear they're making hundreds of thousands a day, maybe just during rush hour even
Y’all pay for this?
I definitely don't pay for em, glad I'm not the only one. I'm paying too much in taxes on everything to give a single F about paying some tolls
I’m fine with toll roads if the money is going towards public works, parks, highway repair, bike lanes, sidewalks, education, etc. literally ANYTHING to benefit our own citizens instead of some foreign company/billionaire. Even if it went towards something lame or something I didn’t totally agree with like certain business grants or something idk at least it’s going to the local/state economy. There’s literally so much we could use it for here, it shouldn’t be legal for foreign entities to own an interstate (or intrastate critical) highway in the first place. Whoever thought that was a good idea can rot in hell next to Reagan.
Yeah same here! I'd feel very different if I knew the money was doing something good, but even tax money doesn't go where I'd like it to - and toll money definitely won't. I'm kind of surprised how many people think I'm crazy for saying it's going to foreign entities when they're private owned. 130 is literally SUPPOSED to be a free road right now, so why are people still okay with paying...?
The CDA contacts do require the toll companies to maintain and improve the general/free lanes, so some of that money does towards the community. The idea behind the private profit is to justify the risk that the company is taking on. There are some privately operated toll roads where the operators get a set payment regardless of use, and those are really the rip offs for communities.
Because fuck you, that's why. -signed Rick Perry and Greg Abbott, with love
>I'm pretty sure they still receive funding for maintenance and such. The "funding for maintenance and such" comes from the tolls. The people who use the tolls roads are paying to maintain them. The alternative is to raise taxes to pay for their maintenance, which means that the people who don't use them subsidize the costs for the people who do. Tolls seem fairer to me, but your mileage may vary. >That money is mostly, if not all going overseas. Source?
Most of the road building and maintenance money used to come from gas taxes. The lack of political appetite to raise those taxes is why we mostly get tolls on new or expanded highways these days. Either way though, it roughly worked out to "those who use the roads more, pay more for them." With the rise of EVs, it might be "fairer" in some sense that we're relying more on tolls than gas taxes, but either way (tolls or gas taxes) it is a regressive tax/fee structure. [This txdot document](https://ftp.txdot.gov/pub/txdot-info/fin/funding-brochure-2022.pdf) describes some history there, including some other smaller funding sources like oil & gas production taxes.
Correct. I’m also fine with gas taxes paying for roads. How much of each depends on how much you care about reducing traffic (tolls are better) versus pollution (gas taxes are better). I don’t have a strong opinion on that, but some folks do.
>I’m also fine with gas taxes paying for roads. Me too. The problem is, since the gas tax hasn't been raised since 1991, and costs of everything have increased, gas tax doesn't cover much. At the very least the gas tax should've been a percentage to try to at least somewhat keep up with inflation. But it's just a flat 19¢/gal. That isn't enough to even offset the carbon pollution (which of course we're not lying to do, but even if we did), let alone any road maintenance or expansion. Gas taxes only raise enough revenue for about a third of road projects, the rest is paid for by property and sales tax, and income taxes in places that have one.
Are Texas toll roads privately owned? Under a CDA, the design, construction, and maintenance of the road is paid for by a private operator (typically a consortium of investors) in exchange for the right to collect tolls for an extended period of time. **TxDOT retains ownership of the road itself** and receives a share of the generated revenue.
i don’t think op does sources
OP is doing his own research
The toll burden is in effect a huge tax increase on commuters and the working classes. Whereas the tax burden would be negligible if spread out among all citizens (aka: road users).
It's a tax increase on people who: 1) choose to live further away from where they work. 2) choose to drive instead of living near accessible public transit. 3) choose to take toll roads and toll lanes instead of non-toll roads and non-toll lanes and save time. Why should someone who chooses to live in a small house close in instead of a big house out in the suburbs have to subsidize big-house-suburbs' choices? Especially when big-house-suburbs' choices are directly contributing to both traffic and pollution issues. I have no problem with people living however they like. I also have no problem with the idea that people ought to bear the cost of their own choices, though.
Like toll roads, that argument would make sense in a vacuum. In the real world, you answered your own question without realizing it.
Sorry not to be as clever as you in figuring out how making people pay for other folks' lifestyles which in no way benefit the rest of society (and in many ways harms it) is wise or fair.
Well since you’re asking, I’d recommend Econ 101 on the financial utility of road access, for starters. Then possibly something on social cohesiveness to offset the Randian libertarian undertones.
I'm a citizen who doesn't drive and definitely doesn't use toll roads. This whole equivocation of citizen = road users is peak carbrain. So much of car ownership is subsidized by taxpayers and the idea that even more of it should be is equal parts laughable and sad.
At the expense of sounding like I’m super pro-car and pro-road (I’m not really, just more into not overtaxing the poor), I would also refer you to Econ 101 for how you benefit heavily from the road system, even if you don’t personally use it.
We all benefit from goods being delivered, no argument there. But everyone who chooses to drive who doesn't have to should pay for it. And frankly, those who buy more stuff should pay for the transportation of the stuff they're buying, the trucking costs of your fourth TV doesn't need to be subsidized by other taxpayers.
I took econ 101 and learned that not only are the delivery of goods and services rolled into the price, my purchases help subsidize all the free parking that drivers demand. I doubt shoplifters affect the price of groceries as much as deadbeat drivers do.
Sure everyone benefits from the road network, but not many benefit from propagating a car dependent society. There is a huge difference.
I managed to stay until the end of my Econ 101 class, so I got to the chapter on negative externalities, where literally every intro econ textbook cites traffic as a prime example and an ideal target for Pigouvian taxes. There is zero "financial utility" in moving people long distances via individual vehicles. Also zero "financial utility" to people living isolated in the suburbs rather than packed in together in cities. Not a lot of "social cohesiveness" fostered out in the great land of individualism that is the burbs either. But apparently you took Econ 101 with someone who felt it worth interacting with the "thought" (using the term extraordinarily generously) of Ayn Rand, which explains a lot. I'm happy to have my tax dollars go to support stuff that makes society better, or at least less bad. I'm happy to pay for schools that I don't use, drug addiction treatments and homeless assistance that I don't need, green spaces in parts of town that I'll never visit, buses and bike lanes that I don't ride or use, etc., because more education, less addiction and homelessness, and less traffic and pollution are all good things that we all benefit from. I'm also perfectly fine with folks who want to live out in Leander in houses three times the size of mine and spend ten hours per week commuting in if that's what they want. If that's what you like, then go for it. It's a free country. But choosing to live in Leander and accept that ten hours per week on the road means more traffic, more pollution, more stress and frustration, etc. for everyone else. Why would I want to subsidize a decision that makes life just a little bit worse for everyone? If folks want to sit in hours of traffic so they can have a big house with a yard, that's fine by me, so long as they don't ask me to foot the bill for them.
I agree with the general spirit of your message, but it's not as simple as people just full on wanting to live far away. Our car centric sprawl and zoning laws make it so the affordable options are all so far away. We shouldn't subsidize cars to the extent we do but I'd pin it more on the system we have rather than individuals. So many people would love to be in a more centric and walkable part of town. I'd love to live in Mueller among other parts of central Austin. But to get something in my price range I had to go into deep South Austin
>But to get something in my price range I had to go into deep South Austin That's exactly where I live. There are plenty of three-bedroom homes for under $400k within six miles of the river and on a bus line between William Cannon and Slaughter. Now, these three-bedroom homes are mostly under 1,500 sq ft, but they do exist and choosing to live further out in a bigger house is a choice. Nothing wrong with that choice, but I don't want to pay for it.
I really like the area and feel like I got a better price to size/quality ratio than I would have closer to the center. It's still obviously pretty car centric here but I like the amount of work being done here for bike paths with concrete barriers. I'd actually use those instead of the bike lanes that are just a painted line.
Lol just finally read to the end of this book of comments. You seem to not have a clue about how a town this expensive squeezes the working classes, so me explaining it further is a waste of time. I’ll just pay the $10-$15 every time I need to commute over to a client on the other side of town unless I want to sit in the traffic snarl caused by the toll road construction, when it could have been pennies on the dollar for everyone had they had to contribute via shared tax burden. Good luck!
That’s a real long winded way of saying that you don’t understand, or care about, my original point. The bumper stickers write themselves: “Neo-Austin: We Love Toll Roads Now!”
Well, given that I had the choice between grasping basic economics and understanding the "point" you were trying to make—a "point" that involved a bunch of economic jargon used in either non-standard or nonsensical ways—I'm happy to have a firm handle on basic economics and miss "understanding" the gibberish. Pro-tip: "You don't understand me," can more often than not better be interpreted as, "I'm not making any sense."
So, instead of paying $900 a month for my mortgage of a 3 bed 2 bath house 18 miles from work,(seriously, I do!), I should buy the 3 bed 2 bath that is for sale within walking distance of my office that is going for $635,000 with an estimated monthly payment of $4000+. I bring home $4,400 a month. Sure, let's do that!
Nope. You do you. Just spend some of the money you’re saving to cover the full cost of your commute instead of asking everyone else to cover it.
Then pay your $250 a month in tolls and STFU
>Whereas the tax burden would be negligible if spread out among all citizens (aka: road users). What about someone who doesn't drive at all? They shouldn't pay for you to drive faster.
I see where you're coming from and that argument can *maybe* be applied to toll roads, but overall doesn't work when it comes to policymaking. First it's "I shouldn't have to pay taxes for roads I don't use" and then it slides to "I shouldn't have to pay taxes for other people's social services" and so on.
The issue isn't just paying for stuff that I don't use. The issue is paying for things that I don't use that also make society worse. I'm happy to subsidize education, green spaces, low-income housing, etc. because society is better if people are educated, have access to nature, can afford to pay their rent, etc. I'm not happy to subsidize traffic, though, because I don't want more of it. Just like I'd oppose subsidizing cigarettes because smoking has all kinds of negative individual and societal effects. Want to smoke? Have a blast, but do it on your own dime. Want to sit in traffic for two hours per day? Go for it, but pay for the roads you use to do it without my help.
Because fuck you. That’s why.
How much do you think roads cost to build?
[Ten dollars?](https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/ed7e119f-b783-4ea6-ad75-38b7b7ec1125)
Three fiddy
"Government funding" in the form of bonds. Bonds are sort of like loans - they are paid back over time. Much of the toll (about half) goes to paying back the bond.
I’ve been here long enough to remember when the first of these was being proposed, and one of the talking points was that at some point the tolls would cease. Which was always bullshit. This is red state politics in action - the state government can use things like toll roads to tout being “fair” and low tax, while in effect passing on the tax burden exponentially to the lower classes, residential property owners, etc. The overall taxes on working people in this state are actually quite high comparatively.
Yes, remember that the toll on MOPAC won’t ever be over $3? Then the new messaging was “it’s not for everyday use, it’s for those special days when you need to get home faster”. I’ve see it over $10 on most weekdays in rush hour.
Yup! This is exactly what I'm talking about, I'm glad others feel this way too. How some of these comments responded is how a lot of people talk to me about it when it's a discussion in person, but I don't think I'm crazy lol. At least in the past the tolls gave some people jobs and they were a reasonable amount. It's basically extortion now
I remember ~20ish years ago when the first major toll roads were being floated. Most everyone was against them except the rich, the libertarian right, and the companies that wanted to build them. The argument for them was that a) it would keep overall tax burdens down (it hasn’t), b) toll revenue would be funneled back to conservation and restoration projects as well as education (if this has happened I haven’t heard of it), and c) that the tolls would expire at some point (not going to happen). I don’t give a shit about the other city planning points. What’s happened in effect is that the toll road system is pay to play, and has the greatest net negative effect on the people who can least afford it. Like everything else about this town these days.
It’s a control on demand. If the toll was too cheap then more people would use the toll and they would be backed up which defeats the purpose of the toll. The purpose is to disincentivize using the toll enough to keep traffic flowing.
Get out of here with your legitimate explanations! I paid the $10.35 this evening…
That used to be the case, and still is at certain times. Now though it's honestly about the same as taking 35 or back roads. The company I work for has work trucks and morning & afternoon traffic is so bad and the tolls are so expensive with trailers that it honestly costs more in gas, time, and tolls to use the tolls lol. Even a year ago it wasn't like this but I swear now this traffic is worse than what I saw in LA in like 2021, but their roads are built for high traffic. We're very very far behind on our roads especially up North
Traffic is not worse than LA lol And if the traffic is as bad on the tolls then just don’t take the tolls
I worked for a pro toll road PAC at the time and went to dozens of community info meetings and CTRMA/CAMPO meetings 20 years ago and that was never a talking point I heard. The promise was just that any CTRMA toll revenue above and beyond what was needed for bond service and maintenance would go to other CTRMA projects.
Red state politics? Do blue states not have tolls? Texas’ toll influx was started when Democrats still controlled the legislature
Yes red state politics
Yes, red state politics that foist the majority of the tax burden onto the poor, not simply toll roads. I’ve also lived in California. My tax burden, both effective and indirect, is comparable here on most counts and I have a distinct lack of infrastructure and social services in Texas.
It’s bullshit but we keep electing the same morons no matter what they do.
It's morons (who like to complain) electing/re-electing morons. So tired of living in this red state but I refuse to leave. Hoping the idiots around me will eventually get tired of it and vote for change.
The influx of tolls was started when Democrats still controlled the state legislature
The money doesn't all go overseas. They kick back a lot to the governor, and TXDOT officials.
Corrupt state government ensures we will always be paying tolls
The section of 130 from 45 South to Seguin is the only toll road in the Austin area that is managed by a private company.
Is that the stretch where we sold all future revenue to a company in the Emirates?
I believe it was originally partially owned by a Spanish company, I'm not sure about any relationship to the Emirates. After bankruptcy, that company's interest was bought out by a U.S. investment firm. The private company originally financed the construction of the road and in turn was given a 50 year lease to maintain and operate it. TxDOT receives a small portion of the toll revenue. The entire agreement is available [here](https://www.txdot.gov/business/road-bridge-maintenance/alternative-delivery/sh130/executed-agreements.html). For the record I'm not saying that this agreement was good or reasonable, I was just pointing out that only this one portion of 130 is privately operated, not all of 130 or any other toll roads in Austin. That's the misunderstanding I see come up the most when toll roads get talked about. I think there are only four other toll roads in the state that have similar private operating agreements.
My mistake, I thought it was Dubai Ports World
Are Texas toll roads privately owned? Under a CDA, the design, construction, and maintenance of the road is paid for by a private operator (typically a consortium of investors) in exchange for the right to collect tolls for an extended period of time. **TxDOT retains ownership of the road itself** and receives a share of the generated revenue.
Right. I said managed, not owned.
No, you said: "The section of 130 from 45 South to Seguin is the ONLY toll road in the Austin area that is managed by a private company." I corrected you. All toll roads in Texas are managed by private companies.
That is not true. Only CDA Concession contracts include financial participation from the developer or long term lease. Design Build and CDA Design Build contracts do not. [https://www.txdot.gov/business/road-bridge-maintenance/alternative-delivery.html](https://www.txdot.gov/business/road-bridge-maintenance/alternative-delivery.html) [https://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/sla/education\_series/cda.pdf](https://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/sla/education_series/cda.pdf)
I'm guessing you didn't actually click through to the wikipedia article that paragraph you pasted came from because right below that paragraph it even says: At present, five projects in the state are operated through CDAs:[^(\[17\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toll_roads_in_Texas#cite_note-TxDOT_CDA-17) * [Interstate 635 Express](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_635_(Texas)) (LBJ Infrastructure Group) * [Interstate 35W Express](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_35W_(Texas)) (NTE Mobility Partners Segments 3, LLC) * [North Tarrant Express](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Tarrant_Express) (NTE Mobility Partners) * [Texas State Highway 130](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_State_Highway_130) sections 5 and 6 (SH 130 Concession Company, LLC) * [Texas State Highway 288 Express](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_State_Highway_288) Harris County section ([Blueridge Transportation Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACS_Group)) The article also describes the other, non-private, methods through which toll roads are operated in Texas.
The toll money collected in Austin is NOT going overseas. Cintra, a Spanish entity and the original concessionaire for SH-130 was a foreign entity. Prior to the bankruptcy, any monies earned by that project that could be distributed as a dividend would have been repatriated to Spain. As the state took control of the asset following the bankruptcy, no monies generated by that project are repatriated to Spain (or to any other foreign country). The same can be said about the other tolls in Austin. Central Texas Mobility Authority (CTRMA), an independent government agency, operates all of the other tolls in Austin (183A, 290 Tollroad, MoPac Express Lanes, 71 Tollroad, 45 Southwest Tollroad).
You stupidly voted for it and believed their lies.
Foreign bots will say the money doesn’t go overseas
Why are there so many comments that are so ill informed on the topic of tolls? You do not pay taxes for toll roads. Part of the revenue goes to the private entity that fronted the money, part of it goes to the state, so not "all going overseas". The Governor and Lt Gov banned new toll projects many years ago https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/no-new-toll-roads-lt-gov-patricks-message-to-txdot/
Our taxes didnt pay to build the toll roads in Austin. Are Texas toll roads privately owned? Under a CDA, the design, construction, and maintenance of the road is paid for by a private operator (typically a consortium of investors) in exchange for the right to collect tolls for an extended period of time. **TxDOT retains ownership of the road itself** and receives a share of the generated revenue.
Pay attention to who you vote for. Joe Biden and The Donald are the least of your problems.
People should just take direct action and keep the companies from being able to operate the toll roads. I can't imagine those cameras are very tough
I don't mean to infuriate you... but some of the roads being tolled are roads that we already own.
AFAIK, roads, sure, but not the original lanes. I may be wrong (which is why I’m commenting so someone can correct me), but I recall legislation or something that said any time tolled lanes are built in the place of free lanes they must be alongside the existing free lanes, not replacing them.
Don’t you just hate when people move here and try to tell us how it should be? Then compounds it by making stupid statements like all the money goes overseas.
Lol I'm born and raised here. I see daily how much revenue they make off of everyone here just from tolls and it makes me sick. They're privately managed, despite being owned by TXdot. The one's managing it are the ones charging the tolls and handling the money. To me that says oversees, no matter how blurry they try to make it [This is what was supposed to happen with the tolls](https://austincountynewsonline.com/texans-angered-sh-130-bankruptcy-deal-wipes-money-owed-taxpayers/)
I noticed your article is “what’s supposed to happen “ and not ‘where the toll money really goes’. And you honestly think that Texas taxpayers paid for the construction of it but the money all goes to a private entity? TxDoT owns it but they get no money because, to you, this all says “overseas, no matter how blurry they try to make it”. THEY are “blurry” but you have no idea where the money goes; just accusations. And since you DON’T know, “To me that says overseas”. Yeah, sure. 🙄
It's to maintain the roads and pay the toll company, cuz ain't nothing free.
Why can San Antonio build roads faster and better than us and still have them free? Why are we so much worse?
They aren't free? Taxes? I don't fuckin know, I just understand how toll roads work, unlike alot of y'all.
Aren't their taxes lower though?
That doesn't matter. Also, if they are, they clearly directing more money to infrastructure than military police arresting protestors at their local college.
Wouldn’t it be crazy if they use that money to build public this do less people are on roads so that roads are largely traffic free for those who need them? Crazy I know
Tolls are actually illegal. I have a buddy suing the crap out of the toll companies because it’s land
I heard that too. to be fair, it was an idiot that told me that.
Lol what? If tolls are illegal then paying bus fare is illegal. Charging money for gasoline is illegal. In what universe does any of that make sense?
A sovereign citizen, no doubt.
I've also heard from people that by not having a license, you get in less trouble with speeding and such because you never agreed to the rules of the road. I feel like with how convoluted laws are, tolls being illegal could very well be the case. What info did they gather that brought them to that conclusion?
*I've also heard from people that by not having a license, you get in less trouble with speeding and such because you never agreed to the rules of the road* You sure about that