From the Texas Tribune: Roadblocks Emerge for Transportation Funding in Texas

TxDOT gets creative:

The Texas Department of Transportation has been warning lawmakers for months that it needs $4 billion a year in extra revenue just to keep the current level of traffic around the state from getting worse.

With less than two months left in the legislative session, some key lawmakers are signaling that they may find more money for TxDOT but will probably fall short of that $4-billion-a-year goal. Several people working on the issue cited a lack of a sense of urgency, particularly in the House.

“I think what you’ll see is incremental progress,” state Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, the Senate’s chief budget writer, said in a recent interview.

House Transportation Committee Chairman Larry Phillips, R-Sherman, struck a similar tone at a public conversation last week hosted by The Texas Tribune, where he was joined by Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville. Referring to the figure offered by TxDOT Chief Executive Officer Phil Wilson, Phillips said, “I don’t quarrel with that number, but if we can meet him somewhere in there, that’s what we need to be focused on.”

The funding ideas that lawmakers appear most inclined to approve include restoring $400 million of the money Texans pay in gas taxes that are currently diverted to the Department of Public Safety and putting perhaps $1.7 billion from the Rainy Day Fund toward a revolving infrastructure fund to finance certain transportation projects.