Speaker Joe Straus (R – Dist 121) is a master at kicking the can down the road. After three sessions as Speaker of the Texas House, Straus has failed to properly fund the state highway system. At the commencement of the 83rd regular session last year, he promised to end diversions of the gas tax and to make funding infrastructure – both roads and water – a priority. Neither happened.
Instead, Straus punted the funding of infrastructure to the voters with two constitutional amendment elections. After three expensive special sessions, the Texas legislature finally agreed upon a transportation funding bill that will go to the voters for approval in November. During the second special session, Express-News Austin Bureau Chief Peggy Fikac tweeted that Straus was telling senators he wants a transportation crisis in 2015 to increase pressure for taxes. So crisis creation and crisis management describe Straus’ leadership style.
The Constitutional amendment that passed would divert half of the oil and gas severance tax that funds the state’s emergency fund, or Rainy Day Fund, to roads, giving the highway department a potential boost of $1 billion annually. Lawmakers readily acknowledge it’s a stop gap measure since the agency needs $4 billion more per year.
Last year, Texas voters approved Prop 6 to further raid the Rainy Day Fund for water infrastructure. However, the legislation will largely be used for questionable economic development projects to benefit developers (like shipping water from already water starved rural Texas to urban areas) rather than shore up future water needs for existing residents.
No pain, no gain in U.S. 290 widening:
County and city officials cheered in 2012 when the Harris County Toll Road Authority joined the Texas Department of Transportation to speed up construction along U.S. 290. A $400 million investment meant projects that would have taken 20 years or more could all start by 2017, with many starting much sooner.
Now the expedited excavation and road building is underway, butting up against work that started in 2011 along Loop 610 north and south of U.S. 290.
Many drivers and residents are waiting it out, hoping the hard times are short and the long-term benefits last for a while.
"What I'm afraid of is they'll have to widen it again in five years," said Carol Vogel, 62, as she walked her dog near her home off Pinemont Drive. "Just tell me this time they are fixing it, at least for my lifetime."
View looking outbound of evening traffic on U.S. 290 near Beltway 8 on Monday, Jan. 20, 2014, in Houston. ( Smiley N. Pool / Houston Chronicle )
Freeway expansion often attracts new drivers, meaning the benefit is short-lived as more houses and shops locate on the newly widened freeway. Development, meanwhile, extends farther, giving officials more lanes in need of widening.
Travel times on Interstate 10, for example, are rising, though they are not back to the levels experienced before managed lanes opened in 2009. The road carries about 25,000 more vehicles than it did in 2003, according to TxDOT figures, but with one additional general use lane in each direction.
