At Monday night's CAMPO hearing, there was a short presentation of a concept called Managed Lanes (ML), by Goodin from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. She explained that Managed Lanes can be used in a number of different ways, for various purposes, to encourage high occupancy or just to expedite traffic flow in one direction or another. She cited examples in Houston and then showed a few animations that depicted some senerios that could be considered.
One of the more interesting ideas was how to create 3 lanes that could be configured on the fly with a bus like device that could move a taffic barrier dynamically. That would allow it to change the configuration from one lane going into town and two going out, to just the opposite.
This was important, because the next item on the agenda (#8) was the public hearing to discuss removing the Toll on MOPAC over the new William Cannon bridge. That motion also contained a provision (actually, a detailed table of new road designations, primarily changing MOPAC from ''FWY 6'' to ''FWY 6/ML2'', which would be done by restripping MOPAC to add a new lane, which would then be designated as a Managed Lane).
This is a VERY significant change, because if MOPAC were designated a Toll Road, then by state law (HB 3855 in particular), all vehiciles would have to be tolled (excepting only Military and marked Emergency vehicles).
With a Managed Lane, CAMPO and the CTRMA could decide to charge a fee (different than a toll) during peak hours, or only for certain types of vehicles (for example, cars with fewer than 3 people in them), or they could just not charge a fee, but restrict those lanes as HOV or HOT lanes.
This is a huge victory and while it is currenlty on the January CAMPO meeting agenda to be voted on, it may have to be delayed, because frankly, CAMPO introduced the ''Managed Lanes'' idea at the last minute. This is nothing new for CAMPO, in July, you may recall, the introduced 8 amendments with no notice, before voting on them.
There was 3 hours of heated testimony on Monday night, no of which objected to taking the William Cannon road out of the Toll plan. However, many speakers expressed reservations with the Managed Lanes provision, pointing out that it was new and it's implications were still unclear.
Also, that night, Sal Costello spoke three different times and presented the board with a detailed report show them statements and positions that TxDOT, CAMPO, and CTRMA members have made, and the contradictions in their statements vs their action. Sal showed them that (1) The revenue from the Gas Tax has NOT declined, as stated by Bob Daigh and others, as a justicication for Tolling exisiting roads. (2) That while TxDOT board chair Ric Williams his insisted that no manned toll booths would ever be used to collect tolls, our CTRMA has since published blueprints and budgets for 24x7 maned boths, complete with toilet facilities !? and that the national median price for a Toll Road is about $1.3 million per mile, the cost for just the construction of Hwy 130 (our first Trans Texas Corridor super highway) is going to be about $30 Million per mile !!
The message here is two fold: the state transportation authorities, at all levels, are rushing into some new and very expensive projects without giving the tax payers or media a real chance to hear all the details and concequences and that Toll road options are not only inefficient uses of our tax dollars, they are by far and away the most expensive way to build roads.
The rules have changed !!
One of the more interesting ideas was how to create 3 lanes that could be configured on the fly with a bus like device that could move a taffic barrier dynamically. That would allow it to change the configuration from one lane going into town and two going out, to just the opposite.
This was important, because the next item on the agenda (#8) was the public hearing to discuss removing the Toll on MOPAC over the new William Cannon bridge. That motion also contained a provision (actually, a detailed table of new road designations, primarily changing MOPAC from ''FWY 6'' to ''FWY 6/ML2'', which would be done by restripping MOPAC to add a new lane, which would then be designated as a Managed Lane).
This is a VERY significant change, because if MOPAC were designated a Toll Road, then by state law (HB 3855 in particular), all vehiciles would have to be tolled (excepting only Military and marked Emergency vehicles).
With a Managed Lane, CAMPO and the CTRMA could decide to charge a fee (different than a toll) during peak hours, or only for certain types of vehicles (for example, cars with fewer than 3 people in them), or they could just not charge a fee, but restrict those lanes as HOV or HOT lanes.
This is a huge victory and while it is currenlty on the January CAMPO meeting agenda to be voted on, it may have to be delayed, because frankly, CAMPO introduced the ''Managed Lanes'' idea at the last minute. This is nothing new for CAMPO, in July, you may recall, the introduced 8 amendments with no notice, before voting on them.
There was 3 hours of heated testimony on Monday night, no of which objected to taking the William Cannon road out of the Toll plan. However, many speakers expressed reservations with the Managed Lanes provision, pointing out that it was new and it's implications were still unclear.
Also, that night, Sal Costello spoke three different times and presented the board with a detailed report show them statements and positions that TxDOT, CAMPO, and CTRMA members have made, and the contradictions in their statements vs their action. Sal showed them that (1) The revenue from the Gas Tax has NOT declined, as stated by Bob Daigh and others, as a justicication for Tolling exisiting roads. (2) That while TxDOT board chair Ric Williams his insisted that no manned toll booths would ever be used to collect tolls, our CTRMA has since published blueprints and budgets for 24x7 maned boths, complete with toilet facilities !? and that the national median price for a Toll Road is about $1.3 million per mile, the cost for just the construction of Hwy 130 (our first Trans Texas Corridor super highway) is going to be about $30 Million per mile !!
The message here is two fold: the state transportation authorities, at all levels, are rushing into some new and very expensive projects without giving the tax payers or media a real chance to hear all the details and concequences and that Toll road options are not only inefficient uses of our tax dollars, they are by far and away the most expensive way to build roads.
The rules have changed !!
