Mortgaging Our Future to Build a Highway to Nowhere

Proposition 12 on the November 6 ballot would authorize the Texas Transportation Commission to issue up to $5 billion in general obligation bonds for highway improvement projects. That means TTC could borrow $5 billion dollars, spend it building new highways and require that the $5 billion be repaid by general revenue (taxes). This is being widely touted as a "stopgap" measure allowing the state to put off making a decision on how it will pay for future road construction and maintenance. If this sounds familiar, you may have heard it before - 2001's Proposition 15 and 2003's Proposition 14 were similar measures allowing TTC to build highways by borrowing money. TTC will almost certainly be back at the trough soon - the state's shortfall estimate is $86 billion over 25 years.

Putting aside the fiscal wisdom of debt-financed government spending, where are all these new highways going to get us? Building more highways just generates more demand for highways, both in the short term by inducing more trips and in the long term by facilitating growth in the form of car-dependant suburban sprawl. We can barely pay for the maintenance of the highways we have now. How are we supposed to pay for maintenance of all the highways we have built 25 years from now, especially while we are also paying for the debt we incur to build those highways?

We are going to stop building new highways someday. We can decide whether that happens before or after sprawl has consumed the entire state. Vote no on Proposition 12.

Image from Lorrie McClanahan on Flickr.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@austinist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Shawn Shillington in News on October 22, 2007 1:57 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Shawn Shillington

Right - Texas Transportation Commission.

mdahmus

danimal,

TTC in Shilli's article probably = Texas Transportation Commission (which runs TXDOT), not Trans-Texas Corridor as you seem to be thinking.

danimal

Shilli, do you have any sources that indicate this would be for funding TTC development? After 30 mins of poking around, I haven't been able to verify that at all. Not advocating a 'yes' vote, just trying to get my facts straight...

dan

seth

I'd like to see the disclaimer abandoned. It undermines the thrust of any 'article' it's attached to. It says, "Hey, this guy's gonna go off the deepend in just a few paragraphs, and we don't stand behind him." So I was glad to see your article taking a position on something without the disclaimer.

Seth

Shawn Shillington

Interesting point, Seth. The opinions in the post are mine, but as "Urban Development Editor" I generally feel free to speak on behalf of Austinist regarding urban development issues. I don't assume that readers will agree with the opinions I present. I assume some readers will agree and some will disagree. I would hope that people would not feel alienated as a result of reading a post with which they did not agree. I don't agree with a lot of the opinions presented in the Statesman, but I still read it.

I'm not sure what the logic is behind the disclaimers in other posts. It could be that the authors of those posts want to make it clear that they aren't speaking for the entire blog, but I am not sure about that.

kenneth1

Voting against highways in Texas is about like voting against motherhood and the Dallas Cowboys. All a politician has to do is theaten "no new highways" and "toll roads," and the sheep will march meekly into the voting booth & do as they're told.

All the bleating about the gas tax is irrelevant. It only funds a fraction of highway maintenance.

seth

How come a piece like this can say "Vote no on Proposition 12" without an Austinist disclaimer about the view being the author's, but if somebody does a Flaming Lips concert review, there's this huge disclaimer preceding it? Is it because the author of the latter took the Lips to task for recruiting future cancer patients and the Austinist editors were afraid of alienating readers? In this case, the editors must assume readers will agree with the opinion presented and are embracing it as that of the publisher.

Seth

mdahmus

I'm your mom's favorite.

Benj

Most of my favorite amateurs got elected.

Shawn Shillington

I am everyone's favorite. People find mdahmus to be a little cantankerous.

triman

hey dustin - I'm sure you know the people and arguments behind this for Austin, some of us don't though.

Why not venture or posit an opposing opinion?

I live downtown, and not in a highrise or mcmansion, and am new here, I'd like to hear opinion, informed or not!

dustin

Once again, everybody, everyone's favorite amateur city planners.

mdahmus

A lot of smart economists, even Republican-leaning ones, have been pushing for a while now to replace the payroll tax (the regressive 8% you pay for SS/Medicare) with a carbon tax. Even that will never happen - our political system is way too broken (way too much power to rural interests).

Shawn Shillington

The other night I had a dream that all taxes were eliminated except the gas tax, which was raised to $20 per gallon and used to finance all government spending.

mdahmus

I've only been talking about this kind of thing for like five years now - the inevitable result of the anti-sprawlers getting suckered onto the no-toll bandwagon by Sal Costello and his ilk is that the same highways get built using the general fund (because the gas tax will never get raised, of course, even if it did, it still screws urban residents, just not as badly as general fund usage does).

It will pass 70-30. Bet on it.

The waning years of our sprawl picnic will be spent on increasingly futile subsidies like this. Suburbanites will not go gently. Next up: Removing the way-too-low gas tax (already almost done a couple times over the last few years) and then an actual income tax subsidy of same. Bet on that too.