Tollways may or may not be money machine

[sonias]

AAS article 2/11/08
Tollways may or may not be money machine

It was the first, and seemingly best, argument I heard for toll roads when I got this beat more than four years ago. Haven't heard it much lately, however.

Toll roads, Texas Department of Transportation officials said, would be an "economic engine" for highway financing as gas taxes grow increasingly scarce, generating excess cash that could be spent on other roads. Like in Houston, they'd say, where the Harris County Toll Road Authority has spun off cash for other nontoll projects and still has hundreds of millions of dollars stockpiled.

(snip)
But when TxDOT officials the other day gave legislators a spreadsheet with the agency's expected cash flow through 2015, I didn't see any toll road profits in there. I asked James Bass, the agency's chief financial officer, about that. After all, TxDOT owns six toll roads now, including three in the Austin area. Won't they be throwing off some cash, I asked Bass?

Not anytime soon, he said.

(snip)

The numbers are startling. It looks like the only thing throwing off dollars will be TxDOT itself.

According to that statement, the three roads will make $8.7 billion in toll revenue through 2042. In that same time, there will be $7.2 billion in debt payments for that borrowed $2.2 billion, $1.1 billion in operations costs, $752 million in routine maintenance and $388 million for long-term maintenance. The net of all that? Almost $750 million in the hole over 35 years.

:mad::banghead::mad:

Sonia

[sonias]

1. Off the Kuff on the Katy Freeway trouble

Sort of related post on the Houston Katy Freeway toll project. Note that Kuff finds promises of toll revenues there too from way back in 2001. Current estimates of the cost are $2.8 billion.

Off the Kuff blog 2/6/08
How much was that freeway supposed to cost?

(snip)
More toll roads expected in city / Westpark Tollway's construction may mark pay roads' resurgence 6/24/2001

Roger Hord, executive director of the West Houston Association, told the crowd that using tolls to finance road construction will "propagate throughout the area" as traditional funding becomes harder to obtain.

A major selling point for the proposed Katy Freeway toll road is that toll revenues could speed completion of the overall widening by seven years and save $65 million on the $1.2 billion job.

Sonia

[GOPisEvil]

2. Surprise, surprise, surprise.

I am shocked, SHOCKED that the toll roads won't make as much money as we thought. :eyes:

[Melissa G]

3. Yes, but they could take pictures of us and give us automatic tickets if we

speed between checkpoints. :eyes: We get to give away already built public roadways to private concerns. They get things like 11 miles of roadway when only 3 are needed. That is why these boondoggles are so insanely expensive. OH YEAH... The Topper! All this giveaway is not even in the areas designated as most in need of roadway/traffic help! I'm wondering why???