Commissioners to discuss tollroad authority
By TJ Aulds
Texas City Sun
Published July 12, 2004
(GALVESTON)- The trend, if there is such a thing in road construction, across the state is to build tollways.
In fact, the recently adopted 2025 Regional Transportation Plan calls for 16 percent of funding of the $47 billion in future road projects in this area to come from tollroads.
With that, county commissioners today will talk about the feasibility of creating its own tollroad authority or regional mobility authority to address future road needs. The discussion, which will be part of a workshop session this morning, is a preliminary forum, according to the county judge.
TxDOT is looking more and more at tollroads, much like they are with the Grand Parkway, said County Judge Jim Yarbrough We are just workshopping this to discuss if there may be a need to form our own tollroad authority or regional mobility authority to look at such projects.
But before anyone worries they will have to toss quarters into a tollbooth to get around Galveston County, Yarbrough cautioned that todays workshop item is more about looking at possibilities and making sure the county has as much flexibility as possible should the need arise to form such an authority.
Indeed, outside of the controversial Grand Parkway project, which as it presently stands would provide an outer road ring around Houston that would come as far south as near Alvin and Santa Fe, none of the local projects planned for this area are slotted to be tollroads in the regional transportation plan.
Yarbrough said even if the county did decide to form a tollroad authority, more than likely Galveston County would contract with the Harris County tollroad authority to manage any local tollroads.
Last month, the Transportation Policy Council, a local committee made up of members of the Houston-Galveston Area Council, unanimously approved a $77 billion long-range transportation plan for the region.
Officials say the 12,900 miles of new roads and streets listed in the 2025 Regional Transportation Plan will be needed to cope with an additional three million residents and their vehicles in the next two decades.
Many of these people will live in the suburbs, where most of the road dollars would be spent, said Alan Clark, who directs transportation planning for the Houston-Galveston Area Council.
Of the $77 billion set out in the plan, almost $1.8 billion is slated for projects in Galveston County, including the construction of roadways to enable access to the megaport at Shoal Point.
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