Citizens Against Checkouts

Sal Costello of Austin Toll Party

Safeway, Giant, and other supermarket chains aren't saying much but Citizens Against Checkouts (CAC) are potentially a threat to their future. CAC, a grassroots citizen action group that originated in Austin TX argue that charging for food is inequitable and inefficient. They say that by pledging just a cent or so on the state sales tax it would be possible to do away with checkouts at supermarkets and provide people with the food they need.

"37% of the cost of supermarket operations is the cost of the checkouts," says CAC spokesman Angelina Sperstein. "Collecting an additional penny on the sales tax is the economical way to go. More of the customers' precious dollars would go into buying food and less into handling cash under our plan."

CAC is capitalizing on the public's dislike of standing in line at the checkout...

CAC of course is an invention. But there is about as much logic to CAC as there is to various CAT (Citizens Against Tolls) groups. The Austin Toll Party in Texas seemed to be making waves in Texas in the second half of last year. Heaven knows Texas DOT is vulnerable. It has no coherent explanation for its project selection, or for the way tax and toll monies are mixed. It has been cavalier in proposing tolls on highways already funded - breaching a long-established piece of political wisdom about tolling. TxDOT produces precious little analysis of costs and benefits, yet it is pressing ahead with a huge array of toll projects.

Yet the anti-toll groups after some early successes - cancellation of tolling on the Austin MoPac Expressway - over-reached. They produced a series of supposed scandals of self-serving officials, most of which fizzled on investigation. To begin with they got a dream run in the media and vowed to recall pro-tollroad officials. Austin mayor Will Wynn was the number one target. Then they flopped. They were unable to get sufficient signatures for a ballot. It remains to be seen whether that is indicative of their being just a media fiction as a political force or whether it is a temporary setback..

HB3363, a bill to place a moratorium on the Texas Transportation Corridors did not get anywhere in the Texas legislature. Austin City Council elections May 7 saw most of the anti-tollroad candidates fail in the polls.

There's a militant go-for-the-jugular aggressiveness about the Texas (and Colorado) anti toll campaigns that borders on hatefulness, which surely turns off many people. One of the group 'Archie' recently said on a website: "If you don't want to be a slave to these kind of people (pro-tollroad officials), stand up and speak out now, and as Alex Jones recommended 'Follow these board members around with a video camera, catch them with their mistresses...' That is what we have to do folks."

A lot of the venomous tone of the anti-toll campaign in Texas is the writing of Sal Costello, an energetic and able activist but who is full of harsh attributions of malevolence against all his opponents. They are "looters" and worse. And they are not to be argued with but driven from office. The other prominent anti-toll activist is State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn who is consistently demagogic. She talks about Gov Perry's "highway henchman" and suchlike.

The next major test in Texas comes Monday evening when the Austin area metro plan organization (CAMPO) votes on the longterm (2030) transport plan which contains the planned tollroads.

New Jersey anti-toll group gets poor turnout

Last state election cycle Citizens Against Tolls (CAT) managed to make eliminating tolls on the Garden State Parkway a major campaign issue. All the candidates for governor signed on, though the winner James McGreevey gave himself the loophole of needing to adhere to "financial prudence" as an out.

Joe Malinconico reports in the STAR-LEDGER newspaper (2005-05-31) that a "sparse crowd" (about 65 people) showed for a campaign forum this year: "An hour into the evening, there were still plenty of cookies on the table and empty seats in the audience. Only three gubernatorial hopefuls showed up, and one made comments praising Express E-ZPass that rubbed some anti-toll leaders the wrong way.... This time around, Parkway tolls seem to have dropped off the campaign radar screen. Transportation and political experts say the reason may be the dramatic changes that were made on the Parkway over the past 18 months - the opening of Express E-ZPass at some toll plazas and the creation of one-way tolls at others."

He quotes Martin Robins, head of Rutgers University's Voorhees Transportation Center: "There's been a significant lessening of the irritation of toll collection on the Garden State Parkway. It doesn't affect the riding public the same way it used to."

Joseph Marbach, political science prof at Seton Hall University is quoted: "What I suspect has happened is that the campaigns have done their focus groups, and the issue didn't resonate." TOLLROADSnews 2005-06-02