Five new Austin Texas toll projects worth $1.5b OK'd by metro board

Toll supporters won a major political victory Monday evening (2007-10-08) in Austin TX when the Capital Area Metro Plan Organization (CAMPO) voted 15/4, 14/5 and 14/4 in favor of five toll projects. They will cost an estimated $1.5b, and cover 34km (21 miles).

The projects are:

- US290 East between US183 and TX130

- US183 Springfield Rd to TX71E

- TX71E Riverside Drive to Thornberry Rd

- The Y in Oak Hill US290W/TX71

- TX45SW MoPac Blvd to FM1626

The projects were approved back in 2004 as tollroads but opponents managed to get the CAMPO to suspend the approvals pending further study and argument. Their reinstatement in the longrange plan for the region is a major revival of tolling in Central Texas.

This is good news for the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA) which is operating the successful 183A tollroad in the northwest of the region, but was forced to suspend design work on US290E by the CAMPO votes last year.

The HB792 moratorium on toll concessions means that the local public toll authority will have the toll projects to itself. TxDOT can only take them up if CTRMA decides not to take them on. The Austin area has no exemption from the two year moratorium on concessions.

CAMPO board chairman and state senator Kirk Watson said the projects had to be voted because saying No would "saddle our community and our children with even more congestion."

The decision was a setback for the anti-toll/anti-roads group which had successfully turned the state legislature against toll concessions in the spring.

The approvals were made conditional on existing free capacity being maintained.The projects will build free frontage roadways alongside the tolled lanes. However the toll lanes will have higher speeds and bridges at cross streets, while frontage roads will have businesses abutting and stop signs or signals at cross streets.

The Austin area has about 1.6m people - the fourth most populous after Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.

CLARIFICATION: The solid green roads in the map to the right and above are all existing tollroads except for TX360 on the west side of Austin, already adopted by CAMPO as a tollroad but not yet built.

TOLLROADSnews 2007-10-09 TABLE ADDED 2007-10-12