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| 11/2/2009 1:11:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Road plan: How do we pay for it?
 | LISA BIRKMAN
Special to the Leader
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By LISA BIRKMAN
Williamson County Commissioner
After months of public input and discussion, Williamson County recently adopted an updated version of our Long Term Transportation Plan. The LTTP is a comprehensive look at what needs to be done over the next 25 years to adequately provide for the transportation needs of county residents.
The plan covers the building of about 100 miles of additional roads, plus adding lanes to about 250 miles of existing roads. It also includes approximately $280 million in 2009 prices for "bottleneck" projects, which aim to improve intersections that are now causing or are projected to cause traffic to bottleneck, causing congestion.
Additionally, the LTTP calls for the implementation of additional mass transit projects, such as possibly fixed route bus service and/or more commuter rail lines. The estimated cost, should it all be funded, would be approximately $2.2 billion, if built today.
It is contemplated that city, county, regional, state and federal government(s) will pay the costs. So, the question is, "How do we pay for all these needed transportation im-provements?"
Currently, the county uses property taxes to pay for most transportation projects and also for road and bridge maintenance. In the last decade the county's voters voted to approve $578 million in bonds for transportation projects, which are basically a way to borrow money and pay it back with future property tax revenue. Currently, a portion of the property taxes you pay to the county goes to pay back this debt.
Additionally, approx-imately 6 percent of the county's total property tax rate adopted each year is dedicated for construction and maintenance of the county's roads and bridges. Some of the cities in the county have also passed voter-approved bonds and also have set aside a portion of sales tax for transportation improvements. The state uses a variety of methods, including tolls, fees and a tax on gasoline.
The federal government mainly funds trans-portation projects with the gasoline tax.
I recently heard Mrs. Deidre Delisi, chairwoman of the Texas Transportation Commission, the governing body of the Texas Department of Transportation, speak about future options for transportation funding. She said the gas tax is no longer adequate to meet demand and we are giving it a "long goodbye" since it has failed to do its job. As to federal funding, she called it the "Federal Knight in Shining Armor," as in fairy tales and said not to count on him. Currently, she explained, for every $1 Texans contribute through taxes for transportation to the federal government, we receive 70 cents back in highway funding and 8 cents in transit funds, while losing 22 cents.
Also, Chair Delisi said the third option is to be open to private sector ideas, such as Comprehensive Develop-ment Agreements. The general authority to enter into these agreements expired this year and re-authorization died in the legislature's special session.
Other ideas that could help include one presented by state Sen. Steve Ogden, which passed the Senate but did not make it out of the House this past session. The idea is to create special taxing districts around certain transportation projects, with the tax dollars generated being used to pay back the cost of the roads and other infrastructure. She also said the Vehicle Miles Traveled or VMT tax, which taxes vehicles for each mile used, merits further discussion.
Other options that have been discussed in recent years include many versions of a local option tax, which is basically giving local governments, such as counties or cities, the opportunity to raise fees on certain services, such as vehicle registration, impact fees on new development, new vehicle sales tax and/or goods, such as gasoline, in that jurisdiction to build a specific project or projects. In most of the proposals, voters would have to approve the additional fees or taxes, and the additional taxes or fees would end once the project(s) are completed.
I would like to hear from you on how you think we should fund transportation projects in the future. You can send me an e-mail at lbirkman@wilco.org or call my office, 733-5380. I agree with Chairwoman Delisi, who said we cannot ignore the challenge, and the current method of raising funds is not going to be able to meet our needs for the future so we must all "Stand up for Texas!"
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