TxDOT

Toll Road Truck

A Texas Toll Road Struggling to Induce Demand

Texas 130 has failed to live up to its revenue potential, leaving the private company that operates the road in junk bond status.

November 18, 2015 - San Antonio Express News

Texas Voters Will Again Be Asked to Divert Funds for Transportation

Refusing to raise the 20-cent gas tax, creative Texas legislators have devised another scheme to divert existing revenue streams to roads. Last year it was a portion of the Rainy Day Fund. This year, from general sales and motor vehicle sales taxes.

September 17, 2015 - KCBD

TxDOT Ditches Proposal for Pierce Elevated Park

A proposal to transform the Pierce Elevated in Houston into a linear park joins the slag heap of Houston's history of never-built projects.

July 28, 2015 - Houston Chronicle

TxDOT Planning Realignment of Interstate 45 in Downtown Houston

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is currently planning a significant realignment of I-45, which runs downtown. The plan could remove an elevated portion of the highway known as Pierce Elevated.

April 24, 2015 - Houston Public Media

Texas Legislators Eye Motor Vehicle Sales Tax For Road Money Grab

Once again, rather than increasing the state's 20-cent gas tax (29 percent below the national average of 28-cents), policy makers seek to divert revenue to the state's ailing highway fund at the expense of the state's general fund.

March 2, 2015 - The Dallas Morning News

Low Oil Prices Adds to Texas Transportation Budget Shortfall

Plummeting oil prices means Texans are seeing savings at the gas pump, but they also mean reduced revenue due to Proposition 1, the November 4 ballot measure that diverted energy taxes from the state's rainy day fund to the transportation budget.

January 3, 2015 - The Dallas Morning News

Rural Texans Air Objections to High Speed Rail

Parts of rural Texas sound a bit like the outspoken high speed rail opponents in California's Central Valley in their reaction to the Texas Central Railway's bullet train which maintains strong support at the terminal cities of Houston and Dallas.

November 24, 2014 - The New York Times

Energy Taxes Now Flowing to Texas Highway Fund

Thanks to voters, at least $1.2 billion in oil and gas taxes a year that would normally have been directed to the state's Rainy Day Fund is diverted to the highway fund, where it will be used to improve the state's crumbling road infrastructure.

November 12, 2014 - Newsradio 1200 WOAI

New TxDOT Head Will Focus on Traffic Safety, Alternative Modes

The Texas Transportation Commission's choice to run the Texas Department of Transportation is a former Marine Corps lieutenant general with a progressive take on the state's transportation challenges.

May 22, 2014 - Dallas Morning News

The Texas Miracle: Looking Beyond the Impressive Growth Numbers

Texas is booming—its growth in people and jobs puts it in a league of its own. But another set of growth data pales by comparison: Infrastructure, particularly in the water and transportation needed to accommodate the growth, is woefully lacking.

April 30, 2014 - The Wall Street Journal - U.S. News

Texas Roads Crisis: DOT Proposes To Let Counties Maintain Roads

Following-up on the depavement of 83 miles of "farm-to-market" roads, TxDOT now proposes a much larger budget-saving measure: "Turn back" control of 2,000 miles of these state roadways to counties and cities. TxDOT also wants to focus on urban roads.

September 4, 2013 - KUHF Houston Public Radio

Texas State Capitol building

Lacking Funds for Repair, Texas Unpaves its Roads

Unable to find funding to repair roads damaged by the booming oil industry traffic, Texas will convert asphalt roads to gravel. Texas's gas tax is among the lowest in the nation.

August 26, 2013 - The Texas Tribune

Oil and Gas Revenue May Fund Texas Roads

The nation's largest oil and natural gas producer is flush with revenue from energy production. If Gov. Rick Perry signs the bill supported by two-thirds of both chambers, voters will decide whether to use about $1.2 billion of it annually for roads.

August 12, 2013 - KUHF Houston Public Radio

Unable to Maintain the Ones They Have, Texas Just Keeps Building New Roads

A new report by the transportation research group TRIP documents the status, safety impacts, and costs of Texas' growing infrastructure crisis.

October 5, 2012 - Streetsblog D.C.

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