TxDOT plan would convert some interstates to toll roads
Source: By POLLY ROSS HUGHES, Houston Chronicle (TX), August 31, 2007
The Texas Department of Transportation is pushing Congress to pass a federal law allowing the state to "buy back" parts of existing interstate highways and turn them into toll roads.
The 24-page plan, outlined in a "Forward Momentum" report that escaped widespread attention when published in February, drew prompt objections Thursday from state lawmakers and activists fighting the spread of privately run toll roads.
........ The report not only advocates turning stretches of interstate highways into toll roads, but it also suggests tax breaks for private company "investment" in such enterprises.
It seeks changes in federal law to allow the use of equity capital as a source of transportation funding. Along with that, it calls for altering the tax code to "exempt partnership distributions or corporate dividends related to ownership of (a) toll road from income taxation."
....... Anti-toll road activist Sal Castello, the Austin-based founder of the TexasTollParty.com, said he's frustrated by the "schemers and the scammers" who "never stop" divisive toll road proposals despite widespread opposition and fretted that a required referendum could be creatively worded to disguise the conversions.