AUSTIN – For Dallas drivers, the governor's decision to summon
lawmakers back to the Capitol next week to keep the Transportation
Department in business will do little to keep traffic moving in North
Texas or reduce its dependence on an ever-increasing number of toll
roads.
Gov. Rick Perry wants lawmakers to extend the life of
the Texas Department of Transportation, which will be shuttered in 2010
if no action is taken. He also wants new legislation that will let the
agency borrow $2 billion more for road building and to extend Texas'
ability to enter long-term contracts with private toll road developers.
But at public meetings this week, Texas' highway chiefs said
even if lawmakers do all three things, the state faces a severe cash
crisis that will probably stop nearly all new road building by 2012.
With
a recession, Texans, like other Americans, are driving less. That means
entities like the North Texas Tollway Authority are collecting fewer
tolls, and it means that state departments of transportation are
getting fewer dollars to build roads the old-fashioned way.
On
Wednesday, chief financial officer James Bass told the Texas
Transportation Commission that gas-tax receipts are down, even as debt
payments are headed up. Since September, receipts are down $49 million,
about 2.5 percent. In April alone, they were down 8 percent, or $15
million. The department's budget had anticipated a 1.5 percent increase.
The
federal highway fund is in even worse shape, and Texas is almost
certainly going to face reduced federal payments while Congress decides
how to keep the fund solvent, Texas officials said this week.
Compounding
the problem here, Texas lawmakers have in recent years provided just
two new tools to build new roads: private toll-road agreements and
permission to borrow. In both cases, the department has responded with
gusto, but Bass said it may not be able to do so indefinitely.
By
2011, the state will be paying more than $1.6 billion every two years
just to make debt payments, an amount that Bass said will escalate in
future years. Given those concerns, he told commissioners this week
that he was reluctant to authorize additional debt until he received
new direction from them.
The commissioners' response? Full steam ahead, and borrow every penny available.
"Our
obligation is to consistently and clearly communicate to the
Legislature what our [financial] situation is," said Deirdre Delisi,
chairwoman of the five-member commission. "As long as we are very clear
with lawmakers, then our obligation is to use the tolls the Legislature
has provided and build roads."
"Message received," Bass said, and
the department will immediately begin the process of borrowing $2.9
billion. If lawmakers heed Perry's call next week, the agency will take
steps to borrow another $2 billion.
Lawmakers could make the
department's money problems go away, should they shower it with huge
funding increases in 2011. If they don't, the agency says it will have
to stop building most new roads by 2012.
The impact on North
Texas would be significant, even though North Texas is far better off
than Texas' other major metropolitan areas. Most of the $3.2 billion
that the NTTA paid for the State Highway 121 project remains unspent,
and construction crews will be drinking from that fountain of money for
several years.
But
North Texas nevertheless is counting on billions of dollars from the
state to make many of its top-priority projects a reality.
Regional
officials are desperate to build the Trinity toll road, although
problems with the Trinity River levees have delayed construction for at
least 20 months, and probably more.
NTTA says tolls on the
10-mile road probably will support no more than $450 million in debt.
And faced with financial pressures of its own, authority chairman Paul
Wageman said last week that the city should not expect any additional
contributions from the authority.
Another big project that will
likely require a nine-digit investment by the state is the so-called
Pegasus Project that would rebuild the aging interstates that cut
through downtown Dallas.
North Texas officials had hoped to
avoid such scenarios when they pushed a local-option tax bill during
the regular session of the 2009 Legislature. But lawmakers rejected the
proposal, and resurrecting it in the special session seems unlikely,
though its supporters may try.
Some
area leaders now say the best bet is for North Texas to look to
Washington for help, especially given plans in Congress to pass a new
six-year transportation bill that many predict will have hundreds of
billions of dollars of new money in it.
But on Thursday, former
U.S. Secretary of Transportation James Burnley, who served under
President Ronald Reagan, said in an interview that such hopes are
misplaced – at least anytime soon.
The federal system, which
also depends on gas-tax receipts, is in even worse shape than Texas.
And there is "absolutely" no way a transportation bill will pass this
year, he said, noting President Barack Obama's focus on health care.
"There
is no solution in the next two years," said Burnley, now a Washington
lawyer whose firm is heavily involved in transportation. "We have got a
hellacious mess on our hands."