"I don't know we have a lot of choice."
Driving 121 will steer you to back tolls
Jacquielynn Floyd
Dallas Morning News
Copyright 2005
Going by the map, the logical route from, say, Lewisville to McKinney is along State Highway 121. It's accessible, direct and straight as an arrow.
It's also a contender for the most miserable, tortured drive in North Texas, 20 maddening miles of stop-and-go gridlock that make you wish you could abandon your car and walk or pedal a bicycle or ride a donkey instead. Highway 121 is a textbook look at what explosive suburban development does to the rural infrastructure.
Which is why, politically abhorrent as it seems and unfair as it undoubtedly feels, the state needs to make 121 a toll road – and fast.
Some of them had to hold their noses to do it, but elected authorities in Collin County, Plano and Allen have formally agreed; Frisco will consider a similar resolution next week.
Turning already-funded "free" highways into pay-as-you go toll roads is a politically dicey proposition. Similar proposals have made taxpayers, homeowners and drivers fighting mad in other Texas cities, particularly Austin and Houston.
Sal Costello, an Austin resident and vociferous anti-toll activist, founded the "Texas Toll Party" after plans were announced to start charging drivers to cross a bridge near his neighborhood.
"I was astounded that a freeway, one that had already been paid for, was being considered as a tollway," he wrote, making the fair point, as do many others, that this amounts to "double taxation."
Undoubtedly, he's right, as are the many people who are furious that they might have to start paying for their daily commute on Highway 121.
Part of what makes them so mad is that the state isn't just talking about a pay-as-you-go collection that will last until highway improvements are paid off. The "new think" down in Austin – as it is in many other state capitals – is that the centuries-old practice of collecting a road toll is a shiny new means of raising revenue for all kinds of other projects.
Some don't view tolled highway systems as one-time expenditures, like a statue or a building. They see them as ongoing, publicly regulated but privately operated utilities.
There's a lot to consider, discuss and debate in all this. The problem is that wheels-on-the-pavement reality is moving a lot faster than the pace of the discussion.
Last year, 80 new people moved to Collin County every day. That meant 48 more cars a day on the roads.
For the calendar year, that's a total of 140,160 extra vehicles. All of them seemed to be jammed onto the pavement in front of me when I drove on Highway 121 one day this week.
This was not during rush hour, which is so truly awful on this thoroughfare that I couldn't face it, even to make a dramatic point. I went at midday at midweek, when traffic would presumably be at a moderate level.
It took 45 minutes to cover the 20 miles between Interstate 35E and U.S. Highway 75. I passed through 22 grade-level, light-controlled intersections, catching red lights at exactly half of them. Traffic was so heavy in some places that it took two light cycles to get through the intersection.
By the time I turned south toward Dallas, I was cranky, irritated and acutely conscious that time was flying by on fleet little wings. People who drive on that road every day must live at the brink of mental collapse.
That's the reality. It doesn't sound fair, in the abstract, to have to pony up every time you drive on a road that was already scheduled for expansion out of the state highway budget.
But that, highway authorities say, could take decades. If I could have paid a sack of quarters to make that drive on a wide lane of open freeway, I'd have forked it over in a heartbeat.
The cities along the Highway 121 corridor have seen the kind of growth that would make elected officials and chambers of commerce in some places crash to their knees and kiss the sweet dirt. It's less of a triumph if you choke to death on your own traffic.
"Under the circumstances," said Collin County Commissioner Jerry Hoagland this week as he voted for a resolution in support of a Highway 121 toll road, "I don't know we have a lot of choice."
Not exactly a ringing endorsement. But it's the truth.
E-mail jfloyd@dallasnews.com
Dallas Morning News: www.dallasnews.com
Jacquielynn Floyd
Dallas Morning News
Copyright 2005
Going by the map, the logical route from, say, Lewisville to McKinney is along State Highway 121. It's accessible, direct and straight as an arrow.
It's also a contender for the most miserable, tortured drive in North Texas, 20 maddening miles of stop-and-go gridlock that make you wish you could abandon your car and walk or pedal a bicycle or ride a donkey instead. Highway 121 is a textbook look at what explosive suburban development does to the rural infrastructure.
Which is why, politically abhorrent as it seems and unfair as it undoubtedly feels, the state needs to make 121 a toll road – and fast.
Some of them had to hold their noses to do it, but elected authorities in Collin County, Plano and Allen have formally agreed; Frisco will consider a similar resolution next week.
Turning already-funded "free" highways into pay-as-you go toll roads is a politically dicey proposition. Similar proposals have made taxpayers, homeowners and drivers fighting mad in other Texas cities, particularly Austin and Houston.
Sal Costello, an Austin resident and vociferous anti-toll activist, founded the "Texas Toll Party" after plans were announced to start charging drivers to cross a bridge near his neighborhood.
"I was astounded that a freeway, one that had already been paid for, was being considered as a tollway," he wrote, making the fair point, as do many others, that this amounts to "double taxation."
Undoubtedly, he's right, as are the many people who are furious that they might have to start paying for their daily commute on Highway 121.
Part of what makes them so mad is that the state isn't just talking about a pay-as-you-go collection that will last until highway improvements are paid off. The "new think" down in Austin – as it is in many other state capitals – is that the centuries-old practice of collecting a road toll is a shiny new means of raising revenue for all kinds of other projects.
Some don't view tolled highway systems as one-time expenditures, like a statue or a building. They see them as ongoing, publicly regulated but privately operated utilities.
There's a lot to consider, discuss and debate in all this. The problem is that wheels-on-the-pavement reality is moving a lot faster than the pace of the discussion.
Last year, 80 new people moved to Collin County every day. That meant 48 more cars a day on the roads.
For the calendar year, that's a total of 140,160 extra vehicles. All of them seemed to be jammed onto the pavement in front of me when I drove on Highway 121 one day this week.
This was not during rush hour, which is so truly awful on this thoroughfare that I couldn't face it, even to make a dramatic point. I went at midday at midweek, when traffic would presumably be at a moderate level.
It took 45 minutes to cover the 20 miles between Interstate 35E and U.S. Highway 75. I passed through 22 grade-level, light-controlled intersections, catching red lights at exactly half of them. Traffic was so heavy in some places that it took two light cycles to get through the intersection.
By the time I turned south toward Dallas, I was cranky, irritated and acutely conscious that time was flying by on fleet little wings. People who drive on that road every day must live at the brink of mental collapse.
That's the reality. It doesn't sound fair, in the abstract, to have to pony up every time you drive on a road that was already scheduled for expansion out of the state highway budget.
But that, highway authorities say, could take decades. If I could have paid a sack of quarters to make that drive on a wide lane of open freeway, I'd have forked it over in a heartbeat.
The cities along the Highway 121 corridor have seen the kind of growth that would make elected officials and chambers of commerce in some places crash to their knees and kiss the sweet dirt. It's less of a triumph if you choke to death on your own traffic.
"Under the circumstances," said Collin County Commissioner Jerry Hoagland this week as he voted for a resolution in support of a Highway 121 toll road, "I don't know we have a lot of choice."
Not exactly a ringing endorsement. But it's the truth.
E-mail jfloyd@dallasnews.com
Dallas Morning News:
posted by Porkus Maximus Tex: at Friday, August 12, 2005
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