Road Bond Shorthand: $207 Million Debt to Fix State/Federal Highways and Fund Local Developers

You'd think with a deepening recession under way our county officials would take a break from their pork-barrel largess . . . well, this one takes the cake!

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Opinion

By Charles O'Dell, Ph.D.

If you didn’t like last year’s $172 million pork-barrel road bond, and most voters didn’t, then you will hate this year’s $207 million road bond that will send our county debt soaring to well over $300,000,000 so local taxpayers can pay for building state and federal highways, and county roads for local developers.

Voters are asking, “Why are our elected officials trying to push so much long-term debt onto property owners for so many questionable roads, and at the beginning of a deep economic recession?”

Good question.

I just received my slick Hays County 2008 Road Bond Proposition brochure and it’s pure prop·a·gan·da – noun, the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate thinking, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist. Produced at taxpayer expense of over $125,000, the brochure would make any honest person blush with embarrassment and a sense of betrayal.

And the slick post card from Hays Families for Safe Mobility PAC, containing claims that fly in the face of official data regarding road safety and mobility, leave readers shaking their heads in disbelief!

Improvements to FM 1626 for safety, or super sizing?

Come on, “…widening dangerous roads like FM 1626…?” Texas Department of Public Safety data for 2003 – 2005 show FM 1626 was one of the County’s safest roads, representing only 3.6% of the County’s 1,661 traffic accidents, and one of only three roads in the county with zero fatalities.

TxDOT, special interests and our County Officials want to turn FM 1626, one of the county’s safest roads, into a highway US 290, the most deadly roadway with six fatalities during that same period, and they want property owners to pay for making FM 1626 less safe.

As for increasing mobility, the special road interests want county residents to pay to build FM 110, a new $30 million five lane highway from the San Marcos Hotel/Convention Center at I-35, past the new San Marcos High School and to SH 123 where it dead-ends. SH 123 runs back to I-35, and with three traffic lights all within a few hundred feet it would worsen the already congested High School traffic.

And who would want their inexperienced high school drivers on a high-speed, five lane road to nowhere? FM 110 would make a dangerous racing strip for kids, but it has nothing to do with safety or mobility.

. . . and padding the special interests

Another of many bogus safety and mobility road projects contained in the bond is CR 266, sponsored by Precinct 1 Commissioner Debbie Gonzales Ingalsbe. This expensive project is to convert a two-lane rural road that goes to the Comal county line, into a four/five-lane rural road that goes to the Comal county line. The CR 266 project is simply a developer road for Houston attorney John O'Quinn who owns about 450 acres, and W.C. Carson of San Marcos who has about 1600 acres along CR 266. Commissioner Ingalsbe also lives on that stretch of CR 266. Not with my taxes.

How did these and other bogus road projects get included in the 2008 road bond?

The three pro-road bond County Commissioners, Barton, Conley and Ingalsbe, appointed pro-road bond citizens to the Citizen Advisory Board, the group that recommended which road projects to include in the 2008 road bond. Compare the Advisory Board names with the names supporting the road PAC.

Major research shows that 80% of traffic accidents are caused by driver distractions: cell phones, eating, applying makeup, reading, talking, fiddling with the radio or CD player, etc. This behavior has nothing to do with roadway engineering. That is a matter of driver education and law enforcement.

Studies also show that as roadways become wider and straighter, traffic speeds increase and fender benders become fatalities. Proven road design that includes three lanes, turn lanes and roundabouts in place of traffic signals increase mobility without sacrificing safety.

Higher fuel prices = reduced motoring demand

It is clear that higher fuel prices are reducing the number of miles driven and are creating less demand for new suburban homes. It’s also becoming clear that future population growth patterns will involve more dense urban locations that support public transportation. Investing in obsolete TxDOT road design of the 1950’s and 1960’s is not the vision citizens of Hays County need in these hard economic times.

Playing on peoples fears and providing false and misleading information to convince citizens they should vote for something not in their own best interests is not only a disservice to our citizens, but also a violation of public trust.

With honest leadership we can have a responsible road bond that will achieve improved safety where it is needed, and increased mobility that reflects future trends in transportation needs.

I will vote AGAINST this expensive, wasteful, irresponsible special interest road bond with the expectation that elected officials will eventually be in place who have true vision and will honor the public trust.

As co-founder of Hays Community Action Network (HaysCAN) in 2003, Mr. O’Dell strives to carry out the mission of ensuring open, accessible and accountable government. He is a long time and close observer of the workings of the Hays County Commissioners Court. He earned a degree in Agricultural Education and a Masters in Ag Economics at Texas Tech, and, later, a Ph.D. at The University of Maryland while employed as a Research Economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Washington, D.C. Texas born and raised on a family farm, O’Dell is a Hays County Master Naturalist and a board member of the Ethical Society of Austin.