The Texas Observer

Imagine this: By 2100, the Gulf rises 2-4 feet, inundating Galveston as well as portions of Harris County and Southeast Texas, threatening roads, rails, pipelines and ports; average annual temperatures climb 2-4F and very hot days get even hotter, stressing vehicles and energy systems and buckling Houston’s METRORail; increasingly powerful and more frequent storms hammer the Port of Houston, airports, and petrochemical facilities in Port Arthur, Beaumont, Freeport and Houston. Sound like a far-fetched scenario hatched by a Hollywood imagination? Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

A major study of likely climate change impacts to the Gulf Coast has just been released by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. The Bush administration has predictably downplayed the 439-page report, entitled Impacts of Climate Change and Variability on Transportation Systems and Infrastructure: Gulf Coast Study, Phase 1. Drawing on a growing body of scientific literature, the authors examine how rising sea levels, increased storm intensity, warming temperatures, and changes in precipitation present risks to transportation and infrastructure in the central Gulf region from Houston-Galveston to Mobile, Alabama. It’s gonna be one hell of a ride.

Despite the serious consequences posed for Houston-Galveston and Southeast Texas there has been scant media attention to the study. Worse, the authors also found that “most [transportation planning] agencies do not consider climate change projections per se in their long-range plans, infrastructure design, or siting decisions.” (How much you wanna bet Gov. Perry’s TxDOT is one of those heads-in-the-sand agencies?)

Key excerpts from the report, which can be read in its entirety here:

The changing climate raises critical questions for the transportation sector in the United States. As global temperatures increase, sea levels rise, and weather patterns change, the stewards of our Nation’s infrastructure are challenged to consider how these changes may affect the country’s roads, airports, rail, transit systems, and ports. The U.S. transportation network – built and maintained through substantial public and private investment – is vital to the Nation’s economy and the quality of our communities. Yet little research has been conducted to identify what risks this system faces from climate change, or what steps managers and policy makers can take today to ensure the safety and resilience of our vital transportation system.

…

Warming temperatures are likely to increase the costs of transportation construction, maintenance, and operations. More frequent extreme precipitation events may disrupt transportation networks with flooding and visibility problems. Relative sea level rise will make much of the existing infrastructure more prone to frequent or permanent inundation – 27 percent of the major roads, 9 percent of the rail lines, and 72 percent of the ports are built on land at or below 122 cm (4 feet) in elevation. Increased storm intensity may lead to increased service disruption and infrastructure damage: More than half of the area’s major highways (64 percent of Interstates; 57 percent of arterials), almost half of the rail miles, 29 airports, and virtually all of the ports are below 7 m (23 feet) in elevation and subject to flooding and possible damage due to hurricane storm surge.

…

In addition, the climate analysis indicates that the number of hurricanes may increase as the temperature of the sea surface continues to warm. Simulated storm surge from model runs across the central Gulf Coast at today’s elevations and sea levels demonstrated a 6.7- to 7.3-m (22- to 24-ft) potential surge for major hurricanes of Category 3 or greater. Based on recent experience, even these levels may be conservative; surge levels during Hurricane Katrina (rated a Category 3 at landfall) exceeded these heights in some locations. Many of the region’s major roads, railroads, and airports have been constructed on land surfaces at elevations below 5 m (16.4 ft). Storm surge poses significant risk to transportation facilities due to the immediate flooding of infrastructure, the damage caused by the force of the water, and secondary damage caused by collisions with debris.

Many of us will see these impacts become a reality in our lifetimes. In fact relative sea-level rise (the combination of sinking land and rising oceans) is already a bitter truth for Galveston Island, as I wrote last November in the Observer. Check out the interactive map on how rising seas will affect Galveston here. And here’s a graph of the tide gauge at Pier 21 in Galveston. The trend is about 1/4-inch per year, but by all indications the rate is accelerating due to climate change.

The UK and Australian press have christened Macquarie, the Australian investment and banking group, the “Millionaire Factory” for the hefty bonuses it lavishes on its executives. Macquarie has several tentacles including the Macquarie Infrastructure Group which builds toll roads and the Macquarie Media Group.

It’s worth noting that the Macquarie Media Group has gobbled up more than 100 small town U.S. newspapers since last year, including the Dallas-based American Consolidated Media, which owns a number of small papers in Texas. Just this month it bought the Glen Rose Reporter in Glen Rose, south of Fort Worth. Its acquisitions make the Macquarie Media Group’s American Consolidated Media — the 5th largest regional newspaper publisher in the United States.

Why should we care? Because Macquarie Infrastructure Group has made several bids to build toll roads in Texas and across the United States. One of the Macquarie Media Group’s acquisitions is the Alice Echo-News, the homepage of which currently sports a web banner touting the I-69 Trans Texas Corridor public meetings. This is part of the same media campaign which angered legislators such as Senator John Carona (R-Dallas) chair of the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Commission. The “Keep Texas Moving” media campaign is costing TxDOT up to $9 million. Meanwhile, TxDot says it will delay more than $1 billion worth of projects this year because it doesn’t have enough money, a claim that many legislators and citizens alike find laughable.

For more toll road fun, Carona, will hold a hearing February 5th, asking TxDot to explain where its money went, and why it didn’t mention this cash-flow crisis during last year’s legislative session.

Alex Doughty, a spokesperson for Macquarie Media Group said any link between Macquarie and an attempt to influence public opinion through their newly acquired newspapers was absurd. Doughty sent the following response in an email:

“The acquisition of American Consolidated Media by Macquarie Media Group has absolutely no connection with any other project that Macquarie is involved in in the state of Texas. To suggest that the acquisition was made to control public opinion in advance of building toll roads or for any other purpose is absurd and incorrect. The business continues to be run by the same management team, with the same editorial staff. No editorial influence has been exercised by MMG. This includes over [sic] advertising done through those publications.”

Macquarie has lost most of its toll road bids in Texas, so far, to the Cintra-Zachry consortium, who have been big political donors in Texas for many years. Lobbyist Dan Shelley — who wins the incredible revolving door award — worked for Cintra, and was then hired as the legislative director for Governor Perry during the legislative session that passed the Trans Texas Corridor legislation. After the legislative session ended, Shelley quit and took a nice lobbying contract from Cintra for himself and his daughter Jennifer Shelley-Rodriguez. See this Texas Observer story for more in depth coverage on the rush to highway privatization in Texas.

While Mr. Doughty may call the Macquarie media/toll road connection a conspiracy theory a comparison of the photos of Macquarie’s acquisitions and a map of the projected Trans Texas Corridor (seen below) underscores the concern. Regardless, as the push to privatize continues on a global scale, citizens need to watch who is manning the toll booth.

The policy board of the Capitol Area Metropolitan Planning Organization approved a controversial second round of toll roads early last week. Eddie Rodriguez (D-East Austin) cast one of the few votes against adopting the toll plan. I spoke to him late that evening after the vote and asked him to explain why.

At the board meeting, Rodriguez did not make any hay out of his opposition to the plan. My notes indicate he used the word “speechify” and lamented the lack of information on how these latest toll roads would affect different “income levels.” Then I noted the “endless shuffling of paper.”

He said later that he had requested data from the Texas Department of Transportation on income levels in and around the proposed tollways, and “never got anything about where the poor people are.”

Rodriguez wrote an op-ed decrying the fact that most of the planned toll roads were east of I-35.

What he wanted to know from TxDoT is: whether or not the toll plan will force people — that already cannot afford their electric bill, gasoline, and inflated meat, beer, and milk prices — to dump their precious quarters and dollars into a toll booth every time they drive to work.

“This is the real impact,” Rodriguez said. He and I agreed that a lot of people, particularly the poor, will never take a toll road unless they are forced to. But, Rodriguez said, “they sure as hell might want to sometimes.”

Rodriguez weighed in on the so-called debate over whether or not the roads are existing roads being tolled, or just new roads with a ‘user fee.’

“The roads aren’t going to look exactly like they look today,” he said. “This is the same road, basically, and now you’ve got to pay a toll… What I wish is that we would just be honest… The benefit outweighs the cost.”

He also criticized the leadership of TxDot. “I think the Ric Williams‘ of the world… made a decision that we are going to toll,” Rodriguez said. “In 2004 we had a gun to our head… To say we actually had a choice (in 2007) is kind of farfetched.”

Rodriguez ended with something of a dire prediction. He said in the future, when a big road project is considered, it may well be considered as a tollway first.

“Anytime we want to build roads from now on,” Rodriguez said, “they’re going to say, ‘We’ve got to toll it.’”

Looks like I wasn’t paying as close attention as I thought. Travis County Commissioner Sarah Eckhardt voted yes on all the toll road proposals except for SH 45. And Austin City Council member Jennifer Kim voted no on all five toll road proposals. Kim actually spoke against the plan forcefully.

Sorry for the error.

How likely is the ambitious plan to build the superhighway called La Entrada al Pacifico? The planned highway will stretch from Lubbock through West Texas to the border and on to the Mexican port of Topolobampo. The Texas Department of Transportation is currently performing a feasibility study and hopes to release some kind of recommendation in March of next year. But despite the signs announcing the highway that dot West Texas roadways, the idea always seemed farfetched to me.

There is the obvious question of why a superhighway would be needed to an area of the state that is losing population. Now, after reading this story in the Los Angeles Times, I’m even more skeptical. The article relates how shipping at California’s ports, the busiest in the nation, is severely down due to a softening U.S. economy. So we would be boosting a Mexican port when the ones in the United States aren’t near capacity? It doesn’t make sense.

In fact, this really makes sense only as an outsized fantasy of civic boosters from Midland. One sure sign that this is the case is the involvement of Nadine Craddick, wife of the speaker of the Texas House in MOTRAN, the Midland-based booster of the plan. According to an article in the Midland Reporter-Telegram, Nadine Craddick “helped establish the Midland-Odessa Transportation Alliance in the early 1990s and its La Entrada al Pacifico trade corridor.” Not surprisingly the only actual construction to begin on La Entrada has started in Midland. One wonders with Tom Craddick battling for his political survival whether La Entrada is even more imperiled than it might appear?

Seated beside me at the CAMPO meeting was a consultant for a builder, on the other side was a studious lobbyist whom I’ve seen roaming the state Capitol during legislative sessions. In front of me sat a portly lawyer who was representing a property owner hoping to get top dollar for his slice of right-of-way.

None of them so much as applauded as the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Policy Board voted for all five proposed toll roads—a patchwork of tollways that will overlay portions of U.S. 183, U.S. 290, Texas 71, the ‘Y’ in Oak Hill, and will create SH 45 in Hays County.

The three gentlemen did not react much to the approval, but they appeared to take note of the four board members that voted no—Hays County Judge Liz Sumter; Rep. Eddie Rodriguez (D-East Austin); Sunset Valley Mayor Pro Tempore Jeff Mills; and Travis County Commissioner Sarah Eckhardt. As I noted, the plethora of Williamson County members’ ‘Aye’ votes along with pro-business Democrats like Sen. Kirk Watson (D-Austin) and Austin Mayor Will Wynn were more than enough to carry the day.

Mills was particularly eloquent in explaining his vote. He said most of the congestion in Austin was on MoPac, I-35, and Loop 360.

“These projects do nothing for the main points of congestion,” he said, noting that the Texas Department of Transportation had made it clear that it was only interested in toll roads. “There are sufficient funds for non-tolled roads.”

TxDoT has been a naughty agency in the last few years. I don’t think anyone doubted Mills when he suggested TxDoT strong-armed the board.

It was nice to see Rep. Mike Krusee (R-Round Rock) at the meeting, particularly since he has sent a proxy to at least the last three board meetings.

Hell, I don’t blame the guy. It takes an ass of iron to sit through one of these meetings. It may also be that Krusee didn’t need to hear from all the disgruntled residents of Oak Hill as well as Sal Costello’s army of vocal anti-tollers. Krusee, surely, already knew how he was going to vote.

The process seemed deliberately confusing, and I would argue that only the executive director of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA), Mike Heiligenstein, really knows what was approved. At one point, Watson began clarifying points disputed among board members by asking Heiligenstein, who was sitting in a front row.

Heiligenstein is a former Williamson County Commissioner and has been out front selling the toll road notion to road builders and contractors from day one. I was present back in 2004 at a swanky little get-together of the Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce when Heiligenstein made one of the first pitches (I went for the free food, not knowing what the subject was).

“Dallas and Houston have toll roads, and now we’re going to have them, too,” I recall he said. And across the room, there were dollar signs in the eyes of Texas contractors.

In the end, the Chamber of Commerce won. My advice for those who showed up to pressure their elected representatives into voting no? Buy a toll tag. You’re going to need it.

At a high school in northwest Austin, members of the Transportation Policy Board of the Capitol Area Metropolitan Planning Organization are gathering once again. The voting members of the 19-person board are preparing to vote on whether to approve a second round of toll roads.

The tolls in question, this time, involve existing roads, including parts of U.S. 290 and Texas 71 near the ‘Y’ in Oak Hill as well as huge sections of U.S. 183 and TX 71 east of I-35.

These roads have been built and paid for once via the gas tax, and while they are constantly clogged with traffic, and dotted with poorly timed red lights, transforming the roads into tollways will only help those who are willing (and able) to pay.

The board is stacked in favor of toll roads, with mayors and representatives from outlying cities like Georgetown, Round Rock, Buda, and Kyle. These communities all stand to benefit from toll roads like SH 130. The common assumption is that the plan will pass easily. We shall see.

In a bit of irony, however, as the meeting was set to begin, many of those wishing to attend may well be stuck in traffic. The radio says a pile-up on I-35 has blocked all northbound lanes, and an accident on the flyover from I-35 to U.S. 183 has blocked the easiest path to where the meeting is being held.