Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Keep El Paso moving: Why El Paso needs a strong RMA and strong TxDOT

For several years, our community has worked hard to support the creation of the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority (RMA) and encourage its collaboration with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).

Among our RMA's main functions is the authority to develop transportation projects, issue revenue bonds, establish tolls, use surplus revenue to finance other local transportation projects, and apply for federal highway and rail funds. In our region, only the RMA can build key projects in Mexico and New Mexico, work across modes, including rail, multimodal and rapid transit, and leverage funding with new concepts like pass-through tolls.

HB 300, the TxDOT Sunset Bill that passed in the Texas House of Representative this week threatens a partnership by these organizations that has already worked well to increase mobility in our three-state, two country international port. Amendments added to the bill would effectively dissolve our RMA and destroy TxDOT as a statewide transportation agency.

The Sunset Bill, as passed by the House, would allow El Paso to abolish the RMA— a body made up of members appointed by the Mayor and City Council, with a chairman appointed by the Governor— in favor of a new municipal mobility authority, which would essentially be the City Council.

Removing the RMA would serve only to overburden our local elected officials, and would unnecessarily subject road selection and funding to short-term City Council political needs rather than the larger view outside day-to-day politics. Our model has served us well at the Public Service Board, as the voters in the city affirmed in the May 2009 elections.

The House's Sunset Bill would also have TxDOT pour money directly into 25 metropolitan planning organizations across the state. Add that to the 24 rural planning organizations the Sunset Bill proposes creating and you have a bill that effectively creates 49 mini-TxDOTs across Texas.

Removing TxDOT's single, statewide authority over transportation projects would not only create a patchwork of transportation projects across Texas and remove the statewide oversight so essential to connectivity, it would also violate federal law requiring that final authority for spending on a state highway system rest with a state's transportation department.

More than a century ago, Texas lawmakers agreed that the state needed a plan to fund and create a connected highway system. Creating this system required the state take federal funding, making Texas subject to certain federal requirements. HB 300, if passed, would put Texas into violation of federal law— and take Texas back to a system of county transportation control it had already abandoned by the 1930s.

The state's counties originally had authority over building public roads, raising revenue through road taxes and in 1909 were granted the authority by the state legislature to pass funding bonds. Those years of county authority, however, were notorious for waste of taxpayer money and poor vetting of contractors.

In response, the U.S. Congress passed the Federal Aid Road Act in 1916, which required that all states establish a state highway department as a condition of receiving federal transportation funds. The act was amended in 1921 to require states to designate highways eligible for federal aid, and required that funds for construction and maintenance of these highways be under the sole control of the state highway department. The amendment to the act was a direct result of continued problems with a county-by-county patchwork road system.

In 1925, the Texas Supreme Court in Robbins v. Limestone County upheld changes in federal law, ruling that, by their very nature, highways belonged to the state, not to counties. By 1932, a still nascent state transportation department brought Texas into full compliance with federal law. Following the Court's ruling, in order to be fair, the legislature reimbursed counties for costs they incurred to build state highways. The 1925 ruling has been reaffirmed by the Texas Supreme Court as recently as 2004 in TxDOT v. City of Sunset Valley.

Current federal law requires that a state transportation department have adequate powers to make final decisions for the state in all matters relating to creating and maintaining road projects. That department's statewide transportation plan must include consideration of integration and connectivity of roads throughout the state.

Today, HB 300 would strip the department of its ability to approve the selection of projects in the state— meaning if any region failed to maintain federally-aided projects, TxDOT would have no power to bring that project into compliance with federal guidelines. Essentially, HB 300 takes Texas back to 1923, when counties last tried to be king of the road.

Texans deserve a state highway system that conforms to federal law and the piece of mind that when they travel from end of the state to the other, they have uniform, well-maintained and safe highways. They have no such guarantee should HB 300 pass as amended.

By themselves, either of these two measures in the House's Sunset Bill — dissolving our RMA or stripping TxDOT's authority— would threaten the $1 billion in existing mobility projects already funded in El Paso because of the partnership between TxDOT, the RMA and the City.

TxDOT, the RMA and the City of El Paso have approved more than a dozen highway construction and aesthetic improvement projects, including interchange improvements on I-10 at UTEP, and widening several lanes on Loop375, U.S. 54 and in Horizon.

The RMA has been responsible for securing financing for 90 percent of projects in the $1 billion plan. A new mobility authority would have to redo all of this work to secure financing for projects with no guarantee of success.

Currently, the RMA is working on the $300-million plan to create flyovers to join Interstate 10 and Loop 375. The RMA is also responsible for funding the $260-million Spur 601 project.

Representative Joe Pickett's attempt to dissolve our RMA this session is his second such attempt in two years. Representative Pickett attached this amendment without consulting with any elected official in our community. Last session, the first bill filed by Picket, HB 154, called for abolishing TxDOT and replacing it with a single elected official.

Our RMA was carefully crafted over several sessions by local stakeholders, including Mayor John Cook, area transportation expert and the chambers of commerce, to meet the unique mobility needs of our three-state, two-country region and as an economic engine will only grow stronger over time. The RMA has worked well with TxDOT to ensure our region's mobility needs are being met.

Why, in the last two weeks of the legislative session should we remove what's already been successful? What we need now is responsible leadership, not rash brinksmanship.

Building highways means new jobs. Because of competent management by planners at TxDOT, the RMA and the City, and because federal dollars funded the new east side interchange, more money originally intended for its construction has been freed up for other area construction projects.
Today, Texas finds itself in a crisis regarding funding for new transportation projects. The state will be out of money to build new roads from the state highway fund by 2012. To address this crisis, local governments will require new sources of funding to meet mobility needs.

This session, the Texas Senate passed a bill that would allow local governments—including El Paso— to raise funding for new road and rail projects. SB 855 would give urban areas the option to call an election for voters to decide whether or not to approve new funding streams to build roads and railways. This bill included several funding streams:

·         a new resident impact fee on vehicles previously registered out of state;

·         a mobility improvement fee to be imposed at time of vehicle registration;

·         a driver fee imposed upon renewal of driver's licenses;

·         a local option gas tax;

·         an emissions fee imposed at time of vehicle inspection; or

·         a parking fee imposed on publicly owned parking lots

Now, after amendments in the House, communities will have only one tool— a local option gas tax to take to voters. Why fear what voters might choose to do to keep El Paso moving?

Basic infrastructure is the key to a competitive economy—without the ability to move people and products, manufacturers and others will go to states and countries that can. In El Paso, we need to support a proven model that has worked to provide that infrastructure to our city, and give it the every tool and resource available to bring more projects to El Paso. Let’s all support a strong RMA and TXDOT to make that happen.

Eliot Shapleigh