Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Local toll road officials broke the news with a grimace: The cost to use North Texas toll roads will be going up.

It wasn't a news flash that Dallas-area motorists took well. Fire-breathing comments ignited the Transportation Blog at Dallasnews.com.

Said reader Joe S: "BOYCOTT the tollways. Stay on the access roads, and sit at the lights. Make it known that you are fighting this insanity ..."

And from Boatsun: "I have stopped using the toll roads. Driving from Frisco to Addison was costing me $80 per month. Tolls should only be used to pay for the roads. When the road is paid off the toll booths should go
away. That is why we pay gas taxes in the first place."

Actually, Boatsun, that's not right. The North Texas Tollway Authority's roadways are mostly built and maintained with money you toss in the basket or pay through your TollTag. Your rising monthly cost and this community's toll-road future are stubbornly ignored by
lawmakers who boast that they're doing you favors by freezing gas taxes at levels set in the early '90s.

That doesn't mean they're holding down your cost of driving. Austin's and Washington's refusal to reckon with the price of transportation means you'll pay in different ways. Highways are deteriorating – the American Society of Civil Engineers gives the road network a D-minus grade – and the maintenance cost is piling up. Growing congestion stresses the environment, the budgets of businesses, and the time and wallets of everyday Americans.

And to move traffic, this exploding region is forced to add more and more toll roads. Some statistics:

•North Texas today has 520 miles of tolled lanes.

•North Texas by 2030 will have 3,379 miles of tolled lanes and combination toll/HOV lanes.

The cost to use some of them will be enough to blow a gasket. When the rebuilt LBJ opens in about six years, the rush-hour price of driving in the guaranteed-speed lanes will be 55 cents a mile. The coming price of
14.5 cents per mile for NTTA roadways will rise about 2.75 percent annually.

Last week, U.S House transportation chairman
James Oberstar unveiled a long-overdue blueprint for the nation's infrastructure. The price tag of $450 million over six years is making Washington go pale – the same feeling that North Texas drivers have when it comes to talk of toll increases.