DALLAS TRANSPORTATION

That's an idea that County Commissioner Maurine Dickey is going to bring up tomorrow to other members of Dallas County Commissioners Court.

With the North Texas Tollway Authority near its debt limit, Dickey wants to make sure the county is positioned to advance road projects if it needs to. She points out that NTTA Chairman Paul Wageman said last week that his agency has the financial ability to do maybe one more project; that probably will be the Southwest Parkway-Chisholm Trail in Fort Worth and Johnson County.

Dickey told me this morning that she assumes the possibility that the Legislature could continue to tighten laws that allow for development of toll roads. That could make it impossible for the county to form its own authority, she said. Having all the "tools in the toolbox" is the goal, she said. "We don't want the toolbox closed on us," she said.

Potentially at risk is a list of $19 billion in projects that might go unbuilt without new ways of financing them, she said. Two major projects are the southern portion of Loop 9 and the Trinity Parkway.

Collin County established its own toll authority two years ago, for two pressing reasons: 1) to make sure the DNT extension doesn't go into Denton County, and 2) to advance work on the Loop 9 project in that county's northern tier. At the time, critics faulted the county for abandoning the spirit of regionalism; our newspaper ran an editorial to that effect.

In last year's legislative session, Sen. John Carona introduced a bill that would have given NTTA veto power over aspects of a county toll authority. That bill was ultimately was scaled back, and the Collin County agency didn't lose authority to take on a project in NTTA's back yard.

In Austin, Wageman and Carona were openly critical of the county's move, and Florence Shapiro tried to play the mediator, according to the Collin County Observer:

In his testimony, NTTA Chairman Paul Wageman of Plano said that it made no sense for two public agencies to be at loggerheads over the same project without some level of cooperation.

Wageman then charged that, "Judge Self and the commissioners have had on their agendas, at least twice over the last few months, essentially court orders to issue contracts on elements of our system that are either owned entirely by the NTTA or under contractual arrangements."

Senator Florence Shapiro (R-Plano) tried to set the stage for a compromise, saying, "surely there is one way we can meet in the middle." Shapiro seemed surprised to learn that the county had tried to expropriate a part of the DNT.

Senator Carona jumped in, asking to be part of any negotiating team, saying, "I don't think Collin County plays nice lately. I don't think they have a regional concern, but only for provincial Collin County".

Dickey said she initially thought the Collin County move did not help regionalism, but now things are different, because NTTA is getting stretched so thin.

My take is this: With money increasingly scarce, you'll see more lines being drawn. Collin County officials have said they wanted to make sure tolls collected in the county didn't end up somewhere else and building someone else's roads.

That's part of Dickey's motivation, I'm sure. During last year's debate over the local-option bill in Austin, she was greatly concerned that new revenue could be raised through taxes or fees and then banked somewhere else. She wanted that revenue within control of the very commissioners court that placed the new taxes and fees on the ballot.

Of interest will be Carona's and Wageman's take on the Dickey idea for Dallas County.

Pap Pas

Today, the nine directors of the North Texas Tollway Authority will decide, at long last, whether the authority should add State Highway 161 to its growing network of toll roads. The board meeting began at 9 a.m.; the vote could come at any time. (Follow developments on twitter (@lindenberger) or look for updates on www.dallasnews.com.)

The decision carries high stakes for the toll authority, which since 2007 has borrowed some $5 billion to transform itself from a small agency primarily focused on two major toll roads in Dallas and Collin counties into the region's most important provider of highways, in many ways eclipsing in terms of local relevance the much larger Texas Department of Transportation. (See map at right for a view of just how many area roads are NTTA roads.)

Most of that money was borrowed to win the enormously controversial contract to build SH 121 toll road, now called the Sam Rayburn Tollway, and to borrow heavily against its existing toll roads' revenues to pay an unprecedented $3.2 billion payment to the state, all of which is dedicated to uses selected by the North Texas Council of Governments on local projects.

Since then, the authority has struggled with an enormous debt load, though its credit rating has remained high, and passed a 32 percent increase to toll rates last year to offset lower-than-expected revenues due to the lingering recession.

By taking on SH 161, which is already open in part and still under construction, NTTA would borrow $1.4 billion, and pay nearly $900 million in construction costs, including $258 million to reimburse the North Texas Council of Governments for work now underway. It would also pay $200 million as a bonus of sorts to the region for use on other roads.

NTTA has all along said it would finance SH 161 as a stand-alone project, meaning that it will not pledge its revenues from other roads to guarantee the new debt. That has made obtaining AA credit rating on the new project difficult. To do so, it has asked TxDOT to guarantee the bonds with its gas tax fund.

On Wednesday, the Texas Transportation Commission formally agreed to do so, well over a year after striking a deal indicating they would. But the commissioners also inserted terms in their approval that will require NTTA to refinance the loans within 10 years, or begin paying TxDOT a penalty that could total $161 million over the life of the debt.

NTTA officials, including both chairman Paul Wageman and Victor Vandergriff, have called that provision and a similar one requiring interest payments "onerous," and a potential deal breaker.

The 11.5-mile toll road is expected to make the NTTA a great deal of money, but as this chart to the right shows not until it pays off most of the debt, some 30 years from now.

NTTA has formally pursued the road since 2007, soon after it emerged victorious from scrapes with the Texas Department of Transportation in the 2007 Legislature with a powerful new mandate from lawmakers who expressly named the authority as the region's primary provider of toll roads, giving it first right of refusal on any toll project in the region.

But it's decision this morning isn't a foregone conclusion. (For a primer, click here.) It takes just two members of the NTTA board voting no to prevent the deal. Several have expressed reservations, and members from Tarrant County will be worried about whether taking this project will impede its ability to borrow what is needed to build another major toll road, Southwest Parkway, in Tarrant County. That decision will likely come due later this year or very early next.

Update 3: 6 p.m. I meant to add this third and one would hope final update earlier, but I've been chasing the NTTA story all day. But Gene Rice of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers called this afternoon to say that the Corps did send DART a letter granting partial approval for construction near the Irving levees. What it withheld is approval for a plan that would let DART crews build a pad on top of beams laid into the levee. The pad would be where they sit a crane. Because there is a water line near the area - and because a burst water line caused all kinds of havoc over in Dallas' levees -- Rice said the Corps was being extra cautious, and wants to see a better plan and more details about how the pad will be constructed. It doesn't sound like a big deal, or a likely cause of delay for DART. But Rice did add that both the city of Irving and the local flood control district has to sign off on it, too.

Update No. 2: On the latest issue of Corps work affecting the Orange Line, I sent DART's Morgan Lyons written questions including this one:

Does it look likely at this point that the Corps scrutiny will slow the project down beyond the deadline?

And he sent back this response:

No, we will not be delayed by this. No, the Corps has not denied our 208 request. The Corps approved what we asked them to approve. There are two steps in the Corps 208 approval process and we've already received approval on the first one. We received approval for the first step, the substructure (below ground and column work) on February 11. I'm assuming that's the letter you're referencing.

We are continuing to work with the Corps on the superstructure (bridge elements above the columns) approval. Last year, in anticipation of the time required to get all approvals, we developed a work schedule that would let us continue making progress on the bridge and maintain our overall schedule. The Corps has been a great partner through this process.

The bridge is just over a mile long and begins shortly after the Green Line/Orange Line junction near Bachman Station and goes west over Interstate 35E, continuing west over the Trinity River and levee and touches down in Irving just east of Texas Stadium.

When Morgan says "will not be delayed by this," I take him to mean by the Corps alone, since the TxDOT/utilities obstacle still poses a problem.

Update: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers confirmed this evening that it has withheld full permission for DART construction near its Irving levees, finding that plans submitted by the transit agency were not sufficient to convince the Corps that the Orange Line rail construction would not adversely affect its levees. The opening segment of the Orange Line is due to be complete by 2012.

The Corps, which has also brought to a halt major work near the Trinity River near downtown Dallas, sent a letter to Feb. 11 informing DART that it could only give partial approval to a work plan submitted by DART, said spokesman Clayton Church. The Corps has asked DART to supply more information about a plan that involves laying beams either near or on the levees as part of the rail lines construction. Until then, it has withheld what is called a Section 208 permit -- a permit very similar in its requirements, Church said, to the Section 404 permit that is required for projects that impact the waters of the United States.

DART spokesman Morgan Lyons, reached early Thursday evening, said he was not aware of the letter from the Corps, and would check with engineers involved in planning Friday. At this point it is unclear whether the Corps decision to not approve DART's full construction plan, as it related to their levees, will slow the project down.

DART spokesman Morgan Lyons said this morning that the transit agency is not certain it can meet its deadline for the Orange Line service to Irving, even if TxDOT completes its utility relocation work on time.

"That's because we still need information from TxDOT," Lyons said. (Photo at right shows Orange Line construction on Feb. 24.)

But, I asked, what if TxDOT manages to do everything it needs to to give DART crews access they need to complete their work on time? Is DART still on schedule?

"I am not going to engage in an hypothetical situation," he said.

I asked the questions this morning because Michael Morris, the council of governments' transportation director, told me last night that before he'd recommend to the RTC that it advance the $10 million TxDOT says it will need to stay on schedule, he'd insist on two assurances. One, he wants to make sure TxDOT is sure the money will get it back on track. (TxDOT has said it's 80 percent sure, and he'll probably want more certainty than that.) Secondly, he wants to make sure DART would be able to keep its commitment to open light rail service to Irving by December, 2011 if TxDOT keeps its schedule.

That struck me as a little strange, because in the statement DART released Tuesday night, the transit agency put all the blame for the delay on TxDOT's shoulders. It sent alarm bells a-ringing in Irving, where city officials have been eagerly awaiting light rail service for years.

It's also where a political furor erupted two years ago when DART announced it would not be able to afford to bring the trains there on time. (Photo at left shows Mayor Herb Gears in the audience at DART meeting.) DART soon reversed itself, and promised it could.

Lyons wrote to answer whether DART can be sure to keep its schedule, even if TxDOT gets back on its own.

"It's too early to say. We discussed these issues last week with Michael Morris in a meeting at COG with representatives from DART, TxDOT and Irving. The $10 million for TxDOT only regains one (May 2011) of the original two construction milestone access dates, which could leave an estimated eight-month delay on the second access date (September 2010).

New access dates can't be finalized until utility relocations become more definite. We hope TxDOT will be able to finalize them in the next week or two. Once that happens then TxDOT can give us firm access dates by which we can determine the impact to our Orange Line contractor. We have to have firm dates before determining the magnitude of any delay. When we have the firm dates we can finalize efforts to mitigate schedule delays."

This morning's story about the Texas Transportation Commission reports that the state highway bosses have agreed to give NTTA a loan guarantee that could save the authority hundreds of millions in financing costs on the State Highway 161 toll road.

But I spoke to chairman Paul Wageman and vice-chairman Victor Vandergriff last night, and both were troubled -- and that is a pretty mild descriptor -- by terms attached to the loan guarantee in Austin. The nine-member NTTA board has to vote Friday whether to accept the deal, and it would only take two votes to kill it.

Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, told me yesterday he understands that NTTA's dismay at the terms imposed Wednesday. But he said the TxDOT commissioners were trying to treat all regions fairly, and were mindful that they were creating a precedent for future arrangements with other toll authorities in Texas.

"I am going to do everything I can between now and Friday to make this work," said Morris, who added that he was relieved, at least, that the commissioners stipulated that any fees paid by NTTA would be spent in North Texas.

How bad were the terms imposed in Austin? Wageman and Vandergriff found them 'onerous.' I am not sure I agree that the terms themselves were that significant. But the basic rub is that from NTTA's perspective, this whole thing was a long-negotiated deal, one in which they had agreed to spend big money to relieve the state of major construction responsibilities, saving tax payers a small fortune. But the commissioners never looked at this as anything other than a request to help out a struggling junior partner. By imposing a few additional terms at the end, the wounds have been salted.

But now I want to ask you, dear readers, what you would do if you were on NTTA's board: Would you accept the project, or pass?

Fortunately, as a journalist I don't have to make any hard decisions. We just watch and keep score of the chaos. But doing that does give me a pretty close view of the landscape, and so what I wanted to do is spell out some of the pros and cons of taking the road. Follow me to the jump, and meanwhile, cast your vote in the comments.

The Texas Transportation Commission has agreed to offer a $4.1 billion line of credit to the North Texas Tollway Authority, a mostly technical move that will greatly reduce the borrowing cost associated with building and operating the State Highway 161 toll road.

The commissioners voted unanimously to take the unprecedented move to use gas-tax funds to backstop NTTA's toll road, but not before expressing a range of concerns about the "momentous precedent" the body was making, in the words of Commissioner Ned Holmes of Houston.

The move brings to an end nearly three years of fighting between TxDOT and NTTA over who should build the toll road, 11.5 miles between Grand Prairie and Irving.

But it doesn't seal the deal for the road, not yet.

NTTA nine board members must vote to accept the project at its meeting Friday, and two terms included in the loan agreement today could sink the project. The commissioners want a penalty assessed to NTTA after 10 years, if it has not yet refinanced the bond package in a way that takes TxDOT off the hook.

That fee was strongly opposed by NTTA chairman Paul Wageman and vice chairman Victor Vandergriff in an interview earlier this week. They both said it could be a deal-breaker.

In addition, Holmes offered an amendment to require NTTA to pay interest on any amounts it must pay as a penalty for keeping the department on the hook for the loan. Commissioner Bill Meadows objected and offered a substitute motion, but failed to receive a second.

Commissioner Ted Houghton of El Paso told Fort Worth Council member Jungus Jordan, who is also secretary of the Regional Transportation Council, that he would now need to turn his lobbying efforts to NTTA, if he and the region wants the road to be built. "We're not the final say, the NTTA is."

I'll get in touch with Wageman and his associated and try to find out how difficult a task that may be.

This chart above shows that after the first 15 years or so, NTTA stands to make a whole lot of money on the Southwest Parkway/Chisholm Trail toll road, money it says can then be used to pay to build other roads or, presumably, to reduce the needs for future rate increases. The green is the money it would earn over expenses and debt service.

The chart below shows SH 161, which shows that NTTA will have to wait a lot longer before it begins to make big bucks on that road.

The Texas Transportation Commission is about to decide whether to give NTTA a big line of credit, and it's getting sticky. I'll have more on that as soon as there is a vote.

But in the meantime, I got a question for you: How much are you willing to pay to drive on State Highway 161?

Financial experts say it's a whole, whole, whole lot.

TxDOT CFO James Bass is explaining just now why the department should give NTTA a big line of credit to help it build the SH 161. (The line of credit makes it cheaper for NTTA to borrow the money it needs to build it.)

One reason it's a safe bet that NTTA would never really need the line of credit, Bass says, is because traffic and revenue estimates show that NTTA could raise the rates on the road by "a considerable" amount before doing so would discourage enough drivers from using it. (The rates will be the same as they are elsewhere, unless revenues are too low and NTTA has to raise it, something it won't do unless it runs into problems.)

In other words, there is a great deal of "toll elasticity." The idea is this: If you raise your rates 20 percent, and lose 20 percent of your customers, you're even. If you raise them 100 percent, and lose only 20 percent, you're golden.

So Commissioner Ted Houghton of El Paso wants to know what the studies show is the actual market rate, what people here would actually pay. Bass apologizes but he can't say. It's a secret that only NTTA can release.

So let's have some fun. How high would rates have to go on NTTA's roads -- let's say the DNT for a common talking point -- before you'd stop. They are about 14.5 cents a mile now.

The Washington Post reports that the U.S. Senate easily passed the big jobs bill this morning. Five Republicans, including Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, voted with Democrats to end debate earlier this week, clearing the way for the vote on the issue.

Transportation advocates quickly wrote to point out that an agreement by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that the massive overhaul of federal transportation policy --and spending -- would be taken up later this year, helped ink the deal.

Indeed, the Post says Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., helped build support for the bill by rallying transportation lobbyists in its defense.

The story also says "retiring Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) was more specific, announcing Monday that he had agreed to back the jobs measure after getting a "commitment" from Reid that the Senate would take up a long-term reauthorization of the highway bill in 2010."

LA Streets Blog has more details on the compromise, and what it might mean for reauthorization.

The jobs bill as written would also keep the ailing Highway Trust Fund solvent until the end of this year.

House Democrats have pushed to consider the massive five-year reauthorization bill -- which House transportation chairman says could cost $500 billion, or about $140 billion more than current taxes would produce -- but the Obama Administration has said it wants to wait until 2011.

The Senate compromise would add another big issue to an already full plate for the Obama Administration in 2010.

Update: DART spokesman Morgan Lyons has responded to a few questions. The questions and his answers are on the jump.

DART told its board yesterday that delays by TxDOT in relocating utilities could mean that it might be late in opening its first two segments of the Orange Line, maybe by as much as eight or nine months.

Here's a brief story about it. I am sure this isn't going to go over well in Irving, where city's public works director told my colleague Brandon Formby they were blind-sided by the news yesterday evening.

On that latter point, I asked DART president Gary Thomas yesterday evening, whether DART had shared news of the delay with Irving officials, or whether it had happened so suddenly there had been unable to. He answered directly that the city had been told of the delay.

Brandon, who covers Irving for our paper and for the Irving Blog, also writes: "There's been mention that $10 million is needed to keep the project moving on schedule. What that's for or why it is are still unclear this morning. Lopez said that's one of the areas the city and the other agencies were working on."

Here's what Bill Hale told me about the $10 million last night. He said that because of the delays in getting federal environmental clearance, which came last fall, work on the utility relocation was behind. He said TxDOT's deal with DART was to have its contractors' work done in time for DART to finish its work to open the line by December of 2011.

To meet that deadline, TxDOT has been working with the contractors to expedite their work, but that involves paying them move to cover over-time and various other costs associated with speeding the project up so significantly.

That cost comes in at about $10 million, Hale said. TxDOT, he said, is not responsible for paying that cost. It would be up to DART, one of its partners, or someone else to find the money, he said. He noted that there is a discussion underway at the North Central Texas Council of Governments about whether the $10 million could be advanced as a loan using money the region has in the bank as a result of the State Highway 121 deal from 2007.

If the money is found, he said, he is 80 percent sure he can keep the utility work on schedule, and allow DART to keep its schedule -- assuming DART isn't behind for some other reason, of course.

DART made no mention yesterday, either in the conversation I had with Thomas or in the press release it hurriedly sent out soon afterward, of the $10 million. It's release simply said it had been "officially" informed by TxDOT of the delay, and that it would likely mean a delay to the Orange Line until August, 2012.

If you haven't read my story this morning on DART, I wish you would. It takes a gloomy snap shot of the agency, which is faced some significant hurdles even as it completes one of the most ambitious light rail expansions in the country, and is doing so on time and within budget.

Customers gave it failing marks in the last three months of last year, as evidenced by the number of complaints (they went up), and the number of tickets sold (that went down.) The trains were also more likely to be late, or to be involved in accidents, than a year before.

The recession is finally hitting DART, too, and its finance chiefs told the board that tough decisions about the 20-year plan are ahead -- even though, if you can believe it, the executives, including the president, would not tell board members how bad the picture looks.

And finally, delays on TxDOT's part in relocating utilities are likely going to slow down Irving's Orange Line, according to DART president Gary Thomas.

None of that is good, and neither is this: This morning, two daily riders sent me a note about longer than usual delays getting to work today. Rodger Jones, my colleague on this blog, writes to say:

Regular riders have gotten used to delays, but today's were longer and more numerous than usual. We sat on the tracks at least once in Richardson for a long time, and another time in the tunnel beneath Cityplace. We had several long delays downtown. The driver blamed them on trains stopped ahead and one time on problems with traffic signals. I'd guess we were 10-15 minutes late. When that happens, riders typically break out their cell phones to let work know. I was sitting in front of one guy who sounded like he was a teacher at El Centro and had students waiting for him.

It has become clear that DART has a problem on its hands with the crowding of its rail lines downtown. The service levels have significantly dropped since the opening of the Green Line, and months of scrambling and "temporary fixes" have not yet solved those problems. It appears that they are usually minor problems, but fairly regularly turn into the kind of 10 or 15 minute headaches that Rodger writes about from this morning.

(This is just one guy's opinion, but I get the need for caution, because the staff was still vetting some of the gloomy sales cast forecasts and other very complicated data. But when they tell the board chairman they can't answer his question about how bad the numbers look for 30 days, isn't that just the same as telling him he's not bright enough, and the public who was listening, is not bright enough, to handle some of the still uncertain aspects of the numbers?

Dallas drivers:

Next time you're stuck in traffic, remember: It could be worse.

You could be in Fort Worth.

Cowtown is home to the four worst highway bottlenecks in North Texas, according to an annual study by INRIX, a company that provides computerized traffic data to customers nationwide.

The top three intersections on the list of the worst are along Fort Worth's Loop 820. (The intersections are actually in North Richland Hills or Haltom City, but...)

The notoriously overcrowded Loop 820 is undergoing a facelift as part of the $2 billion North Tarrant Express project, reports Lee Williams of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

After nearly three years of negotiations -- and a heaping helping of disharmony -- the future and funding of State Highway 161 is likely to be settled this week. (For a partial recap, see here and here and here.)

Today at 1 p.m., the Texas Transportation Commission will take a big step toward making that possible when it votes in a special-called meeting on a proposed loan to North Texas Tollway Authority. (Agenda is here: feb24-1.pdf

The loan would mean that if revenues on the toll road fall below what is needed to satisfy creditors, then the authority could tap into the state's gas tax fund to make its payments. Before it could do so, however, NTTA would first have to raise rates on SH 161 in order to try to maximize its revenue.

The loan, which looks certain to win approval today, has been controversial, even though TxDOT agreed to make it well over a year ago. It's highly likely, both sides agree, that NTTA would never need to tap into the state funds, and if it did, it would only be for a short time to cover (comparatively) low annual payments.

Commuters in Northeast Tarrant County should be aware by now that the massive DFW Connector project will be slowing their drives from time to time over the next four years.

The construction team building the 8.4-mile highway project sent a reminder out this afternoon about some upcoming road closures. I've listed them on the jump, but repeat the sender's advice: For an updated list, check the team's 'coming road closures page.'

There are three public meetings this week on cutback plans for bus service, and the sessions go through the month of March. You see the schedule here. And see the list of affected routes here.

Anyone who hears something that the public might be interested in -- newsworthy, in other words -- drop us an e-note on the Dallas Transportation blog.

My colleague Michael Lindenberger stirred up some comment on cutbacks with his item earlier this month, with much of it centering not on individual routes, but on the timeliness of service.

I encourage riders to look at the posted list closely along with the maps. One commenter on the Lindenberger post concluded that he was losing service on Collins Road in Richardson, but a different line was going to pick up the service.

(Aside: Discussion is also ongoing on the Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum website.)

Some of these routes will be cut because of redundancy with the new Green Line rail service beginning to new parts of the city later this year.

One thing I wonder about: Does DART staff changes its original change-in-service plans in response to public meetings? Or are they mostly to give people the news, bad and all, about what's coming?

I'll shoot this question to my friends at DART and post the response.

UPDATE: Answer to the question from DART spokesman Morgan Lyons:

"Yes, we do. We did that as recently as the last major round of changes. We hope customers will join us and provide their input during the meetings or by calling or writing."

Texas House Speaker Joe Straus has appointed a special interim committee to study transportation funding. It seems to open the door for more debate of how to help regions find money to build rail transit. What's interesting is the absence of the words "highway" and "roads."

From that perspective, here are key parts of his proclamation:

5) explore innovative approaches to encourage local government entities to participate in the development of critically needed transportation projects; and

(6) consider the feasibility of using alternative funding options at the state and local levels to meet the expected growth and demand for transportation infrastructure, rail relocation, and high speed rail.

The tone of Straus' announcement was accountability first, revenue second. It said the work should "highlight the need for increased transparency and accountability in Texas transportation and to analyze current and future transportation funding requirements."

His announcement puts no emphasis on the need for more money, but everyone knows that's the case. It was why Straus' own transportation chairman, Joe Pickett, had a joint meeting this month with Sen. John Carona's Senate transportation committee.

The funding picture isn't pretty, as we pointed out in an editorial today, and Straus was remiss in not putting this topic on his original agenda of interim charges. As our newspaper said when Straus announced his original charges in December:

• Transportation - The speaker ignored the elephant in the room: how Texas is going to pay for the highway and transit systems needed to keep up with population growth.

TxDOT officials say no new highway projects will be started as of 2012 if Austin doesn't find a way to pay for them. Look on Pg 7 from this presentation to the joint committee to see a map of the projects that wouldn't get built in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Also, the Dallas TxDOT district, in its monthly report, explained the funding picture.

As for rail transit, the House killed bills in the last two sessions that would let metro areas hold elections to raise new transportation money for rail projects. Both times the legislation got through the Senate through Carona's efforts.

This next session looks to be shaping up differently. I'd bet rail transit advocates get behind a statewide boost in the gas tax and a constitutional amendment to allow use of some of that money for non-highway projects. That wouldn't raise the hundreds of millions a year that Dallas-Fort Worth leaders had wanted to build 250 new miles of rail, but I think they'll go for a new strategy that might yield something.

It's key that Vicki Truitt, who authored the House bill on local-option taxes last year, is on Straus' interim committee, and on the sub-panel for funding.

Keep reading for the members and proclamation:

State lawmakers have been scrambling for ways to protect the buying power of the fuel tax even as cars get more efficient and require less gas. The concept under discussion in Austin has been to index the tax so it would automatically rise with inflation or the cost of construction.

But that's looking to be old school even before Austin gets seriously close to acting.

In Virginia, lawmakers are already looking at a newer idea of indexing the gas to the average fuel efficiency of the cars on the road. That's yet another way to make sure that car owners produce a steady amount of revenue and keep up their per-mile tax support for roadways.

Two transportation guys around here have tossed out this idea too -- my colleague Michael Lindenberger wrote about it recently, and Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, has made public presentations.

Both Michaels seem to be claiming authorship of the idea -- our Michael says he thought about it before he heard about it -- and it's hard to know which one to believe. I do know that both have the attention of transportation officials.

-- Our Michael says he was buttonholed the other day by Texas Transportation Commissioner Bill Meadows, who had read the blog item and said the idea is worth pursing.

-- Morris laid out details of the concept this month to a joint meeting of the Legislature's Senate and House transportation committees. Senate Transportation Chairman John Carona asked for details. You could hear the wheels turning.

I have to say Morris has a better pitch. Lindenberger has a treatise. Morris has charts, numbers, a powerpoint and everything. He's also got a great intro line for elected officials who are sensitive to the "tax friendly" label.

Morris told lawmakers: "If I said there is a strategy to raise taxes that does not cost the consumer any more money, you would say I'm crazy."

He had their attention. You can see his presentation by clicking up the Feb. hearing on the Legislature's archives. Dial into 3 hours, 29 minutes and listen. You can also follow his chart while listening (click to pg 10).

I'm not sure I follow how you can cut people's taxes and make more money, but lots is possible in Austin. One of the Michaels will have to convince me how a fuel efficiency index does magic that an inflation index can't.

Even so, this campaign year is a tricky time to talk about any kind of new tax. Kay Bailey Hutchison has jumped on Rick Perry because TxDOT is studying the concept of so-called VMT (vehicle miles traveled) tax. That method also could make sure you pay a steady per-mile cost of using roadways, regardless of fuel efficiency. It could be a lot more complicated, potentially with transponders that could have to produce information at car-registration time or perhaps at the gas pump.

But any of the new ways of raising more highway revenue is politically dangerous in an election year. Just look at the answers legislative candidates gave on this newspaper's voters guide when asked about highway funding.

Whoever goes down to Austin next year will need to confront a long-term funding shortfall estimated at more than $300 billion over 25 years. The status quo isn't cutting it.

One of our most frequent commenters, Ken Duble, posed a question earlier today about the impact of the stimulus funding announced yesterday on Dallas' streetcar plans. (See our blog post yesterday and story from this morning's newspaper.)

I sent his questions to Dallas City Council member Linda Koop, chairwoman of the council's transportation committee, and asked for her take. Here answer follows Ken's question below.

Ken asked:

I understood there to have been two competing starter lines, both of them loops. One was to have circled in and out of Oak Cliff from Houston Street/Union Station. The other was shaped like an Allen wrench, linking the Union Station/Convention Center area with the Arts District. This downtown proposal was to have run along Elm and Commerce Streets, not Main. I understood we were to have gotten one or the other. I'm not saying I dislike this proposal. I'm saying we've never seen it. How did we get here from where we were?

Second question: How is this going to impact Main Street? Will it still be viable to have private cars using this street once the streetcar takes the last of the on-street parking? Couldn't this be the time to consider restricting Main to buses, cabs and limos? Having a Main Street logjam serves no one's interest.

Koop wrote back to say the following.

Ken, I read your questions to Michael on his blog. I think I can shed some light on your two questions. In the first question you asked... how do we get "to" the original "downtown alignment" from the proposed alignment that was in the Tiger Grant. We will be working on the TIGER Grant proposal since it is the one that has funding. The Tiger Grants allow flexibility, so we will need to evaluate the Houston Street Bridge and perhaps the Commerce Street Bridge to see which one is more technically viable. We only have 1/2 the money to work with... therefore, the line will be more limited in its scope but will still connect Oak Cliff and Downtown.

We reported this morning on a major new highway project out in Grapevine, and the excitement at the groundbreaking was palpable. It is basically a free road -- maybe the last major example of that for years to come -- but it will include four managed toll lanes along about 4 miles of its 8.4-mile length.

I also noted that before the construction is complete on that road, Dallas-area drivers will find themselves in a maze of torn-up highways all across North Texas. It's truly amazing how much work is going to be done here in the next few years.

All of the other major highway projects will include tolled lanes as well, with two traditional toll roads -- SH 161 and Southwest Parkway -- and two massive hybrid projects, that will include both free lanes and tolled lanes: The LBJ Freeway rebuild and the North Tarrant Express.

Of course if the Trinity Parkway ever gets back on track, we'll have that going for us, too.

Yesterday, I asked Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson whether Dallas leaders are simply too in love with toll roads for their own good?

Johnson told me that she hears complaints about tolls frequently, but thinks they are necessary nevertheless.

"We hear more complaints against tolls in Texas than anywhere in America," Johnson said. "And I think that's fine."

But she said they are give drivers options to get from place to place more quickly, and she said they are often necessary to simply pay for the highways. "I don't think tolls are overused in Dallas. I think in every instance, there is always an alternative route to travel."

What do you think? Are there too many toll roads in Dallas? Tell us in the comments, and if you think there are too many toll roads, let me know what you think we ought to do instead? Because, you know, that's the hard part.

Dallas scored big this morning as Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced the city will received $43 million in grants that will build a starter downtown streetcar loop that will cross into Oak Cliff, and will greatly reduce NTTA's cost to build the State Highway 161 toll road.

Its two projects were among 51 -- and the only ones in Texas -- to win out in the competition TIGER grant competition announced this morning. The federal government had reserved some $1.5 billion in stimulus funds for a grant competition aimed at providing funds for creative projects, especially those that achieve the Administration's sustainability goals.

Dallas' application for the street car funds was part of a joint application with Fort Worth, and it always was seen as a long-shot, even though that outlook brightened somewhat last month when the Obama Administration announced that it would reverse a Bush Administration policy of requiring all transit applications to be judged first on cost-effectiveness.

That departure made projects like trolley lines that remove relatively few cars from the highways more likely to pass review. (Fort Worth's portion of the application was not successful.)

The U.S. Department of Transportation described the $23 million street car grant like this:

The proposed streetcar line originates in Downtown Dallas at Harwood and Main Street, continuing down Main Street to Houston Street through the largest job center in the North Texas area. The line has a stop at Union Station in Downtown Dallas, which provides access to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Authority's Red/Blue Light rail lines and to Fort Worth via the Trinity Railway Express. It also includes stops at the Dallas Convention Center and Hotel, Trinity River Park (which will be among the largest urban parks in the United States), Methodist Medical Center, the Oak Cliff Gateway area and multiple residential areas.

The announcement was made by Lahood in Washington, but also to some Dallas officials by U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas.

North Texas Tollway Authority received $20 million as well, but the bigger news is that the money was selected to help pay for costs associated with a $400 million federal TIFIA loan on which the toll authority had all but given up. That loan will greatly reduce the NTTA's borrowing cost for a project that has bedeviled the financial pros at both TxDOT and NTTA for nearly two years.

Spokeswoman Sherita Coffelt said the news was a surprise, and its whizzes are sharpening their pencils as I write this.

Today is the one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama's signing of the nearly $800 million American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, better known as the stimulus package. Indeed, the Federal Highway Administration's chief will be in Grapevine today at 11 a.m. to tout the largest use of stimulus funds in America, and we'll hear later today whether Dallas' request for TIGER grants will be granted.

But a year on, do you think the massive public spending has been a good thing, or a bad thing for America and for Texas?

In an interview on CBS, Vice President Joe Biden said the program "has been worth it." Reports the Associated Press:

In an interview broadcast on CBS's "The Early Show," Biden defended the program against accusations by Republicans critics that it hasn't been the job-manufacturing machine the administration promised to the American people.

He argued that money invested in both private and public-sector initiatives has saved as many as 2 million jobs, and said, "I don't think they realize it." Biden said the program, now a year old, was designed to be implemented in two stages, saying "we've only been halfway through the act."

Propublica, the non-profit investigative journalism outfit that has bird dogged the stimulus as well as anyone, says of the total, $179 billion has been spent, another $154 billion is in progress, and $249 billion remains to be spent. (Of the $210 billion or so in tax cuts, a little less than half have been issued.)

Plenty of economists (like this one) agree with Biden, but that's heavily contested by Republicans, of course,

So what do you think? It's undeniable that the money spent saved huge numbers of jobs and cut taxes by several hundred million dollars, but on the other hand it was an even larger pile of money at a time when our debt has become a significant worry.

Today is the one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama's signing of the nearly $800 million American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, better known as the stimulus package. Indeed, the Federal Highway Administration's chief will be in Grapevine today at 11 a.m. to tout the largest use of stimulus funds in America, and we'll hear later today whether Dallas' request for TIGER grants will be granted.

But a year on, do you think the massive public spending has been a good thing, or a bad thing for America and for Texas?

In an interview on CBS, Vice President Joe Biden said the program "has been worth it." Reports the Associated Press:

In an interview broadcast on CBS's "The Early Show," Biden defended the program against accusations by Republicans critics that it hasn't been the job-manufacturing machine the administration promised to the American people.

He argued that money invested in both private and public-sector initiatives has saved as many as 2 million jobs, and said, "I don't think they realize it." Biden said the program, now a year old, was designed to be implemented in two stages, saying "we've only been halfway through the act."

Propublica, the non-profit investigative journalism outfit that has bird dogged the stimulus as well as anyone, says of the total, $179 billion has been spent, another $ is in progress, and $249 billion remains to be spent. (Of the $210 billion or so in tax cuts, a little less than half have been issued.)

Plenty of economists (like this one) agree with Biden, but that's heavily contested by Republicans, of course,

So what do you think? It's undeniable that the money spent saved huge numbers of jobs and cut taxes by several hundred million dollars, but on the other hand it was an even larger pile of money at a time when our debt has become a significant worry.