Tag Archives: gas tax

Your increasingly regular Sid Miller update

Posted on April 22, 2016 by Charles Kuffner

What a piece of work this guy is. For years, a sticker affixed to more than 170,000 gas pumps in Texas featured a straightforward headline — “Fuel Feedback?” — alongside a toll-free number, email address and instructions for consumers with … Continue reading →

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The Prop 7 funds are already being claimed

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Charles Kuffner

Get ready for a lot more road construction in the near future. Voters have a little more than a week to decide whether to give Texas highways a $2.75 billion annual funding boost, but Houston-area officials are already making plans … Continue reading →

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We could have better transportation infrastructure if we wanted it

Posted on May 20, 2014 by Charles Kuffner

House Speaker Joe Straus embraces the end-the-diversions approach to transportation funding. Texas’ booming economy and massive transportation needs are inching the state toward simplifying highway spending, officials say. The latest move to end so-called diversions from the State Highway Fund … Continue reading →

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There are no new ideas, but there are plenty of bad ideas

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

There’s so much wrong with what Greg Abbott wants for Texas that it’s hard to know where to begin. In his first major policy address as a gubernatorial candidate, Attorney General Greg Abbott proposed tighter constitutional limits on state spending … Continue reading →

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Maybe the same failed approach will work this time

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

It could happen, right? Transportation experts now estimate that the state needs $5billion a year to keep Texas moving. The proposal that fell apart in the House this week would add less than a billion annually. And after months of … Continue reading →

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House passes different transportation bill than the Senate passed

Posted on July 19, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

Our endless summer of special sessions isn’t over yet. The Texas House on Thursday gave final passage to a measure to boost funding for transportation projects, though few members expect it to survive the Senate without significant changes. After more … Continue reading →

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Elsewhere in the House

Posted on July 11, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

No action on transportation yet. House budget writers on Tuesday ended a hearing on transportation funding with no clear decision about how to raise money for Texas roads. The House Appropriations Committee is considering several proposals to see which has … Continue reading →

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Transportation funding shouldn’t be intractable

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

As previously noted, Sens. Tommy Williams and Robert Nichols want to take another crack at finding additional funds for transportation. The problem, as always, is political

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Still arguing about road funding

Posted on April 13, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

I still don’t quite get why the obvious solution is so blithely dismissed. With most of the work of developing a state budget behind them, lawmakers can now drill deeper into the state’s spending plan to find a way to … Continue reading →

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There’s no such thing as a free road

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

I have an issue with this. Texas’ boom of toll roads has made the “free” part of freeway mean something different lately. As toll lanes become the preferred choice for adding capacity to Texas roads, a growing number of state … Continue reading →

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We’re not going to solve our transportation issues without new revenue

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

The choice isn’t whether or not to pay, it’s how do you want to pay. Despite broad agreement that repairing and improving Texas highways will cost more money than it has in the past, legislators split Monday on whether now … Continue reading →

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What they’re saying about transportation

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Charles Kuffner

So far in all the stories I’ve read about the beginning of the legislative session, education and transportation are two of the biggest items everyone talks about. Here’s a sample from the Chron. Story #1: [Rep. Ed] Thompson said funding … Continue reading →

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The Lege is going to have to spend some money

Posted on October 21, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

Whether they want to or not, there are a lot of issues that will be demanding attention and money from the Legislature when they convene in January. For example, there’s water. House Speaker Joe Straus said Friday the state’s water … Continue reading →

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We got those bad road blues

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

So many bad roads, so little funding to maintain them. Issues including traffic congestion, damage to vehicles from roads needing repair and costs incurred in accidents caused by insufficient safety features on roadways cost drivers in Texas $23 billion annually, … Continue reading →

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Roundabouts in the sky

Posted on September 9, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

I have three things to say about this. Imagine driving into downtown Houston on interstates 10 or 45, or U.S. 59, and having to merge with all other incoming traffic onto an elevated, one-way traffic circle around the cluster of … Continue reading →

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Toll hike

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Charles Kuffner

I have three things to say about this. Starting in September, that jaunt on a Harris County toll road might save you time, but it won’t spare your change. Unless Commissioners Court intervenes, rates at main-lane toll plazas on the … Continue reading →

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Roads don’t pay for themselves

Posted on August 13, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Ezra Klein: The 18.4-cents-per-gallon tax is already inadequate to fund current infrastructure obligations, not least because, in recent years, Americans have been driving less and buying more fuel-efficient cars. The good news is that we’re using less gasoline. The bad … Continue reading →

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Don’t forget Texas’ debt

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Now that Perry’s Prayerpalooza is behind us and we breathlessly await his Presidential decision, keep this op-ed by former State Rep. Jim Dunnam in mind whenever you hear Perry pontificate about the national debt. Before Rick Perry became governor, Texas … Continue reading →

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By the way, we have no money for roads

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Just another issue we won’t be dealing with this session. During the next 20 years, the Texas Department of Transportation will need $315 billion to spend on the state’s roads and freeways for maintenance and construction just to keep traffic … Continue reading →

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Texas lags on rail: Film at 11

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

I’m pretty sure we’ve seen this story before, but here it is again anyway. According to a study commissioned by the Texas Transportation Commission, during the next 20 years, more than $300 billion in 2009 dollars needs to be invested … Continue reading →

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On the road to nowhere

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Use your own favorite cliche for this. Texas soon will be shelling out more per year to pay back money it borrowed for road construction than it spends from its quickly vanishing pile of cash to build new highways. Legislative … Continue reading →

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More on paying for roads and other forms of transportation

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Charles Kuffner

Given that the private toll road debate is set to gear up again in Texas, it is fortuitous that the Texas Public Interest Research Group, a/k/a TexPIRG, chose last week to release a report called Do Roads pay For Themselves? … Continue reading →

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Bumpy roads

Posted on October 12, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

This story is mostly about how Houston ranks against other cities in road conditions. Of interest to me is the reasons why we’re not likely to get any better: At the Houston-Galveston Area Council, the transportation planning body for Harris … Continue reading →

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DART may take a big step back

Posted on April 30, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Dallas Area Rapid Transit, which has built out a much more extensive rail network than Metro and which has plans for a lot more, may instead scrap most of those plans due to serious financial issues. Final decisions are months … Continue reading →

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D Magazine on John Carona

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

Interesting profile, worth a read, on State Sen. John Carona, who’s become somewhat of a radical in his party for actually being old-fashioned enough to try to solve problems and make government work. I think he’s right about this: With … Continue reading →

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The vehicle miles tax

Posted on January 7, 2010 by Charles Kuffner

For all the talk about the need to raise the gas tax in Texas to meet our transportation needs, there is another possible way to do it, which is now under study: The vehicle miles tax. The Texas Transportation Commission … Continue reading →

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KBH’s transportation plan

Posted on December 31, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day seems like an odd time to be rolling out policy initiatives, especially in a campaign that’s been going on for months, so I’ll be brief with this. U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison … Continue reading →

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Raising the gas tax

Posted on November 13, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

This is long overdue. Members of the Texas Senate’s Transportation Committee said Tuesday that an increase in the 20-cents-per-gallon state fuel tax may be necessary to overcome a drastic shortage of money for new roads. “We are in the critical … Continue reading →

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Senate passes TxDOT sunset bill, red light cameras not dead yet

Posted on May 27, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

The Senate approved its version of HB300, the TxDOT sunset bill, and as expected it has some major differences from the House version. Plans to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for transportation projects in North Texas progressed Monday night … Continue reading →

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Taking taxation aversion to its logical extreme

Posted on April 10, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

This story just boggles my mind. Think traffic congestion is bad now? Wait until 2012. That’s when Texas’ highway fund — which relies on a motor fuels tax that hasn’t been raised since 1991 — will be out of money … Continue reading →

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Morrison speaks on the Grand Parkway

Posted on March 5, 2009 by Charles Kuffner

Fort Bend County Commissioner Richard Morrison writes about the recently-greenlighted Grand Parkway Segment E and the possibility that stimulus funds could be used to fund what will become a toll road. If Segment E is funded from the stimulus money … Continue reading →

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