The Alamo Regional Mobility Authority's taxpayer-funded PR campaign for the US 281 toll project sent 30,000 mailers to households in the corridor promising if new funding became available, some or all of the toll lanes could go away. AAMPO officials have repeatedly promised taxpayers that tolls are just a 'placeholder' so that when new funds become available, those funds can be used to make previously marked toll lanes, free. Two previously designated toll roads on Loop 1604 W and Wurzbach Pkwy have been expanded without tolls, and on Loop 1604, in part, with money that came from US 281. The MPO unanimously passed a resolution for a complete non-toll 281 and Loop 1604 W in 2012.

Loop 1604 W is now being completed without tolls, and US 281 is still waiting. Now Prop 1 will immediately infuse $1.7 billion into the State Highway Fund, and more will follow annually. Commuters are growing weary of the excuses. At today's meeting, the public spoke overwhelmingly in favor in prioritizing Prop 1 dollars to fund US 281 expansion without tolls.

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff and Sen. Donna Campbell  sent a letter to the Transportation Commission last May asking for Prop 1 funds to go to more non-toll lanes on US 281 if Prop 1 passed. It passed and decision-makers at the MPO aren't doing it. This is in addition to the letter Campbell and Rep. Lyle Larson sent to the Commission asking for the $92 million in road money, swapped to fund the streetcar, to be reprogrammed to US 281 to prevent tolls.

The AAMPO plan adds $605 million in TOLL 'managed lanes' on:
I-10 (from 410 to SH 130)
Hwy 151 (from 410 to 1604)
I-37/US 281 (from SE to downtown)
I-10 (from Boerne Stage Rd to Boerne)

This is in addition to the existing toll projects on:
US 281 (from Loop 1604 to Bexar County line)
Loop 1604 (from Bandera Rd to I-35, eventually the whole loop)
I-10 (from Loop 1604 to Boerne Stage Rd.)
I-35 (from downtown to Loop 1604, & eventually to the county line)

This plan also includes bike lanes or 'complete streets.' The MPO intends to spend $48 million on bike lanes using road money, in just the next 4 years. All told, the plan adds $993 million in road projects as well as many transit projects, including transit stations in Boerne, New Braunfels, and Seguin.

"No one wants mass transit centers in the Hill Country. This is just more social engineering and misplaced priorities," fumes Hall. "Bike lanes and transit centers where there is no demand for them is an unacceptable waste of money and demonstrates the chronic misallocation of funds at the MPO."

San Antonians cannot afford this new tax to get to work. The published toll rates for the US 281 corridor are up to 50 cents a mile (or $8/day) during peak hours. Tolls will be an additional tax of thousands of dollars more per driver, not per household, annually. Those who can't afford them will be second class citizens on congested alternatives.

Hall argues, "The MPO made this decision hastily and sloppily BEFORE the Transportation Commission has even announced how much Prop 1 money our area will receive and prior to the Legislature weighing in on how these funds are to be spent."

House Select Committee on Transportation Funding Chairman Rep. Joe Pickett insists Prop 1 be spent on major corridors and high priority projects, not on new projects that just came on the scene.

"If we can't afford to fix our major corridors - I-10, I-35, US 281, and Loop 1604 - without being asked to pay tolls, then we have no business adding MORE projects to the plan. Who is deciding which ones are free (using Prop 1) versus which ones get targeted for toll taxes? The state highway fund has just had $1.7 billion dropped into it from Prop 1, that money should be used on priority corridors, not on Johnny-come-lately projects," Hall asserts.