Defending Our Property Rights & Freedom to Travel
Japanese High Speed Rail firm fast tracks eminent domain
Sign petition NOW!
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In the company's most provocative move yet, the Japanese-owned firm,
Texas Central Railway
(TCR), is seeking to fast track its eminent domain authority to forcibly take Texans' land for its private High Speed Rail (HSR). 
 
TCR is petitioning to skip crucial environmental review of this disruptive project and knows the public opposition is mounting against its private high speed rail between Houston and Dallas. The HSR is not financially viable without massive public subsidies and requires constructing a 12-foot high, 100-foot wide earthen berm that will destroy rural Texas.

ACTION ITEM 
Help protect Texas land from eminent domain for private gain and sign the petition to the Federal Surface Transportation Board now! Signatures are due by May 18!

SIGN PETITION HERE. 
 
ELECTION UPDATE
Austinites decide Uber's fate today
The word Vote on a red ballot box for collecting votes and ballots in a democratic election to choose a new president, governor, representative, senator, congressman or other official or
Today, May 7,  Austin voters will decide whether ride sharing companies like Uber are welcome in their city or not.

Will Austin give Uber the boot?

READ TERRI'S TAKE HERE.

There's also several local municipal elections and bond elections. With Texas local debt spiraling out of control, be sure to cast your vote for fiscal sanity! Go to your county elections or your school district's web site to see if there's a bond election today.

RUN-OFF ELECTIONS FOR STATE OFFICES
MAY 24
EARLY VOTING:
May 16-20

Texans for Toll-free Highways Endorsements: 
Judges - 
Criminal Court of Appeals Place 2 - Ray Wheeless 
Criminal Court of Appeals Place 5 - Brent Webster

Texas Senate -  
Bryan Hughes and David Simpson (both are strong anti-toll choices!) - SD 1 
Dawn Buckingham - SD 24

Texas House -  
Cole Hefner - HD 5 
Keith Strahan - HD 18 
John Keating - HD 33 
Read King - HD 64 
Kyle Biedermann - HD 73 
Briscoe Cain - HD 128

To see what district you live in and who your current incumbents are, go here.

See TURF's Voter Guide which includes your incumbent's grade here.

BE SURE YOU VOTE!
Especially in low turnout elections, every vote counts! 
San Antonio-
FINAL 281 meeting May 12
Check out the HOV-bus lane disaster up close
before a conference the microphones in front of empty chairs. Note Shallow depth of field
Please attend this important final meeting and make your voices heard. Once again, they're doing an Open House format, not a real public meeting. Residents do not get a formal presentation of what TxDOT is doing and this format prevents neighbors from educating their neighbors at an open mic about what's REALLY going on and how this HOV-bus lane will actually cause congestion, not relieve it.

FINAL US 281 Public Meeting
Thursday,
May 12
5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Summit Christian Center 
2575 Marshall Rd. 
San Antonio, TX

Remember, currently there is NO bus service north of Loop 1604, yet our elected officials are allowing Via to hijack this corridor for its social experiment to get Stone Oak residents to ride a bus. They want to keep the general purpose lanes congested so the only congestion relief available is if you ditch your car and get on a bus (or carpool), which less than 5% of commuters can do.

Even worse, since the buses will only run from Via's planned Park-N-Ride at the corner of Stone Oak and 281, this bus lane is less than 3 miles long! So who will go to the trouble to get on a bus for a three minute express ride only to have the bus integrate with regular traffic after just 3 miles? The HOV lane will run from approximately Redland Rd. to Borgfeld Rd., but since there's only two places to get on, few will ever use it. It's a colossal waste of $538 million if we expend our hard-earned tax dollars on a
non-fix to this highway!

MARCHING ORDERS 
We'll have volunteers there handing out fliers (get a preview here) to ensure the community knows the impacts and can make comments on the official record asking TxDOT to REMOVE THE HOV-BUS component and open up this new lane to ALL cars! 
 
So don't miss it! You need to see the schematics up close to know where all the entrances and exits will be, how and when you can get into the HOV-bus lane (hint: you can only get on in two locations) and see the offensive police 'enforcement' areas where cops can sit and write you tickets if you don't have enough people in your car to qualify to use the lane. Talk about a waste of our public safety dollars!

BIKE LANES, TOO 
The access roads will also have buffered, dedicated bike lanes that make right turns into and out of businesses very dangerous for both cars and bikes, giving cops another opportunity to write lots of tickets to Stone Oak residents.

PUBLIC COMMENTS DUE HERE BY MAY 23! 
Next TURF gathering June 2

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TURF Meeting 
Thursday, June 2*       
Chester's Hamburgers
16609 San Pedro
San Antonio, TX
6:00 PM (for those ordering dinner)
6:30 PM (meeting begins) 
 
*NOTE: Change of date from our usual 4th Thursday.

This will be our last meeting before our summer break. Get an update on the state party conventions, run-off elections, interim legislative action, high speed rail, and toll projects across Texas. There's also lots brewing on the property rights front.

Don't miss it! 
Huffines Town Hall to push against LBJ tolls
Senate Transportation Committee Good Guy Don Huffines seeks to keep tolls off LBJ East.
Senator Don Huffines is hosting a Transportation Town Hall in May to keep up the pressure against tolls on LBJ East in Dallas.  

Transportation Town Hall
Wednesday, May 18     
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Audelia Road Branch Library
10045 Audelia Rd.
Dallas, TX 75238

Yet, two elected officials, Rep. Jason Villalba and Dallas Councilman Adam McGough, actually publicly castigated Senators Bob Hall and Don Huffines for defending their constituents from toll taxes and accused the senators of holding up progress on LBJ East.

Read their outrageous editorial and our response here.

We encourage your to submit a Letter to the Editor at the Dallas Morning News to defend our Good Guys!

BACKGROUND:
The primary beneficiary of tolls being extended on LBJ East is Cintra. Tolls on LBJ East would boost traffic to Cintra's 13-mile public private partnership tollway on LBJ (from roughly I-35 to US 75) just west of the proposed extension. Tolls cost between 10 cents - 75 cents a mile
depending on the level of congestion, making you pay a premium (75 cents a mile or even more) to drive on it during peak hours. The taxpayers are on the hook for $1.4 billion of the $2.6 billion project, plus $500 million in state gasoline tax subsidized this private project. So all told, taxpayers foot the bill for nearly $2 billion of the $2.6 billion project.

Taxpayers also pay Cintra for any potential losses in toll revenue from any 'adverse events' that could dip into their profits.

We can't let Cintra get its mitts on LBJ East, too!
BE IN THE KNOW

GET THE SCOOP FIRST! SUBSCRIBE TO TERRI'S COLUMNS 

Field of hundreds used toxic rusty drums NAFTA Raises Its Ugly Head: Mexico Set to Dump Toxic Oil Field Waste into Texas   

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Will Austin show Uber the door?

 
HEADLINES...
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NEW study: Toll-HOV lanes actually CAUSE congestion
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Evil Uber narrative runs amok in Austin 
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Government report questions vehicle inspection value    
DONATE TODAY
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With the 84th legislative session now over, our work continues educating the public about what their lawmakers did and how to hold them accountable at the ballot box. We'll also continue to help local communities fight toll roads in their backyard using the legal and political tools we've refined over a decade of advocacy. We provide vital materials like a Legislative Report Card and Voter Guide, all of which takes resources.

We'd appreciate a donation to support the work TURF does on behalf of taxpayers.

With HUNDREDS of toll projects planned in Texas, EVERYONE will be effected by these NEW taxes!

Or send in a check to:
Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom (or TURF)
PO Box 29254
San Antonio, TX 78229-0254
"I...place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared... Taxation follows that, and in its turn wretchedness and oppression."
--Thomas Jefferson,
Letter to William Plumer, 1816
© 2015 Texans Uniting for Reform & Freedom