More distortion on the campaign trail involving toll roads and foreign money, along with nativist talk about keeping out foreigners (something that gets under my skin).
This time it’s from Rep. Robert Miklos of Mesquite, whose campaign material has a whopper of an error. Miklos says in a mailer that on 13 miles of State Highway 121 “North Texas commuters will soon be forced to pay tolls to the Spanish company Cintra.”
That couldn’t be more wrong — and from a guy this newspaper has recommended over challenger Cindy Burkett.
The North Texas Tollway Authority fought like a terrier in 2007 to tear the SH 121 project from Cintra, and the NTTA’s fleet of lobbyists found enough friends in the Legislature to make that possible.
State Highway 121 is an NTTA project, not a Cintra project, as the Miklos mailer suggests.
You can drive portions of that road now, and the NTTA will gladly take your tolls. The NTTA has renamed the road the Sam Rayburn Tollway (perhaps to erase the nasty political fight from memory).
I called Miklos this afternoon to ask about the misstatement and bat him around for his talk about “foreign-owned toll roads.” He sounded surprised about the SH 121 question, and I’m surprised, since the fight over that road is legendary in transportation and political circles. He said:
“If I’ve put something out what’s wrong on something, I’ll have to check that. … If it’s a mistake, it’s a mistake.”
It’s a mistake.