Here’s a transcript of a question-and-answer session I did with Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, who is chairman of the Regional Transportation Council for the North Central Texas Council of Governments.
We chatted for about 30 minutes yesterday, covering transportation funding in general, tolls, rail transit and the strategy for getting a local-option plan through next year’s Legislature.
Note that he keys on a local, voter-approved gas tax as the starting point for next year’s push for local-option transportation funds.
Q. North Texas is now putting together the region’s transportation plan for year 2035. What does the picture look like to you – perhaps in ways that might surprise the average resident?
A. One I would say that it’s more than just a highway plan. It’s also a pretty integrated transportation network that would include rail as well as highway. The thing that concerns us most is the funding – or I would say lack of funding support — that we’re getting from the federal and state governments.
Q. What do the scenarios look like assuming, one, flat funding, and two, a higher rate of funding?
A. If we don’t have something better, if we don’t see some other funding or an increase on the federal or state level, I think what you’re going to see is a lot of roads that we already have on our 2030 plan, they’re going to have to be pulled off. The state has indicated that after 2012, if they don’t have more revenue, they will have barely enough money to take care of maintaining what they’ve got, let alone even thinking about adding any new capacity.
Q. What kind of congestion could that mean for people getting back and forth to work or getting around town?
A. The population projections, and I’m going to the next 20 years — we’re estimated to double again in population in the state. If you look at that within the region, our region is now about 6.4 million. Conservatively, in the next 10 years, they are expecting us to get to about 9 million. That’s about a 50 percent growth.
If we can’t continue to improve our existing roads, increase capacity as well as implement some sort of transit plan, then I think we’re going to begin to experience gridlock in all areas in all areas of the metroplex that you would be particularly aware of right now in what you call the LBJ-North Dallas area. And that area is going to get even worse.
The one bright spot is that in 2009, with the toll policy that we adopted with the George Bush and State Highway 121, with the NTTA, we have funds that allow us to move forward with the 635 expansion, along with the DFW Connector, which is that mesh of roads that come together north of the airport, and then within Tarrant County, what we call the North Tarrant Express, and that’s the 820-121-83 area.
And so we are going to be able to expand that through a combination of managed lanes as well as increased capacity of free lanes. That will help at least up through the next 10 years to hopefully keep our congestion at no worse than it is right now.
Q. Residents in some suburban areas complain that the only new major road projects are all toll roads. How do you address that view?
A. First thing I would say is that the region took a very – and I was a part of that proposal and eventually passing a policy that said as we increase capacity, and if we don’t get the funds to do it and we’re having to do it through managed lanes, then we would never go in and toll an existing free lane.
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