Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas -- I hope you are enjoying your summer. As we move through the next few weeks I want to update you on some of our work from the 84th Legislative Session which ended on June 1st.
This week our update is on Transportation.
Texas budget House Bill 1 will allocate approx. $7.4 Billion dollars to the State Highway Fund for 2016-2017. Additionally if Senate Joint Resolution 5 passes - which will be voted on by all Texans this fall a percentage of sales tax revenue roughly $2.5 Billion will be diverted to the State Highway Fund each year starting in 2018. This is much needed funding for our states infrastructure.
Along with securing funding for our roads a priority of mine was combating the proliferation of toll roads. North Texas will soon be home to the nations largest network of managed toll lanes making it almost impossible for our community to commute to school or work without paying an additional tax/toll. Our constituents are asking for an end to toll roads and relief from the current tolls in place. A core function of government is transportation and our state needs to fulfill that duty. For that reason we created Toll Free Texas. We aim to bring transparency to the transportation planning process and encourage Texans to get involved.
Providing additional information on the transportation planning process was successful in changing the direction of our states transportation policies. The Dallas Morning News stated A critical tool is suddenly gone from the Texas transportation toolbox… It became a popular rallying cry for state lawmakers to declare war on highway tolls this year. They won that battle... Speaker Joe Straus stated this week …we can and should shift more toward a pay-as-you-go approach instead of tolls when it makes sense.
With the passage of House Bill 1 we required TxDot to create a report on the elimination of toll roads. The report will include the amount of money needed to pay off the roads and a plan to eliminate them all together. The report will be released September 2016 and we are ready to review the results.
It is an honor to serve the people of District 70 and if my office can be of assistance to you please feel free to contact us. Next week we will send out an update on Texas Budget for 2016-2017.
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas -- I hope you are enjoying your summer. As we move through the next few weeks I want to update you on some of our work from the 84th Legislative Session which ended on June 1st.
This week our update is on Transportation.
Texas budget House Bill 1 will allocate approx. $7.4 Billion dollars to the State Highway Fund for 2016-2017. Additionally if Senate Joint Resolution 5 passes - which will be voted on by all Texans this fall a percentage of sales tax revenue roughly $2.5 Billion will be diverted to the State Highway Fund each year starting in 2018. This is much needed funding for our states infrastructure.
Along with securing funding for our roads a priority of mine was combating the proliferation of toll roads. North Texas will soon be home to the nations largest network of managed toll lanes making it almost impossible for our community to commute to school or work without paying an additional tax/toll. Our constituents are asking for an end to toll roads and relief from the current tolls in place. A core function of government is transportation and our state needs to fulfill that duty. For that reason we created Toll Free Texas. We aim to bring transparency to the transportation planning process and encourage Texans to get involved.
Providing additional information on the transportation planning process was successful in changing the direction of our states transportation policies. The Dallas Morning News stated A critical tool is suddenly gone from the Texas transportation toolbox… It became a popular rallying cry for state lawmakers to declare war on highway tolls this year. They won that battle... Speaker Joe Straus stated this week …we can and should shift more toward a pay-as-you-go approach instead of tolls when it makes sense.
With the passage of House Bill 1 we required TxDot to create a report on the elimination of toll roads. The report will include the amount of money needed to pay off the roads and a plan to eliminate them all together. The report will be released September 2016 and we are ready to review the results.
It is an honor to serve the people of District 70 and if my office can be of assistance to you please feel free to contact us. Next week we will send out an update on Texas Budget for 2016-2017.
