We hate to say we told ya so, but we told ya so. The proposed Trinity River Toll Road, to be placed inside the levees of the waterway in downtown Dallas, is now projected to cost $1 Billion more than NTTA can afford. That means if they build it, taxpayers will foot the bill to build a road they will also later have to pay tolls on to actually use!
NTTA projects the total cost to run $1.8 Billion. NTTA says they can not set up a bond of $1 Billion on what is essentially a bridge and not a highway (that is news to us!). But never fear, Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert says the fine citizens of Dallas have many buckets to dip into for funding. Those buckets include $84 Million from the City of Dallas (your money), $150-200 Million from the state motor fuels tax (your money), federal funds & energy incentives (your money). That sounds like a lot of your money in those buckets.
So when is a boondoggle actually a boondoggle? We think we are already there.
2 comments:
You guys might like the ongoing series of toll road articles at www.ocprogressive.com which outline the abject failure of the Orange County (CA) toll roads, long promoted by piratization proponents as a standard of success.
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Ruth
http://muffinsnow.com
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