Texas & Toll Roads

With all of the recent road construction over the past 5 years in the area, it is hard to not notice the increasing amount of toll roads in

Texas.

As more states find it hard to fund road construction to fight off the rising levels of

traffic congestion, the popularity of toll roads is growing rapidly.

The area of Dallas-Fort Worth is home to more than 6.

5 million people and now has one of the largest networks of toll roads in all of North

America.

These toll roads are not the toll roads of the past.

These toll roads are entirely built and operated by private companies that

maintain the rights of the roads they built for decades.

One such company, Texas Turnpike Corp., even possesses eminent-domain powers granted by a law that has since been rewritten, and has plans

of making the only privately funded, built, operated, and OWNED toll road in the entire

country.

Many Texas residents are getting fed up with the ever increasing expansion of toll roads.

Some claim that it is completely impossible to go about their lives without having to pay

a toll somewhere.

While many of them are suggesting that the state just stop sanctioning private companies to build roads they cannot build themselves,

traffic congestion is a serious and still growing problem in the area.

The main source of revenue to fund road construction for the state comes from its 20 cent tax is placed on every gallon of gasoline

purchased.

However, those 20 cents have not changed since 1991 and is a major cause for the lack

of funding.

Currently the U.S. has 5,400 miles of toll roads, an increase of 15% since 2003, and 500 miles of that has been built in Texas in

the last decade.

With an additional twenty or more toll road projects currently being planned or in

construction, that number can be expected to rise more than 300 miles in the next five

to ten years.

With the state nearly $5 billion short of transportation funding, there are few

alternatives to toll roads or higher taxes.

However, with large sections of major cities being sectioned off by toll roads, public unrest is becoming a major concern for

lawmakers and city officials.

Despite the growing frustration over toll roads in Texas, if a more reliable method to

increase transportation funding is not found, toll roads will continue to be privately built

for the state.