The Senate Committee on Transportation heard invited and public testimony regarding interim charges related to funding of the Unified Transportation Program (UTP). The committee also heard testimony related to penalty practices by tolling authorities.
This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics the committee took up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the hearing, but is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.
TxDOT analysis on the effect of funding allocations made in the Unified Transportation Program (UTP) and project selection decisions on accomplishing goals described in the statewide transportation plan.
James Bass and Brian Barth, Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT)
- Outlined ongoing goals and mission of TXDOT (promote safety, protect assets, etc.)
- Written testimony includes pavement and bridge scores
- UTP is approved at least once per year
- Outlines project selection process
- Contains sections for each of TXDOTs major services (12 sections)
- UTP cycle begins with funding forecast that is then used to create distribution expectation for projects
- Projects eligible for funding are scored to determine priority
- 10-year program gets approved at least once per year
- Evaluation of effectiveness of projects takes time because of the scale of projects being completed
- Funding is distributed to 12 funding categories, with some section having a minimum statutory funding
- Discussed project selection process for bridges – based on evaluation of the bridges – as an example of project selection for all the potential projects in each of the 12 sections
- Written testimony shows 10-year projected outcomes compared to performance – uses this as a baseline to reach targets and set additional goals
- Written testimony shows project distribution in 2019 UTP
- 2016 Traffic Safety Report items being used to enhance safety concerns on continuing and upcoming projects
- Need to work with districts to focus on projects that effect multiple sections
- Need to develop plans to utilize or work around new technologies
- Need to reinvest savings back into system enhancements
- $24.4 billion dedicated to Texas Clear Lanes Initiative
- Additional funds bring total to $25 billion for congestion in 2019 UTP
- Held public meetings including public comment period for 2019 UTP
- Commissioner will take action on 2019 UTP at upcoming meeting (this week)
- Perry – there are numerous fatalities in my district, do you have the flexibility to address safety issues during the interim between UTP and 10-year plan approvals?
- Interim fixes can use routine maintenance dollars and category 4 connectivity funding
- Main way to address it is category 1 – general maintenance funding
- Perry – you are using funding from other areas to cover that correct, and may undermined the 10-year plan to cover expenses related to energy boom?
- James Bass, TXDOT – if there is an increased need, projects can be advanced, but may have to look at potentially deferring other projects to ensure balanced budgeting
- Hall – there are many areas across the state that are feeling similar effects, would like to take a look at solutions for the upcoming session
- James Bass – USDOT has the Build grant available for states to receive, and Texas has applied for that grant money
- Hall – is there any way to include related activities to drilling that would be able to be used by other areas that are involved (sand, etc.)
- James Bass – believes that there are ways to use that funding for some of those other areas
- Garcia – what is Texas Clear Lanes Initiative?
- James Bass – governor initiative to focus on the top 100 most congested roadways in the 5 most heavily populated metro areas
- Garcia – is there difference between connectivity and urban congestion
- Category 4 is split between regional connectivity and urban congestion
- They are both connected and effect each other when statewide corridors come into urban centers
- Intended to fill gaps between those to areas
- Garcia – did all of the VW settlement funds go to TCEQ?
- James Bass – they did all go to TCEQ, but TXDOT is providing input on potential uses
- Garcia – are bridge ratings available online to the public?
- If they are not, they will be made available
- Garcia – is the same kind of rating system available for the guardrails?
- We do rate them as roadside safety
- Will provide that information to the committee
- Hinojosa – related to category 6 – bridges funding for maintenance does not appear to be listed?
- Maintenance was left off because bridge maintenance and road maintenance are considered differently
- Kolkhorst – there is a difference between state and county funding for roadways associated with the energy sector, the latter is a bigger concern for county elected officials and judges – Category 11 is just for state highways, correct?
- That is correct
- Kolkhorst – looking at rural areas with connectivity concerns – what category does lane division fall under?
- Believe regional connectivity – Category 4
- Kolkhorst – have concerns with showing total cost for projects, the proposed distribution of $75 billion over 10 years, that is not all TXDOT money correct?
- James Bass – Correct
- Kolkhorst – how much is not TXDOT money?
- James Bass – for this 2-year period including maintenance, design and construction is $26.6 billion, including debt service
- James Bass – have to have estimates for projects years in advance, without knowing what will be appropriated from the legislature – that’s why the UTP process began
- James Bass – 2018-2019 overall budget is $26.6 billion – $15 billion is associated with UTP
- Kolkhorst – after last session the spigot will be turned on, are you about to explain that?
- James Bass – in the 10-year plan we expect Prop 1 will continue – and have projects ready to go to use that funding
- James Bass – the funding in the UTP can be viewed as contractor payment funding – many of the UTP projects will require right-of-way funding – funding for ROW is not in the UTP
- Kolkhorst – so the $26 billion is not really an accurate picture?
- James Bass – depends on definition of accurate, it is not total cost
- James Bass – the UTP reflects what we expect payments to contractors to be allowing us to plan the ROW and engineering expenses
- Kolkhorst – so now we are seeing that the actual cost has gone from 50% to 75% not funded through the UTP. Have heard locally that if you are not in UTP you are out. Has concerns with not showing the total costs for the projects/transparency of project costs
- James Bass – do not currently show total because of budgeting structure – will be turning LAR later this week
- James bass – with more flexibility in moving funding from one area to another it would be easier to identify and show to total cost of a project
- Kolkhorst – noted takeaway is that many of the costs shown in UTP do not include engineering or right-of-way expenses
- James bass – typically right-of-way and engineering take 20% of the project budget
- Rodriguez – is Houston available to receive regional funding and urban congestion funding?
- Because they are two separate funding, they are mutually exclusive
- Rodriguez – can the energy sector tap into the regional district and the energy sector funding?
- It can likely use many different categories of funding, they are not mutually exclusive
- Nichols – projects ranked as tier 1, 2, and 3, what does that mean?
- That refers to the top, middle and bottom 1/3 in terms of scoring and identifying projects
- These do not have to do with tiers for maintenance
- Nichols – related to safety – 4,171 fatalities per year, is that a projection?
- That is correct
- Nichols – explain the fatality rate?
- For every 100 million miles travelled there would be 1.36 fatalities
- Nichols – can you speak to distribution between fatalities in rural areas versus urban areas?
- Will provide the actual breakdown
- The energy sector has accounted for 2% of the population but 10% of the fatalities
- Hancock – does this take into account for technology growth for vehicle safety – fatality rate?
- The projections do not account for technological advances
- By incorporating those into the planning of projects, hopefully that will help to reduce the number of fatalities
- Nichols – would like to see trend data related to roadway fatalities compared to other causes for fatalities
- Nichols – would also like to see more data related to bridges and how many are in/out of service due to ratings
- Will provide that information
- Nichols – wants the committee to consider keeping the sunset date or not as well as constitutional flexibility to have flexibility in use of funds either for maintenance or new projects
- Kolkhorst – if we extend the sunset date, it seems that we would always be extending the UTP in perpetuity
- James Bass – would be happy to help clarify funding strategies at any time
- Kolkhorst – do you have a number related to Harvey?
- James Bass – in the neighborhood of $160 million, most of which was staff time for debris cleanup and damage to facilities
- James Bass – damage to system was about $20 million or less
- Hinojosa – noted that some of the opaqueness is necessary due to the size of the projects and unexpected instances
- Nichols – noted the UTP was not intended to continue to be a 10-year funding projection. Related to congestion, had urban congestion coefficient, what does that mean?
- That is the amount of time compared to unrestricted congestion
- James Bass – that is also an average among urban areas
- Nichols – would like that data for the last 20 years for each of the 4 major urban areas, could also look at amount of time lost per commuter to show congestion
- Hall – do you consider the economic cost of congestion/construction?
- Index is based on time, not value of time
- James Bass – Texas A&M transportation institute may have more information related to that, will provide that information to the committee
- Kolkhorst – how much more money are we putting into the transportation system now overall with prop 1 and prop 7?
- Approximately $10 billion for debt reduction
- Kolkhorst – approximately $4 billion in new dollars?
- James Bass – the $4 billion is but replaces bond revenue
- Kolkhorst – how much of that goes into the UTP?
- A project has to be fleshed out before going into the UTP – 20-25% for engineering and right-of-way and then the rest goes to UTP
- Kolkhorst – chair is interested in extending all of them of only some of them, and if we did nothing by those dates what happens?
- Nichols – noted that we used to spend borrowed dollars with debt and now are spending real dollars
Toll Road Penalties: Review penalty practices employed by toll authorities throughout the state and make recommendations to improve customer service and eliminate unjustified penalties.
James Bass and Brian Ragland, TXDOT
- TXDOT has limited oversight for toll authorities
- Legislation in the 85th changed the way TXDOT collects tolls on roadways
- Individuals can request review
- Limits penalty value per year
- Allows for electronic invoices
- Only applies to TXDOT roadways
- Commission adopted administrative rules to put in the new requirements
- Maximum lane fee of $4 per month
- Written testimony shows the applicable roadways
- Roadways represents 300 million transactions per year and over $300 million in revenue per year and growing
- 3/1/18 new changes made effective
- New fee structure in per invoice as opposed to per transaction
- Habitual violator program parameters have been set – will begin to be implemented (no date set)
- Kolkhorst – how do you restrict the habitual violators for using the roadway?
- James Bass – would be able to relay the information to local law enforcement
- Kolkhorst – has that been effective in the past?
- Have only used it sparingly
- Hinojosa – it does seem like it meets a “theft of services” charge
- Perry – do local authorities get reimbursed for those services?
- They do get paid for providing that service
- Perry – discussed potential for impoundment
- Nichols – can you explain what a habitual violator?
- James Bass – somebody who has more than 100 unpaid toll charges
- An example is one person with 10,000 charges at cost of $14,000
- Nichols – is it likely to be an error in reading the toll tag?
- James Bass – the biggest issue is with the pay by mail customers
- Hancock – are options similar to airports where you can’t get out unless you pay an option for you?
- James Bass – not sure we have the authority to do that
- Rodriguez – changes in the law only apply to TXDOT operated toll roads, did the AG have a different opinion?
- James Bass – the AG spoke to contracts with independent operator – only have contract with NTTA
- Hinojosa – should consider limiting access to license renewals for those habitual violators
- Nichols – are all of the charges listed on one invoice per month or a compiled list between months?
- James Bass – Invoice shows charges per month that are outstanding with additional penalties applied
- Garcia – have we tried to go to small claims court for the habitual violators?
- James Bass – have in the past, but that was for individual transactions
- Garcia – was that for where the person lived or where the car drove through?
- James Bass – usually where the car drove through
- Garcia – how many people would be considered habitual violators?
- In the thousands
- Garcia – do all authorities have similar ways to handle being a habitual violator?
- James Bass – believe the definition is consistent, but could meet the definition between authorities and not meet it for any individual authority
Kenneth Barr, North Texas Tollway Authority
- Process 2.5 million transactions per day on NTTA
- Services 10.5 million unique customers per year
- Have 97% customer satisfaction rate
- Late fees are a tool used to ensure payment
- 8% of users do not pay for service
- Described process for collecting toll fees and billing
- 2010 NTTA went fully electronic
- 2013 board of directors adopted late fee schedule that reduced payments by 80%
- Seeing increased participation in paperless billing
- NTTA maintains over 1,000 lane miles without legislative appropriation
- Invited members to come visit the Plano facility to better demonstrate the billing process
- Nichols – are additional charges on a combined invoice?
- It does with a $35-dollar cap for each invoice
- Hinojosa – how do you define the habitual violators?
- The same way TXDOT does
- Have over 300,000 habitual violators identified
- Do not have specific numbers for amounts owed
- Hinojosa – what happens if they never pay?
- Can ban them from a road way
- Can take them to JP court to try to find a resolution
- Hancock – seems like there could be options related to the airport
- Will reach out to the airport to discuss potential options
- Hancock – one potential could be to boot lock at the airports
- Not sure we have the authority to do that
Gary Trietsch, Harris County Toll Road Authority
- The board is the commissioner’s court
- Once an individual has 3 violations they receive an invoice
- Charge $10 per violation, plus $1 for the county ($11 total)
- Do not have pay by mail option
- 10% of customers pay with cash at a booth
- 5% violations rate
- 2015 commissioners court approved fee reduction
- Do have constables assigned to the tollway
- Nichols – what happens if a vehicle uses grand parkway?
- James Bass – all entities share tag validation list
- Would only receive invoice from HCTRA if they have a HCTRA tag or one from TXDOT of they have a TX Tag
- James Bass – have tried to adopt similar rules at Central Texas Toll Road Authority
- Rodriguez – you have offered no fee services to TXDOT, but they have not responded?
- James Bass TXDOT would like additional documentation before proceeding
- Rodriguez – you seem to have a higher collection rate than the other, why is that?
- James Bass – different markets
- Rodrigues – would seem like there should be some regulatory uniformity among the entities
Mike Heiligenstein, Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority
- 65% transactions are electronic/35% are pay by mail
- Pay by mail are much more difficult to collect tolls on
- Everybody uses TX Tag with 100% assurance of being paid
- Have reached out to North East Texas to help with pay by mail
- Credit markets needed to go through for funding are important because authorities do not have taxing authority
- Noted difficulty working with tax assessor collectors in terms of holding registrations
- 300,000 transactions per month are pay by pail
- 15% are considered habitual violators
- After 170 days selected violators are taken to JP Court
- Will be changing invoice schedule from 15 days to 30 which should reduce fees
- The more people that get a tag, the better all of the authorities will be
- Kolkhorst – who are the most habitual violators?
- Many times, it is entities with multiple accounts but really its across the board
- Kolkhorst – noted many times in other arenas the fees are just the cost of doing business
- Hinojosa – you are proposing a cap?
- Yes, currently no cap
- Garcia – at what point do you age the account and write them off?
- Difficult to say, depending on where they originate
- Hall – What is your experience with collection agencies?
- We utilize pay by mail with MSB by contract, we want to create a more robust set of standards
- The challenge we have is influxes at the call center
- Hall – Is there a time when people automatically go to a collection agency?
- We never send out to a credit market collection agency, it stays within our office
Pete Sepulveda, Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority
- We are a relatively small entity compared to others testifying
- We have a ten-mile segment of toll in the Brownsville area
- Our first violation notice goes out after 35 days of non-payment
- The notice includes a $1 admin fee and a $15 late fee
- The second late notice includes an additional $15
- After 150 days, we send a final violation notice and the fee is increased by $30
- Collection notice 2 and 3 include no additional fees
- We do court referrals and work with 2 JPs in Cameron County
- We have an extra challenge because we are along the US – Mexico border
- 2 million annual transactions – 32% tag, 15% are registered by plate, 53% through video tolling
- 60% of all transactions are collected
- 10% of transactions are from out of state
- 5% of transactions are coded off – cannot read the license plate
- We receive roughly 100 calls per day and can resolve roughly 90% of those calls
- Our biggest violator used to be vehicles with Mexican license plates
- Collectors can reduce fees, and if the user agrees to get a tag or register by plate the fees are waived
- 2017 – 300,000 invoices were mailed
- Half were just toll bills
- 25% included late fee
- 25% included fees above standard late fee
- We partnered with the City of Pharr and were able to identify over 95% of those Mexican license plates
- We met with the owners and the majority of them agreed to get a tag
- We began our toll road in 2011 and added new entries in subsequent years
- We are interoperable with the city of Pharr and developed a toll collection system for their bridge
- Developing interoperable south Texas Tag
- Nichols – you have done some creative things with international bridges, but have not heard of any tolls on the parks?
- The county is able to charge a toll but have to work with the GLO
- Nichols – spoke to 35-day bill, but also sweep every 15 days, do you have to have one bill?
- You would get multiple bills
- Nichols – are they on a combined bill?
- Yes, they will all be combined onto one bill
- Hinojosa – noted commercial traffic trucks coming from Mexico being able to use the toll road
Chris Miller, North East Texas Regional Mobility Authority
- Average transactions are 32,000 per month
- FY 2017 had 11.5 million total transactions
- 54% are tag related/46% pay by mail
- Has had agreements and will continue to have agreements with CTRMA for back office operations
- 931 habitual violators
- Working closely with Smith County Tax Assessor Collector and County Judge
- Nichols – do you have a collections office?
- No, MSB serves as the collector
Jeremiah Kuntz, Texas Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)
- Nichols – can you explain to the committee how the toll authorities work with the DMV?
- Multiple ways that tolling entities and other entities work with the DMV to get license plate information and address information
- If the regional mobility authorities use the master file, they will have access to the transactions
- You must be very familiar with the data in order to be able to read that data effectively and accurately
- Do have multiple files: dealer files for dealer license plates and are in a separate file as well as buyers license tags and temporary license tags
- These are separate because it is tied to different information associated with it
- Nichols – when the authorities contact you for mailing address do they have access to all of the information?
- if they have access to the master file
- Nichols – what if somebody moves, do they have to notify you?
- They do not, only have to register with the local county tax collector
- There are two other ways for authorities to get access to that data: an online search method and/or a batch inquiry for a large number of specific license tags
Public Testimony
Terri Hall, Texas Turf and Texas Toll Free Highways
- Believes this is a shakedown of Texas drivers
- Believes seizing a car due to toll debts is unconstitutional
- Large issues with people who do not receive a bill or technical issues with toll equipment causing people to be falsely or overly charges
- Hall – can you elaborate on the collections issue
- Linebarger – collector for HCTRA has been known to be cut throat and cannot lower fees
- Not having a way to negotiate the fee means that people are accumulating many more debts
- Hall – do you have suggestions or recommendations?
- Need to have a more transparent billing process
- Fees need to be capped at $48 per year
- Believe that there should be a statute of limitations on fees
- Decriminalizing is an important part of this
- Hinojosa – some of the authorities do cap the fees, what do you do with people who truly are habitual violators?
- There is a need to separate the toll fees versus fines
- Need to have an option to negotiate the debts down
Don Dixon, Self
- Problem with the toll roads is collecting a very high fee for the use of the roads
- Challenge is how to take care of the debt in a friendly, low cost way
Christie Gonzales, KVUE Television
- Transportation needs in Texas require too much money to take care of the problem
- Toll authorities gives additional options
- Managed lanes work
- Hall – noted there are issues that need to be addressed with DMV for identifying people’s addresses and not add debts onto the fee before they have an opportunity to pay it
- Kolkhorst – What do you do with people who drive the toll roads with no intention to pay?
- Do not have a great answer for this
- Kolkhorst – there has certainly got to be a way to do this better
- Nichols – all of the authorities testified that they have mechanisms to reduce fees, with the exception of the public owned HCTRA