While Fort Bend Eyes Tollway, Senate Considers New Taxing Authority To Build Local Roads

While Fort Bend and most other counties surrounding and including Harris seem prepared to develop the Grand Parkway as a local toll project, The Texas Senate is considering allowing urban counties to levy new taxes for local transportation issues.

State Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, chairman of the senate Committee on Transportation & Homeland Security, has introduced a bill that would allow counties in metropolitan areas such as greater Houston to call for elections to approve fees and taxes to pay for new roadways or passenger rail systems.

Ironically, while Fort Bend County Commissioners Court members just approved an agreement seen as a means to creating a giant tollway ringing Houston’s current outter loop, Carona introduced his bill – and a related proposed state constitutional amendment – in part because of citizen resistance to toll roads.

Under Carona’s bill – which has a long road to travel before approval, including avoidance of a veto by Gov. Rick Perry – commissioners courts could call an election to approve new local option fees to pay for mobility projects, or the courts could be forced to call for such an election if petitioned by enough cities or people.

New fees that could be used to pay for such projects could, under the bill, include:

- “New-resident impact fees” levied on cars or trucks previously registered in other states;

- A “mobility improvement fee” levied upon renewal of your vehicle registration;

- A “driver fee” tacked on to the price of issuing and renewing your Texas driver’s license;

- A “local option gas tax” imposed on the sale of gas in your county, up to 10 cents (and indexed to inflation);

- Certain parking and “emissions” fees.

Commissioners courts would have the right to establish waivers or fee reductions for poor people who could “demonstrate financial hardship.”

Could the bill gain steam? Maybe. But an Austin American-Statesman report indicated that Gov. Perry might only support such a measure if it applied only to the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, and not state-wide.