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Get the Facts: Will Existing Infrastructure be Neglected?
None of our contracts with the private sector preclude us from building any projects, planned or unplanned, around a tolled facility. If it’s in the 25-year plan, it will be built with the same resources that were dedicated to it in the first place. And we will always make sure that safety improvements are made when they’re needed. Our commitment to giving Texans the best and safest roads possible will never be compromised.
The clauses we include in our contracts with the private sector define “competing facilities” for purposes of determining whether compensation must be paid to the project developer in the event that a new project negatively affects traffic. Other contract clauses acknowledge that we have a duty to develop transportation projects for the benefit of the public and that we have the unfettered right to build any transportation project no matter the effect on the tolled facility. The primary objective is to make the contractor understand that the state will not back away from its obligations to its existing infrastructure.
But what if a new road has a negative financial impact to a toll road? The contracts do lay out a framework for determining whether and how much compensation must be paid to the project developer in the event that a new project negatively affects traffic. Most importantly, the new project would have to be a competing facility, as defined in the contract. The definition of competing facilities has a number of exceptions, including projects in the 25-year plan and highway projects necessary for improved safety, maintenance or operational purposes. Conversely, if a new project actually adds more traffic (i.e. revenue) to the tolled project, the state gets to bank that as a credit to be used should it build something else that would have a financially deleterious effect on a toll road.
Summing up, the clauses included in our contracts do not prevent major maintenance projects or new facilities from being built around a tolled facility. However, in some cases the clauses allow the developer to be compensated for negative traffic impacts or to provide the state credits for projects that add traffic.
