In awarding the upgrade, Moody’s stated the improved rating was “based on the Mobility Authority’s demonstrated ability to deliver and manage new toll road projects in a diverse, highly rated and growing service area.” The ratings agency noted that the Mobility Authority’s toll and revenue plans through 2035 helped mitigate the agency’s debt level, making for sound future projections. And the agency affirmed that the Mobility Authority has a “strong current cash position” with reserves to cover at least one year of operating expenses.

In addition to the financial reasons for the rating upgrade, Moody’s offered something we can all appreciate as commuters: 183A and the Manor Expressway will “provide significant travel time savings.”

The Mobility Authority’s success depends on the value our mobility solutions bring to you, the people in Williamson and Travis counties. Our roads add value and save time, making the Mobility Authority a sound investment. Our mission is to improve mobility by implementing innovative, multi-modal transportation solutions that reduce congestion and create transportation choices to enhance quality of life and economic vitality.

The public places a great deal of trust in us, which is why it is so important that the Mobility Authority maintain its fiscal soundness. And as the population of Austin and surrounding communities continues to grow, the Mobility Authority will continue to be a leader in providing mobility solutions for Central Texas.

Tolling of highways has changed over the years as new technologies continue to be developed to eliminate the hassles of toll booths and improve convenience. Not that long ago, toll roads were often looked as mere temporary solutions to traffic problems, with tolls that would be eliminated after they had run their course. This was the case in 1957, when Texas constructed the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike, now known as I-30.

But what happens to the cost of running a road once it’s built? Maintenance for safety and appearance, as well as continuous upgrades to keep up with growth make operating a modern highway very expensive. Delaying repairs only makes the costs rise even more, as illustrated in a recent news story that chronicled the decrepit condition of the Washington D.C. Beltway.

In Texas, revenue from state gas taxes will provide insufficient funds over the long haul due to increased vehicle efficiency and a gas tax that hasn’t been adjusted for inflation in 20 years. Additionally, the costs of right-of-way construction are growing steadily. In this environment, maintenance costs quickly begin crowding out money needed for new upgrades. And with four of the top 20 fastest-growing cities in America, Texas needs a lot of upgrades. A 2009 report notes that Texas needs $4 billion a year in new construction just to keep up.

Tolling provides a more consistent – and flexible – alternative to meeting these long-term costs instead of relying on taxes alone. Not only can tolls help maintain existing roadways, but they can generate funds for other transportation projects. The new MoPac Improvement Project will add significant new capacity to MoPac while preserving the three existing non-tolled lanes for drivers who prefer to use them. And ultimately, the project will generate $230 million for local transportation solutions – that means whether you take the toll lanes or not, you’re likely to benefit from those lanes when they open.

PHILADELPHIA, PA – During the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association’s (IBTTA) Transportation Finance and Mileage-Based User Fee Symposium in Philadelphia this week, elected leaders and industry officials addressed symposium attendees from around the world about the importance of having all transportation infrastructure funding options, including tolling, available to state and local governments. IBTTA is the worldwide association representing toll facility owners, operators and the businesses that serve them.

“As our nation’s transportation and infrastructure system continues to put a strain on federal and state budgets, funding options like mileage-based user fees must be considered,” said Patrick Jones, Executive Director and CEO of IBTTA. “State and local governments should have the flexibility to fund and finance America’s transportation system in the ways that are most appropriate for them.”

Read more here: http://www.4-traders.com/news/IBTTA-International-Bridge-Tunnel-and-Turnpike-Transportation-Industry-Leaders-Stress-Importan–16741093/

2013 will bring a lot more people to Travis and Williamson Counties, and the Mobility Authority will work hard to connect those folks—and all of us—to our jobs, homes and the special places we love. This may be the most challenging year in our 10-year history, but our past work has put us in a good position to face those challenges.

The region’s northwest gateway—183A—is up and running. It is operationally successful and meeting financial expectations.

In the next 12 months, you can expect the northeast gateway—the Manor Expressway—to be completed. Phase 1, the intersection of US 183 and US 290 and the first 2 miles of the Expressway, has facilitated a smooth transition between those roadways since late December 2012. Phase 2 takes the Expressway out toward SH 130, creating an alternative route to the University of Texas, downtown Austin and points south for people traveling from Round Rock, Hutto and parts of southern Williamson County. When this phase is completed, drivers will find it just makes sense to take SH 130, the Manor Expressway and US 290 to connect with Interstate 35 headed south. No longer will I-35 be the only way to get between Austin and Round Rock.

In addition to providing new roads and improving the daily lives of drivers, highway construction itself brings an important boost to our economy. Our contractors currently have more than 500 employees working on that $426.5 million Expressway.

On the other side of town, drivers who take MoPac between Parmer Lane and Lake Lady Bird—as many as 160,000 per day—this year will see start to see highway construction that will ultimately bring them many benefits. But while those improvements are under way, the drive may be frustrating.

In February, the Board of the Mobility Authority selected a contractor to design and construct the improvements to MoPac that have been approved by the Federal Highway Administration and developed by neighbors and other stakeholders over the past two years.

Expect to see construction begin in late 2012, early 2013. MoPac is one of Austin’s most important transportation arteries, and we know that this construction project will be disruptive to both commuters and nearby residents.

So the Mobility Authority is making special efforts to create the least hassles possible during this process. In any contract we sign, we are going to place substantial financial penalties on the contractor if existing MoPac lanes are closed between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. on weekdays.

We are also expanding our communications effort to keep people informed of the construction progress. A 24/7 hotline will be available when issues and concerns arise.

But we understand that despite our best efforts, drivers in 2013—and beyond—will see only the construction hassles and not the benefits of the MoPac Improvement Project. Construction will take two-and-a-half years. Greater reliability, sound walls and pedestrian and cycling paths are coming, but not in 2013. We’ll have to keep our eyes on the prize while enduring the process.

We will also be actively preparing for projects this year in several other locations —Oak Hill Parkway, Bergstrom Expressway and MoPac South—as well as US 183 between MoPac and 183A. We have begun processes to collect public input that we expect will bring solid, financially viable and innovative engineering plans that can be taken to the Federal Highway Administration.

What does all this ultimately mean? It means this community is involved in the tough work of achieving and sustaining mobility during its continued growth. There will be construction noise for neighbors, delays for drivers and many, many open houses, town hall meetings and work sessions so that neighbors can work out their differences over the design of new roads, environmental controls, shared-use paths, sound walls and aesthetics.

These are not easy tasks, and the benefits sometimes seem a long way off. But we believe this community is up to the hard work needed to deal effectively with these necessary changes. We are investing in new transportation, and drivers are making the choice to use tolled roadways to reduce their drive time or make their speeds more reliable.

Together, we’re making progress as we grow.

Mike Heiligenstein is executive director of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority.

Drivers – automobile and freight truck – in the Georgetown and Round Rock areas can avoid much of the congestion on Interstate 35 by taking Texas 130 to U.S. 290 and then taking the Manor Expressway into Austin. Once you get to U.S. 183, you’re just 6.3 miles from the Capitol Building in downtown Austin. The U.S. 183 highway interchange and the first 1.4 miles of the Manor Expressway are open now; the rest of the Manor Expressway to near SH 130 will be open in 2014, providing drivers the option to travel from Georgetown to downtown Austin without stopping.

This is good news for an area that has grown rapidly. What was once a rural area in the north-northeast corner of our region have sprouted subdivisions; small towns with cotton gins like Hutto have become small cities; and small cities have become part of a metropolis area. This region is very important to our economy. Elgin is the home of a 60,000-square foot Austin Community College branch being built on a 98-acre campus. The world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, plans stores in both Elgin and Manor.

Construction of the $426 million Manor Expressway has put hundreds of people to work. The short-term economic impact has been substantial. But it’s the long-term impact that really excites me. Commerce, of course, hates congestion. It’s not just inconvenience, but the lack of reliability that grows as traffic backs up. Along with the loss of mobility comes late deliveries, higher fuel consumption, longer hours of operation and customer complaints.

Though we don’t always think of it, freight distribution companies are greatly affected by roadway congestion. The most recent study of freight in our region (2008) showed 76 million tons of truck freight in our region in 2003 – and that does not include pass-through truck traffic. That’s 95 percent of freight; the other five percent moves by rail and air.

Central Freight Lines, Southwestern Motor Transport — even the U.S. Postal Service – all maintain large facilities along the Manor Expressway corridor. They keep parts coming in and products moving out to market. They are essential to the economy and should experience significant benefit from the Manor Expressway.

At the Mobility Authority, we know that a poor roadway system has many negative impacts – delays, time wasted in traffic, wear and tear on vehicles and a general loss of connectedness. The positive impact of roads, such as the Manor Expressway, on the economy of our region cannot be overstated. Whether it’s getting commuting employees to and from work, getting to the Elgin Branch of ACC for day and evening classes or moving tons of the things we build in Central Texas, mobility is the critical factor in our economy and its continued growth.

Mike Heiligenstein is Executive Director of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority.

Earlier this year in a downtown Austin office building, I spoke to a group of area chamber of commerce leaders about the state of roadway project planning and development in our region.

And at the end of my presentation, a hand shot up in the front row.

“Why,” the questioner asked, “does it take so long to get things done?”

It was a tough question, but a fair one. A lot of us wonder why it takes so long to address mobility issues. The problem is particularly troublesome in Travis and Williamson Counties, where fast population and traffic growth means we have to double our transportation capacity about every 25 years to meet growing needs.

My answer was that it takes time to do the environmental study required by the federal government.

This has been an issue across the United States, and Congress is finally doing something about it.

In the new 2-year transportation bill that was passed in June, Congress eliminated the requirement to conduct environmental studies on certain projects, such as maintenance projects and even expansion projects if they don’t require the purchase of additional land. Congress is also requiring a type of mediation process for projects that have been bogged down in the environmental review process for at least four years. These provisions could apply to a number of long delayed Central Texas projects. Congress has also shortened the amount of time project opponents have to seek judicial relief if they feel the project hasn’t been developed in accordance with federal guidelines.

That’s music to our ears. We want to spend less time and money studying projects and be able to devote more money to building them. But that doesn’t mean we can just ignore the impacts of a transportation project. We’ll still need to consider many of the same issues we always have, such as impacts to historical properties, nearby homeowners, parks, minority and low income groups, water quality, air quality, flood plains, wetlands and endangered species, just to name a few. And, we’ll still need to do things like acquire permits, protect homeowners from increased noise and protect endangered species. It’s just that we’ll be able to do all that faster and with less red tape. Our Green Mobility Challenge was a perfect example of our commitment. Last year, we asked the best and brightest in the design community to come up with some innovative ways that we might build and maintain our projects in a more environmentally friendly and sustainable way. We’ve begun to implement some of those ideas and hope to incorporate even more in the future.

The reality is despite the increased flexibility provided by Congress, the folks we work with out in the community won’t notice much of a change. The Mobility Authority will still communicate early and often. We will be open and forthright about the challenges and negative impacts of the projects we develop, and we will continue to make regional mobility, economic development, quality of life and sustainability our top priorities. We’ll just try to do it all while working at a faster pace than we already do.

Mike Heiligenstein is Executive Director of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority.

I’ve used the expression “connecting our community” a lot recently, and I usually mean physical connections—modes of transportation that allow a traveler to reliably get from one place to another.

But on June 11, we experienced a new kind of connection when the Capital Metropolitan Planning Organization—CAMPO—decided to allocate $130 million to the MoPac Improvement Project. Over 25 years, the toll revenue generated by the Express Lane project on MoPac will be used to create a $230-million regional infrastructure fund that CAMPO can use to pay for other tolled and non-tolled projects that will most certainly be needed in our rapidly growing community.

On first blush this may not seem like a big deal, but it is. There is a growing impetus in our community to do something about Interstate 35. Improving that roadway could be a multibillion dollar undertaking. Yet, the Congressional Budget Office in Washington reports that since 2008 Congress has spent more on transportation than has been collected in tax revenues. A similar scenario has been playing out in Texas. With a push to balance the federal budget and a resistance to raising taxes, it’s unclear how a big project like I-35 will ever be funded. Meanwhile, we have other important and costly projects on the regional wish list, such as improving MoPac south of Austin, fixing issues at the Y in Oak Hill and modernizing US 183, one of our primary routes to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

The agreement reached with CAMPO will not only provide CAMPO with a new funding source for these and other projects, but it will also save the Mobility Authority more than $300 million that would have been paid out to bond investors.  Thanks to CAMPO, that money will also be available to reinvest in the projects mentioned above and many more that need to be undertaken in our community.

We usually think of “sustainability” in terms of environmental initiatives, but this agreement with CAMPO creates financial sustainability. Money that would have otherwise provided a short-term payoff will now be generating new revenue for decades to come, revenue that our growing community will really need.

I want to thank CAMPO for its support of this approach. It is a vote of confidence in the Mobility Authority and the future of our community.

Central Texas drivers have really embraced the 183A Extension. On April 6^th, the Mobility Authority opened the five-mile-long extension to carry traffic from RM 1431 (Whitestone Boulevard) to north of RM 2243. The extension crosses Hero Way and connects to the San Gabriel Parkway, two new roadways in Williamson County.

For the week that ended May 4th, an average of 16,343 vehicles passed through the Crystal Falls Main Plaza, which is on the extension. That amount of traffic is within 5 percent of projections for calendar year 2012. The plaza was projected to average 17,257 vehicles each weekday by the end of calendar year 2012; it is now on track to exceed those projections. Compared to May 2011, traffic on 183A is up 38%.

As an authority that relies on its own revenues, not taxes to pay its bills, it is good to know that our financial projections are hitting the mark. These traffic numbers are an indication that we made a good decision to expedite construction of the 183A Extension. While we may be collecting the money we need to pay for the road, 183A drivers are saving money in other ways and helping the environment too.

Three years ago, we looked at the five-mile section of 183A that had been built and compared it to US 183. We found:

• 183A drivers spend less time on the road than they used to. Compared to US 183, average travel time was reduced by approximately 15 minutes; a time reduction of more than 75 percent.
• 183A drivers use less fuel. Fuel consumption was reduced for both peak and off-peak hours. Total estimated annual fuel savings were 664,723 gallons.
• 183A drivers generate lower vehicle emissions, which can lead to cleaner air.

At the Mobility Authority, we look for solutions that are innovative and sustainable and will improve economic vitality and decrease congestion. So far, 183A has passed the four-part test with flying colors. Thanks for using 183A.

Mike Heiligenstein is the Executive Director of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority.

The good news, however, was that congestion in the Austin area in 2010 remained unchanged from its 2007 level, based on the index, and was actually down from 2005. Institute engineer Tim Lomax told the Austin American-Statesman in September the biggest reason for the slowdown in congestion in Central Texas was the slowdown in the economy. But he also added that the opening of 70 miles of new toll roads also played a role. We, at the Mobility Authority, are proud to be a part of that positive direction.

The fact is that a lot of progress is being made by government agencies to help relieve traffic bottlenecks. The year 2011 ended on a high note when the Texas Department of Transportation opened new flyover ramps at the I-35/Ben White Freeway interchange, allowing traffic to move from one highway to the other without traffic lights.

Meanwhile, the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization’s 2035 Regional Transportation Plan priority list shows nearly 60 major transportation projects under way in the region, with more than 40 due for completion in 2012. For example, the $1.2 billion extension of the SH 130 toll road from Austin to I-10 near Seguin is set to open later this year.

The Mobility Authority has several projects in line for major milestones this year as well. We will celebrate the fifth anniversary of our first project, the 183A toll road in Williamson County, with the opening of a $105 million five-mile northern extension. The extension will offer significantly faster travel between Austin and the suburban communities surrounding the Cities of Leander and Liberty Hill.

We are also making considerable progress on the $426 million, 6.2-mile Manor Expressway that will extend from U.S. 183 to west of Manor and will help improve mobility and economic development in a fast-growing area of eastern Travis County. The first 1.4-mile stretch, which includes a flyover interchange at U.S. 183 and U.S. 290, is to be completed later this year. The entire expressway is due to open in 2014.

We also have partnered with TxDOT, the City of Austin and Capital Metro to determine how best to reduce congestion on MoPac, one of the region’s busiest roadways. This effort includes a detailed environmental study led by TxDOT to evaluate alternatives to improve mobility in the MoPac corridor from West Parmer Lane to Lady Bird Lake. The study began in 2010 and has included a number of public meetings. The draft environmental study is anticipated to be out in the spring for public review and public hearing, and we hope for federal approval later in the year. Construction is expected in 2014.

We also hope to step up the dialogue on a long-term solution to longstanding congestion problems southwest of Austin in Oak Hill. We are working with elected officials, neighborhood groups and other stakeholders to better understand the issues surrounding the project. We recognize that there are many diverse views regarding the need for mobility improvements in Oak Hill and the form they should take. While it may be difficult to develop a project that makes everyone happy, it would be irresponsible of us to allow the current congestion problems to persist without taking action.

But it doesn’t stop there. Later this year we will also be launching studies, in conjunction with TxDOT, to look at improvements on MoPac between Lady Bird Lake and Slaughter Lane, on US 183 between MoPac and RM 620, as well as on US 183 between Manor Road and SH 71. Plus, we will begin studying options to improve mobility between MoPac and FM 1626 near Brodie Lane in southwest Austin.

All of these projects will present unique challenges. But we can no longer be hesitant when it comes to facing our mobility problems. We must step up to the challenge and be willing to try new and innovative approaches to moving people and goods faster and more efficiently. We must strike a proper balance between mobility and the environment. We must consider new ways to fund mobility. And most of all we have to be willing to change.

We want the region to be No. 1 in jobs, education, economic growth and quality of life, not in congestion. Our future will depend greatly on the vision we collectively bring to solving the mobility problem in Central Texas.

That’s how I feel about the Green Mobility Challenge, a design competition sponsored in 2011 by the Mobility Authority and nine other organizations, including the Texas Department of Transportation. The competition challenged teams of architects, engineers, planners and students to propose better ways of building, operating and maintaining future Central Texas transportation projects. The challenge was this: identify new ways of solving mobility problems, using new materials and innovative concepts, so that we can develop a sustainable transportation system that reflects our community’s values and protects and sustains our natural resources.

We picked two difficult projects to challenge the competitors – the Oak Hill Expressway (US 290/SH 71) and the Manchaca Expressway (SH 45) in southwestern Travis County. We picked these two projects because our team wants to adopt more sustainable approaches to mobility, and frankly these projects needed a fresh approach. We simply could not continue the one size fits all mentality or standby and accept the old failed approach of hoping congestion would stop growth and solve the problem.

The response to the challenge was even better than I’d imagined it would be. We got some great ideas from the professional and academic communities. Some ideas were pretty unique like installing solar panels on the roadway surface or wind turbines along the roadway to generate electricity. Many of the concepts focused on protecting water quality by bridging sensitive areas or filtering roadway runoff. Some ideas looked at ways to conserve fuel and cut vehicle emissions by using roundabouts rather than traditional intersections to eliminate traffic signals and reduce vehicle idling. Other concepts pushed the definition of realistic – but, to quote a very wise man, if an idea doesn’t challenge us, there’s no hope for it. We just have to be sure the concepts we ultimately implement are reasonable and feasible. You can check out all of the proposals at www.GreenMobilityChallenge.com.

Dealing with our region’s transportation challenges will require striking a balance between economic development and environmental protection. It will necessitate bringing together diverse groups with competing interests and that isn’t easy. At the Mobility Authority, we are willing to reach out, take risks and try innovative things. The Green Mobility Challenge reflects that culture, and it’s a culture I’m very proud of.