Archives > Plano Star-courier > News
Print
E-mail
Comment
Rate
RSS
Share
NTTA starting 121 preparations
By Danny Gallagher, Staff Writer
Thanks to a waiver approved by the Texas Transportation Commission, the North Texas Tollway Authority can now offer a proposal to build State Highway 121 to compete with Cintra’s proposal, but the NTTA isn’t waiting for the go-ahead from the Regional Transportation Council to get started.
“The (NTTA) board has authorized us to engage the engineers necessary to do the design, engage the financial team necessary to put the financial plan in place and take all the action necessary to finalize this proposal, so all of that is under way,” NTTA Interim Executive Director Jerry Hiebert said before the Regional Transportation Council at its monthly meeting in Arlington last Thursday. “We’re proceeding at risk, but I think we, as an agency, are aware of your sensitivity. We heard that loud and clear at last month’s meeting to not do anything to delay this project.”
The NTTA Board of Directors approved two resolutions Wednesday at its regular meeting in Plano to approve contracts with HDR Architects and Halff Associates Inc. of Dallas to “provide services” on the SH 121 project.
The TTC’s waiver ends a nine-month-old agreement with the NTTA. It gives NTTA the opportunity to submit a proposal on the SH 121 project.
The Texas Department of Transportation announced TTC’s decision Wednesday, TxDOT spokesman Mark Ball said by e-mail.
According to an NTTA timeline, Collin County and four cities along the SH 121 corridor asked NTTA to join them in developing a proposal to submit to TxDOT that would fund the Collin County portion of the roadway at a lower cost to taxpayers. The proposal, which included guaranteed annual payments of $2.7 billion and potential variable payments of $2.7 billion, was rejected by the RTC in February 2006.
Then in June 2006, the NTTA Board of Directors authorized its staff to develop another proposal, this time for portions of SH 121 in Collin and Denton counties, but they later rescinded the authorization after they signed a regional protocol agreement with TxDOT in August 2006.
TXDOT said TTC approved the agreement “to allocate and speed delivery of transportation projects identified in the regional transportation plan,” according to a released statement.
The waiver approved Monday lifts that agreement.
“We’ve very excited about it,” NTTA President Paul Wageman said at the Wednesday meeting. “We expect a fair hearing from the RTC.”
The announcement of the waiver comes on the heels of a TxDOT memo questioning NTTA’s proposal. The memo, addressed to State Sen. John Carona and dated March 12, 2007, first surfaced at TollRoadsNews.com, an industry news Web site. It states “there is a serious flaw in NTTA’s characterization of their proposal” with the use of a 5 percent discount rate. It also stated if their proposal used a “more appropriate” 8.5 percent discount rate, their proposal “shows a bankruptcy event in two of the three revenue scenarios.”
Hiebert said before the Wednesday meeting the NTTA responded to the memo back in April.
“It took issue with the discount rate we used,” Hiebert said. “Our response was that what we used was predicated in what was required in the RFP (request for proposal) and that we think that was appropriate.”
Contact Danny Gallagher at dgallagher@acnpapers.com.
The following are comments from the readers.
In no way do they represent the view of Starlocalnews.com
In no way do they represent the view of Starlocalnews.com
Get with it wrote on May 17, 2007 8:17 AM:
" Build the thing. More and more people are moving to the north and still no tollway. "
Resident wrote on May 31, 2007 11:57 AM:
" Why do our local leaders back TOLLROADS? If they spent half as much time fighting the state for access to the gasolione tax money already being paid by consumers then the community would be a much better place for all of us. Every dollar consumers pay in tolls is that much money less they have to spend locally.
Also, the argument they need toll road revenue to build H121 is completely ludicrous and absolutely false. Construction is rampant so its obviously being funded now WITHOUT tolls.
If Collin county believes tolls are the future they want to promote then I'm obviously living in the wrong county. "
You must register with a valid email to post comments.
Only your Member ID will be posted with the comments.
Only your Member ID will be posted with the comments.
Registered users sign in here:
Become a Registered User
- Return to: News «
- Home «
- Top of Page ^
