I heard a number of summaries on the latest Legislative session and read many others. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Sine Die, I was very disappointed that North Texans were not given the ability and choice to address the enormous challenges we have coming in the next several years with local transportation. We know our population will continue to grow. We know that our air quality will continue to be a problem. We know that our highways are among the most congested in the country and will get worse.
 
A vast majority of North Texas leaders supported efforts to ask the Legislature to empower us to solve our problems. The proposed solution was to ask the local citizens on a county-by-county basis to approve certain transportation and transit solutions. To pay for those projects, citizens would have to approve certain increased fees and a fuel tax. How much more democratic does it get than that?
 
Yes, it would have involved new taxes. I have never advocated more taxes but there are times when taxes are necessary (police, fire, army, roads).
 
As Garland's representative to the Dallas Regional Mobility Coalition, I have, with those other North Texas leaders, been very involved with the issue for almost three years, serving on the Legislative Committee most of that time.
 
For a little more perspective into this last session, DRMC's Executive Director shared some insights with members today. I thought you might also be interested:
 

From John Carpenter, Executive Director, Dallas Regional Mobility Coalition:

 
The 81st Texas Legislative Session was very unusual, and the transportation agenda suffered as a result.
 
Although the Session was disappointing, it was not completely surprising. Considering the slim Republican margin in the House of Representatives and the Speaker's promise not to interfere with the will of the House, little leadership was evident, and transportation interests paid the price.
 
While the Senate acted with relative efficiency and responsibility to move our legislation and to sidetrack some bad bills and amendments, the House, for political and partisan reasons, slowed to a crawl. You all watched as the Democratic caucus slowed the work of the House to the point that many major bills died because of the Democrats' effort to avoid taking up the voter ID legislation; it was a skillful use of the rules and a brilliant strategy. There were also some hard feelings among House members towards the Senate for sending over the bill in the first place.
 
Because many important bills were never considered by the House, key provisions were added to House bills in the Senate. The Senate amendments to HB 300, otherwise known as the TxDOT Sunset Bill, were particularly noteworthy.
 
It became obvious that the House had little, if any, appetite for our TLOTA [Texas Local Option Transportation Act] legislation. SB 855 was drastically changed in the House to eliminate all revenue-generating options, except for a 10-cent motor fuels tax, and the House expanded the bill to cover all 25 MPOs in the state. Perhaps this was to ensure that if the bill were to make it to the floor, it would fail.
 
As further evidence of the House's underwhelming enthusiasm for the bill, it was placed on the House's General State Calendar rather than the Major State Calendar. Once the intentional slowdown began, it became apparent that SB 855 was doomed.
 
The support of our own House delegation was also disappointing. Neither of the House Transportation Committee members from the Metroplex supported us in our efforts to pass the cornerstone of our legislative program.
 
To their credit, Senator John Carona and Rep. Vicki Truitt never gave up. Senator Carona quickly amended a slimmed-down version of the TLOTA legislation onto HB 300. It became clear that our only hope was to prevail in a conference committee. We knew at this point that the House would not concur with the numerous Senate amendments. In addition to the TLOTA amendment, the Senate also deleted the elimination of the use of red light cameras, among many other items. HB 300, as it was sent back to the House, was well over 1,000 pages.
 
The conferees could not and would not agree on the TLOTA provisions. Senator Carona and Rep. Truitt worked feverishly to generate support for HB 300 with the TLOTA provisions included, but it was not to be. Ultimately, the conference committee report for HB 300 did not include TLOTA, but neither chamber voted on the report, and the TxDOT Sunset recommendations died upon adjournment.
 
The rest of the DRMC Legislative Program fared little better. While we made attempts to move the legislation, and we did enjoy some success early on, our bills and the bills of many other constituencies fell victim to the House calendar. Once May 26 came and went, and the House Democrats successfully slowed the pace to avoid consideration of the Voter ID legislation, all bills behind the Voter ID bill suffered the same fate.
 
Note that there is one bright spot. While we were not successful in statutorily or constitutionally ending diversions [diversions of fuel tax revenues from transportation projects], progress was made. SB 1, the General Appropriations Bill, cut diversions by $360 million. It also provided $182 million for rail relocation and improvement, which may help ease gridlock at the Tower 55 rail intersection in Tarrant County.