Texas Department of Transportation Commission Meeting

Fort Worth Botanic Gardens
Dorothea Leonahardt Lecture Hall
3220 Botanic Garden Boulevard
Fort Worth, Texas 76107

9:00 a.m. Thursday, July 25, 2002

COMMISSION MEMBERS:

JOHN W. JOHNSON, Chairman
ROBERT L. NICHOLS
RIC WILLIAMSON

STAFF:

MICHAEL W. BEHRENS, Executive Director
RICHARD MONROE, General Counsel
HELEN HAVELKA, Executive Assistant to the Deputy Executive Director
 

PROCEEDINGS

MR. JOHNSON: Good morning. It is 12 minutes past 9:00 a.m. and this meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission is called to order. Welcome to our July meeting; it is a pleasure to have you here this morning. Please note for the record that public notice of this meeting, containing all items in the agenda, was filed with the Office of the Secretary of State at 3:16 p.m. on July 17.

We're delighted to be in Fort Worth. As some of you may know, it is the commission's practice to hold some of our monthly meetings outside of Austin at different locations around this great state, and that is a real benefit to us. It acquaints us with the interests, challenges and people of the various regions of this great state, and I am sure by the time our visit is over, we will be better informed about this particular area, and hopefully our meeting will enable you to get a sense of how we conduct business, at least in the transportation part of state government.

This meeting also gives us the opportunity to hear from you, and if anyone in the audience would like to address the commission, we would ask that you fill out a card at the registration table in the lobby. If you would like to comment on an agenda item, please fill out a yellow card, and if it is not an agenda item, we will take your comments at the end of the meeting and for that we would ask that you would fill out a blue card. We would also ask in this day of advanced communications that any cell phones or pagers or beepers that you would place those in the silent mode.

Before we get started, I'd like to ask my colleagues on the commission if they have anything they would like to say. Robert Nichols?

MR. NICHOLS: Well, I'd like to thank everybody who is here for being here today, and we had a good evening last night. We got into town, rode The T, had a meeting with the chamber, I think at the Transportation Center, had a great meeting dinner with employees last night, breakfast this morning. Very much appreciate the hospitality shown to us, and that's about it. thanks.

MR. JOHNSON: Hometown boy?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Hometown boy. There will probably be a chance later on in the meeting, chairman, to recognize some of the people who are from my neighborhood, but I would like to take just a moment to ask all of those who are from my former legislative district in Parker, Wise and Cooke Counties, would you please do me the honor of standing and let everybody see who you are. Thank you very much. In particular, Mr. Chairman, we have down here to the left the mayor of the fine City of Weatherford. He's a pretty fair mayor but he was the best school superintendent that ever worked for the State of Texas.

(Applause.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: All three of my children went through the system under Mr. Tyson's leadership. And Fort Worth is my hometown of record and Weatherford and Parker County is where I live, and we're very pleased that the commission is here.

MR. JOHNSON: Terrific. In our last two meetings, I mentioned we go outside of Austin three times in nine legislative years. We've been to Lufkin in February and Abilene in April, and we're here in Fort Worth in July, and of course, between Abilene on the west and Fort Worth on the east, Commissioner Williamson hasn't had far to go to get to these meetings, and next year he's going to find out that they're a little farther away.

(General laughter.)

MR. JOHNSON: But it's a great state to travel.

I would like to introduce some of the members of our administration who are with us today. Mike Behrens, our very capable executive director, is on the dais with us. Also here is probably someone who doesn't need an introduction. Steve Simmons served the Fort Worth District extremely well for a number of years before we pirated him off to Austin.

(Applause.)

MR. JOHNSON: He is our deputy executive director. And Amadeo Saenz, assistant executive director for Engineering Operations, is here.

(Applause.)

MR. JOHNSON: We have a full agenda with a lot of local presentation and local interest and we will proceed with that, and to get us started I believe is Fort Worth Council member Wendy Davis. Wendy, welcome, we're delighted you're here.

MS. DAVIS: Thank you. Good morning, Commissioner Johnson, Commissioner Nichols, and Commissioner Williamson, and also good morning, Mr. Executive Director. On behalf of Mayor Kenneth Barr and the Fort Worth City Council, I would like to welcome you to Fort Worth and to thank you so much for coming to our city today.

The mayor and city council especially want to express our appreciation to the commissioners for your support in our recent State Transportation Enhancement Program applications. We were awarded monies for the revitalization of the Berry Street corridor, the 9th Street corridor which leads from our ITC center and for North Main Street corridor. Again, we are pleased that you have come to see firsthand what our great city has to offer.

Since the railroad began bringing settlers to the area, Fort Worth has been the best of the west and we think that that trend will continue. Our citizens enjoy natural beauty, historic charm, and modern sophistication in a city where the equality of life just keeps getting better. We are strengthening our neighborhoods; we are strengthening our economy and the foundations that support it.

The transportation system is one of those foundations. This morning you are going to hear about some transportation jewels that we are very proud of, and you will hear a lot about creating relationships and partnering to make innovative transportation projects become realities.

I have a particular interest in the development of Fort Worth's light rail line that will connect numerous destinations through its 7-1/2 mile route. Travelers will be connected from their homes in in-town neighborhoods to employment centers in the hospital district in downtown; tourists will be able to visit the cultural district; students will be able to travel to Texas Wesleyan University; and along the way, higher density transit-oriented development will provide a mix of housing, neighborhood services, shopping and entertainment choices.

The City of Fort Worth and neighboring cities are actively integrating land use with transportation facilities and adopting sustainable development policies. This initiative directly reduces vehicle miles of travel and was co-funded by the Regional Transportation Council as one of our air quality strategies.

Along this same line, Mayor Barr testified recently before the Senate Committee on State Affairs about Fort Worth's desire for TxDOT to become involved in developing mass transit options with Texas cities. Quoting Mayor Barr: "While new highways are needed, Fort Worth believes our challenges and the transportation challenges facing every Texas metropolitan area will not -- and I underscore not -- be addressed by a more aggressive highway construction program. We strongly believe that the State of Texas must join with Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin and all the other major Texas cities in promoting and developing transit and rail options, things like commuter and light rail. We believe that the state in general and TxDOT specifically must join cities in not only planning mass transit systems but also in funding the construction of those systems." And that's the end of his quote.

Additionally, in Fort Worth we believe that TxDOT and Texas cities must partner in planning for a statewide rail service system. Taking Texans out of vehicles and putting them onto trains must happen, but the rail system should be one that links existing metropolitan areas. A statewide rail system will not be effective if it is built remotely, away from our urban centers. A good rail system will relieve the pressure on TxDOT to continually construct bigger and more costly interstates to accommodate more cars and trucks. A good rail system also will go a long way toward improving air quality by giving Texans a reliable and affordable alternative to motor vehicle transportation.

As you move your monthly commission meeting around the state, I think you'll find that other municipal leaders agree with Fort Worth that the time has come for Texas and its cities to have transportation that is more than a system of highways. Texas and its cities also need mass transit systems.

Guests to Fort Worth often mention the city's friendliness or neighborliness. We hope that you sense this while you are here because we really want to be partners with you. Thank you so much again for coming to the City of Fort Worth.

Our next presenter is Mr. John Bartosiewcz, the president and executive director of the Fort Worth Transportation Authority.

(Applause.)

MR. BARTOSIEWICZ: Good morning and thank you for this opportunity to talk to you about some of the jewels of our transportation system that Wendy mentioned in her presentation. I guess we're starting off with the non-highway portion of the Transportation Commission's duties this morning, and I'm glad to tag into that as well.

I'd like to speak to you this morning very briefly about one of our highest profile, most successful projects in public transportation, and then talk specifically and give you some examples of how the community, the city, the transit authority and many other players in our community are working together in partnership with TxDOT to achieve the kind of quality of life issues and mobility and sustainable community issues that Wendy talked to you about a minute ago.

The first biggest project that we've worked on and have now completed is the Trinity Railway Express. Several of you got a chance to ride TRE yesterday which is a partnership between The T and DART. Trinity Railway Express connects Dallas and Fort Worth along the old Rock Island Railroad corridor with nine stations along the way, including a link to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport with currently a bus shuttle, but in the planning I'll talk about in a minute, a rail connection to the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Each of the stations in the county contain free park-and-ride facilities which help reduce congestion on the most congested freeway corridor in Fort Worth, the Airport Freeway in northeast Tarrant County. In fact, Trinity Railway Express, with its more than 1,200 park-and-ride parking spots in Tarrant County and close to almost 2,000 in Dallas County, create the additional capacity of one lane of freeway during the rush hours in our community. This has a tremendous impact on air quality, has a tremendous impact on congestion in the corridor, and it's something we're very proud of.

TRE is a partnership not only with DART, our transit authority to the east, but with both cities of Dallas and Fort Worth who had the foresight to purchase this corridor with a federal grant back in 1983, and as you'll see in a minute, there's also been a lot of partnership with TxDOT on the project. In addition to the things we've talked about, ridership on TRE is exceeding expectations; we're currently carrying more than 8,000 riders on an average weekday, and during the summer on weekends on Saturday when we have service, we're approaching 9- to 10,000 riders as people use it to access both great communities on either end.

There are a number of interesting and innovative portions of the TRE project which I want to highlight for you. We have been very sensitive to historic preservation and other environmental issues on the project. We've preserved two historic warehouses on the eastern end of our downtown in a very unique way: our train actually goes through the historic Hunt-Hars Warehouse -- or what's now called the Alarm Supply Building -- in a way to preserve the facade of that building for the community for the future.

You, of course, were in our Intermodal Transportation Center yesterday evening for the reception. We were very pleased to host you there and we're really glad that you got a chance to tour a little bit of it; we're very proud of this. ITC is the hub for all forms of transportation in Tarrant County and in our downtown: it houses the Trinity Railway Express operation; it is our new and one of the most modern AMTRAK stations in the country; it also houses the largest bus transfer facility so people can get easily from the public transportation system to AMTRAK and to the commuter rail system; we are in the process of negotiating with Greyhound to move the Greyhound facility there as well.

It is the hub for all public transportation in our community, and it's a place where our community celebrates. On weekends in the bus canopies which are pictured in the lower slide here, we host a farmers' market on Saturday mornings which is done in conjunction with the rail market and is another example of the kinds of public-private partnerships that have made our transportation system, we think, one of the best in the state.

We also currently have at the western terminus of the site -- which you didn't get to see this trip -- our historic Texas and Pacific Railroad station. We want to thank the commission and TxDOT for the work that you've helped us do to develop this facility. Most of the restoration was funded with an Enhancement grant that was received several years ago where we have taken the original waiting room in the T&P building and restored it to its 1929 grandeur. I know a lot of you have already seen that, but if you haven't had a chance, we'd love for you to go there and see it as well.

T&P is also the site for one of our most popular park-and-ride facilities which is a little counter-intuitive. We have a large park-and-ride facility at the T&P in downtown Fort Worth that serves folks who park there and ride the train to Dallas. The train actually replaced a bus service that we had operating from that site to downtown Dallas which was one of our most popular and successful bus routes, and as soon as the train operated, we doubled the ridership from that site.

The other unique thing about the parking facility at T&P is that it is actually constructed on TxDOT right of way. We utilized the right of way under the new freeway, the new I-30 freeway for a 200-space park-and-ride facility that was done in partnership with TxDOT at some additional cost to TxDOT. Not only did you allow us to use the land, but the freeway was redesigned under J.R. Stone's leadership and really under Steve Simmons' leadership when he was here to allow us to use that land for a productive purpose as opposed to just leaving it, and God knows what would have happened if we didn't.

Today more than 200 commuters use that facility every day. It is also the site of one of our major downtown bus transfer facilities. Immediately adjacent to the freeway structure here is part of an integrated system of four downtown transfer facilities, along with the ITC and two others we're developing downtown, that facilitate access to our downtown and help reduce bus traffic downtown and make the connections for our customers much easier. And as I said, there is a parking facility there as well.

TxDOT was also a key partner in helping us get TRE to the T&P station. This is a picture of a railroad bridge which TxDOT not only helped fund but actually did construct through their contract on the major downtown facility work. It is an excellent example of how we work together to make our downtown better. TxDOT allowed us to grade separate the railroad from Lancaster which was a key choke point for the railroad which we have now solved, and you've constructed a beautiful bridge which has some neat art deco features and historic lamps that provide a great gateway into the downtown area.

TxDOT and The T and other members of the community are not only working downtown together but working in several other locations. TxDOT is currently constructing a bridge over the TRE in the vicinity of Trinity Boulevard which will help us eliminate a couple of unsafe grade crossings and improve the capacity of those intersections. The bridge will also allow us to give much better access to our Hurst-Bell station which has an almost 300-space parking lot which can increase its capacity now that people will be able to get to it more easily.

We've worked in some behind-the-scenes ways together to make the project a success. A lot of people don't see this but this is actually an underpass and drainage project that TxDOT helped fund that brings the train into downtown Fort Worth right under I-35 and the Spur 280 freeway. We worked together here not only to solve a problem for the train service but to solve a serious erosion problem that TxDOT was having with the freeway structure in this location. We've partnered together with some funding from TxDOT, a community facilities agreement with the City of Fort Worth, and our federal and sales tax funding for the Trinity Railway Express project, not only to improve access to downtown but to solve a key problem in the infrastructure of our transportation system downtown.

TxDOT has also been very generous allowing us to use TxDOT right of way to facilitate this project. Not only did we use that right of way for the I-30 bridge and the parking at the T&P but the actual access into downtown is on new right of way that was constructed in this Spur 280 right of way on the east side of our downtown which not only saved us a tremendous amount of money but helped beautify that part of our downtown and put what was previously fallow right of way to good use for the public transportation system.

And it doesn't end there. TxDOT is currently working with us in the widening of the 157 project in eastern Tarrant County to reconstruct a railroad bridge, but not only have we reconstructed it but the leadership of TxDOT in our region has had the foresight to do it in such a way that when it's finished, we will actually increase the capacity of the railroad at that site to allow us to improve schedules and have a further impact on congestion and air quality issues in our area.

Congestion and air quality issues are also areas where we work in partnership together through innovative grants through TxDOT. We are now in the process of completing our conversion of our bus fleet to be 100 percent CNG, compressed natural gas; we're taking delivery now of our last order of new buses which will make us just virtually 100 percent compressed natural gas fueled. The T and TxDOT have been working together on this for years; we've been a pioneer in compressed natural gas technology and had the first buses in Texas operating on CNG and some of the first in the country back in the late 1980s. We're very proud of this as well.

We're also working in other innovative ways together. TxDOT is taking the lead through the Transit Division to coordinate the use of 5310 funding. This is the former 16(b)(2) funding that went to social service agencies in a very disjointed and uncoordinated way that led to a lot of inefficient use of those funds. That is now being coordinated in innovative ways by the TxDOT administration through The T in Tarrant County to make sure that those funds reach the most amount of people and maximize the impact of transportation with those funds. There will be more about that in a subsequent speaker's presentation.

We're also working together on new projects. One of the most important ones is how we're going to get the commuter rail service into the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, and TxDOT is a key player here as well. This is a partnership between the COG, the DART and The T, the airport, two cities and TxDOT to make sure that we develop a system that will eventually bring rail to the central terminal area which is kind of in the middle of this picture. The key TxDOT link is at the top of the picture where it says Cotton Belt. TxDOT is now designing and working with us to make sure that the gateway for the rail into the airport through The Funnel project -- something else you'll also hear a lot about later in the presentation -- is preserved so as we get the funding and the infrastructure for rail into the airport, there will be a way to get it there, again in a cooperative and very important way.

We're also working together on several new partnerships which are just in the development stages. Wendy did an excellent job talking about how we're working together as part of the regional rail plan to try to put a light rail streetcar system in place in Fort Worth. We're also working together to build a new park-and-ride facility at the north end of town, one of the biggest developing areas of our community. Right at the intersection of I-35 and Basswood there is some surplus TxDOT right of way which we're working together to develop a park-and-ride facility on.

We've talked about the regional rail plan. We're not only working together at the airport but on two other corridors: the Cotton Belt corridor and the Union Pacific corridor going from Fort Worth to Dallas, to work together to make those as successful as the Trinity Railway Express project. And we're now in the process of purchasing the right of way and making sure that we can extend the Trinity Railway Express project to the southwest which will be a key complement to the development of the 121 freeway.

I think the key message that I'd like to leave you with is that we are beginning to work together in innovative ways to make the Texas transportation system a true multimodal system. In a lot of ways and a lot of ways that people don't understand and see, we've worked together for years to make that a successful system, not only with highways but with public transportation and other modes. The future is very bright for that; the future is very exciting, and as Wendy pointed out, it's also very challenging, and we look forward to working with the commission in making that a success.

I now turn the program over to Commissioner Whitley from Tarrant County. Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

MR. WHITLEY: Good morning Commissioner Johnson, Commissioner Nichols, Commissioner Williamson, and Director Behrens. On behalf of the Regional Transportation Council, I'd like to express the region's appreciation for the partnerships we have enjoyed with the Texas Transportation Commission and with the Texas Department of Transportation.

As you know, the Partnership Program has resulted in more than $2.1 billion being programmed for construction of critical transportation projects in the North Texas region during the past seven years. We look forward to a continuation and expansion of this partnership. The Partnership Program has really proven to be a very successful mechanism for funding transportation projects that otherwise would have been delayed or remain unfunded.

I also currently chair the Transportation Committee for the National Association of Counties and in the past years, as we've attended those meetings, time and again I would tell you that I hear elected officials from the other states talking about all the problems that they have with their departments of transportation, and we've always kind of felt pleasingly out of place in that we've always had a very, very good relationship with TxDOT and we've always had a great deal of confidence in the commitments that you've made to the state in looking at the overall picture, and I really again want to say how important I think the partnership effort has been and how we've all been very much a part of that deal.

Another trend that we've very proud of in the Fort Worth District is the confidence that you've shown in promoting our district engineers.

(General laughter.)

MR. WHITLEY: You know, we're very, very pleased with Maribel. In the short time that she's been here, she has quickly gotten out to meet with folks and we're very pleased with her. We were also proud of former engineers Wes Heald and even Steve who were promoted to the home office, and we know that you're providing us with your best people and that really says a whole lot and we really appreciate that.

To support our district engineers, though, we must continue to have a support staff of committed people at TxDOT. The trend in staff turnover at TxDOT needs to be addressed. If this trend were present in my accounting practice, it would be very difficult for me to continue to provide efficient and timely service to my customers. As local policy officials, we're available and ready to support you in asking the legislature for flexibility to reverse the trend. Outsourcing projects to the private sector consultants has been a very positive initiative; however, you must maintain a balance or you risk undermining the confidence the private sector needs to have in the TxDOT project engineers.

In addition, as a consultant, I recognize the additional costs associated with outsourcing. A policy should be developed that identifies projects and/or times when outsourcing is appropriate. In my opinion, increased outsourcing may permanently damage TxDOT's core technical abilities and significantly add to the design costs of projects.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, that was great.

MR. WHITLEY: Well, I have to go back and sit amongst them in a minute, so you know, you may want to clear a little place up there and just let me sit behind you just so that you can kind of field off some of the din.

Finally, you already know we stand ready to assist you in convincing what I think is a skeptical public and legislature that additional funding is necessary to maintain the quality of life in our Texas cities. If continued aggressive actions are to be made in our region, we must respond to the new 3 million people that we're anticipating coming in here over the next 25 years.

There are six Tarrant County projects that we would like to highlight today, the first being Airport Freeway. This project has already been in the planning process for more than 15 years and it is critical to the mobility of northeast Tarrant County and as an artery to and from the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. We need to keep this project moving forward. We would like to thank you for supporting the RTC Partnership Program to allocate funds to Interstate 820, known as Loop 820, from I-35 to State Highway 26.

The next project you've heard a lot about is commonly referred to as "The Funnel" and it includes State Highways 121, 114, and 360. We appreciate the commission's consideration of this project and we look forward to working with TxDOT as the design process begins. The RTC is prepared to assist with the funding of the design process if required or if requested.

We've been working on the Southwest Parkway since 1983 in partnership with the City of Fort Worth, Johnson County, and the North Texas Tollway Authority. This will be the first tollway constructed in Tarrant County since the old Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike.

We also thank the commission for the assistance with the Interstate 30/35 West interchange in downtown Fort Worth. As a result of this project, the RTC has committed to rebuild Lancaster Street creating an opportunity to assist the City of Fort Worth with its sustainable development objectives.

Lastly, our plans are nearing completion on improvements to State Highway 360 between Interstate 20 and 30. Improvements are desperately needed at the Interstate 30 and State Highway 360 interchange. If you've been in that area, you recognize that that's a real mess.

The Regional Transportation Council appreciates this opportunity to update you on these critical projects and we look forward to the continued efforts to jointly improve mobility in North Texas. Michael Morris, who is the director of our Regional Transportation Council, has helped put together this presentation and is here, and he, as well as the rest of us, will be available after the presentations to answer any questions which you may have.

Our next speaker is Ron Harmon, commissioner from Johnson County -- short-time commissioner from Johnson County, former chair of our Regional Transportation Council, and a recent recipient of the Top Hand or Road Hand Award. Thank you.

(Applause.)

MR. HARMON: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, Mr. Executive Director, good morning, but above all, thank you for your commitment.

In North Central Texas, it has become very important for rural counties to work with urban counties to address issues of mutual concern. Currently we're working on three major areas: first is to develop the transportation infrastructure to meet the demands of a growing population; second is to facilitate the effective and efficient movement of people and goods; and of course, lastly is the ability to address the region's air quality problems.

As you know, Dallas, Tarrant, Denton and Collin Counties comprise the Dallas-Fort Worth non-attainment area. Five adjacent counties, Parker, Johnson, Ellis, Kaufman and Rockwall, are becoming increasingly urban and play an integral role in transportation, congestion and air quality initiatives in North Central Texas. In the year 2000, the five counties voluntarily entered into an agreement adopting voluntary mandatory control measures. This initiative model and very innovative includes an inspection and maintenance program, air quality monitors in each county, and a future program for on-road detection systems. TNRCC Commissioner Ralph Marquez recently commented this was the first such program throughout the U.S. and a ready model for use in Texas.

In addition to air quality concerns, adjacent counties will be facing increasing congestion during the next 20 years as the region's population expands to more than 9 million people. By 2025 a significant portion of Johnson County's roadways are projected to experience moderate levels of peak period congestion. Despite the expansion of some transportation facilities, 30 to 60 percent of the counties lane miles will be at levels of service D, E and F.

Johnson County is taking a pro-active approach with both vision and vigor to the issues facing it by partnering with other counties, cities, TxDOT, the Regional Transportation Council, Partners in Mobility and other transportation agencies. A new Johnson County comprehensive plan has just been completed; we're working diligently to plan and implement both a commuter rail system and a transit system in Johnson County. Johnson County is currently the largest county in the state of Texas without a transit program. I would like to express our appreciation of the commissioners' support of the transit services for Johnson County.

I would also like to highlight six transportation projects of particular importance to mobility in Johnson County. Number one is the Southwest Parkway, a continuation of State Highway 121 in Tarrant County, which will continue south into Johnson County as a parkway where it connects to US 67. This is a major transportation enhancement on which I've had the pleasure to work the past 15 years to improve mobility in Johnson County.

Number two, the region's mobility 2025 update. The metropolitan transportation plan includes an outer loop in Tarrant County. FM 1187 will be the southern section of the proposed Loop 9. With the recent strategic programming initiatives, the Regional Transportation Council has allocated $6 million for construction of the intersection of FM 1187 and Interstate 35W, the initial segment of these roadway improvements.

Number three is the expansion of FM 731 which is a critical project to relieve congestion on both State Highway 174 and Interstate 35W. We appreciate the commission's support of the FM 731 project through the Partnership Program. This important connection joins State Highway 174 and FM 1187.

Number four is the US 67 construction currently underway. It is important that it brings a freeway facility from Dallas to Cleburne. When completed, the roadway will be expanded from two to four lanes between Cleburne and Midlothian.

The last two projects do not involve building of or expanding roadways but are important transportation options nonetheless. Number five, Johnson County is working very hard to add a commuter rail to the choices available to travelers in the county. Also, a multi-facilitated rail feasibility study has just begun and we will evaluate the possibility of using the existing Burlington Northern Santa Fe rail lines.

Lastly, Johnson County is committed to offering public transportation to its citizens. The proposed systems will be headquartered in Cleburne but would provide services to Alvarado, Burleson and other cities throughout the county.

Like the rest of the region, our future is based on partnerships, dedication and innovation. With this I'll end my comments and you'll be hearing from our district engineer following comments from the local state officials. Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

MR. MORRIS: Mr. Chairman, I think you may have some state representatives that you wish to call on and then we'll finish up our presentation.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, Michael, it's nice of you to yield the floor. I believe we do have at least two state representatives that were planning on attending: Representative Glenn Lewis and Representative Phil King. If they are here, we'd be delighted for them to speak. Have I missed a state representative? Well, Michael, why don't you proceed. Michael has changed. You know, it's not nice to fool Mother Nature.

(General laughter.)

MS. CHAVEZ: After last night, I promise I'll behave. I promise, no singing.

I'm Maribel Chavez and I am the district engineer for the Fort Worth District of TxDOT. Welcome to Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas, the second fastest growing metropolitan area in the state. I am pleased this morning to provide you commissioners and Mr. Behrens with an overview of the Fort Worth District and our activities.

The district is composed of nine counties: Erath, Hood, Jack, Johnson, Palo Pinto, Parker, Somervell, Wise and Tarrant Counties. As you can see, all of our counties are experiencing growth, you can see from our population increases and the amount of traffic that we have out on our facilities. To address our transportation needs, we do anticipate construction lettings of $242 million in 2003 and $386 million in 2004. In addition to that, we've planned $36 million a year in maintenance expenditures and then we'll also be administering a $10.6 million transportation enhancement program.

The district administers both a very urban and very rural program; therefore, it's vital for us to balance our construction and maintenance dollars to address the needs of both types of areas, and just in case anybody is thinking, this is not one of the strategies that we're providing neither to our congestion problem or to alleviate our air quality; that's not what we're proposing.

Tarrant County is home to over 1.4 million residents, while the district's other eight counties combined are comprised of a little over 560,000. According to census figures, from 1990 to 2000, Tarrant County experienced the second highest growth rate in Texas next to Travis County.

And highlighting just a couple of recent major mobility projects in Tarrant County, we completed the 820/State Highway 121 northeast interchange at a cost of $93 million; we're also nearing completion of I-30/35W mixmaster interchange in downtown Fort Worth at a cost of $173 million; and currently out of our north and south Tarrant County area offices, we've got a little over $289 million worth of projects under construction.

We do have many efforts underway aimed at addressing our growth and congestion. I'll highlight just a few of the mobility projects we're looking at. We'll continue our efforts at upgrading State Highway 360 with the letting of a project in 2003 to construct main lanes north of State Highway 121 at a cost of $23 million, and then we're already under construction on the south end to build a railroad bridge and connect the frontage roads with US 287 in Ellis County at a cost of $4.7 million. The widening projects that are underway on FM 1187 will greatly assist us with moving traffic in this high growth area. And then the upgrade of Texas Trunk System US 67 is now complete east of Interstate 35W; it's currently under construction west of the interstate into Cleburne, and this will complete work on this major east-west reliever route.

State Highway 121T, also known as Southwest Parkway, through commission support and partnership between the North Texas Tollway Authority, the City of Fort Worth, North Central Texas Council of Governments, Johnson County, Tarrant County, and the district is proceeding as well. Some much needed capacity work on I-30 is scheduled for 2004. We're planning the addition of lanes from Oakland Boulevard to the Dallas County line at a cost of $37 million. We anticipate the widening and reconstruction of 820 between 35W and State Highway 26 to go to letting in 2005 at a cost of $102 million. We'll continue our efforts at securing funds for State Highway 121/183, also known as Airport Freeway, from the northeast interchange to State Highway 161 in Dallas County.

And commission discretionary funds helped us move along work on State Highway 114. Two of those phases completed this summer and the last phase began work in the spring and this was at a cost of $72.4 million. We're also looking forward to developing the project known as the final. This is a more detailed look illustrating the roadways that are involved and the limits of construction proposed for that project.

We are very proud of our state of the art traffic management system, TransVision. The system in Tarrant County covers approximately 30 freeway miles. Over the next four years we plan to integrate 90 miles of Tarrant County freeways into the TransVision system. Through the partnership efforts of the Fort Worth and Dallas Districts, we do maintain a comprehensive website of traffic conditions in the Metroplex.

Moving our focus now to Johnson County, just a few of the transportation initiatives we're working on there with the assistance of Johnson County. We plan to go to construction in 2004 with the southern portion of State Highway 121 at a cost of $30 million, and this is some of the current work on US 67 from Cleburne east to I-35 at a cost of $21 million.

In Palo Pinto and Parker Counties, a few of the projects we're planning on there is the widening of US 281 in downtown Mineral Wells for almost $6 million, and the widening of State Highway 16 from US 180 to the Brazos River for almost $5 million. We'll also begin work with Parker County and the City of Weatherford on the development of a loop around the city. We're coordinating some Transportation Enhancement funds with the City of Weatherford for work around the historic courthouse.

(General talking and laughter.)

MS. CHAVEZ: Moving on to out of our Stephenville area office we administer work in Erath, Hood and Somervell Counties. Some of the work we're preparing for in Erath County is the development of plans for a loop of US 377 around Dublin at a cost of $37 million. In Hood County we're working to upgrade State Highway 144. We've wrapped up widening work on a section in Glen Rose at a cost of $9 million; we plan to go to construction with another widening project in 2004 at a cost of $6 million; and we'll also be widening FM 4 at a cost of almost $5 million.

In Erath County we've got some innovative recycling work in the Stephenville area office with the use of compost and dairy farm byproducts from the local area to stabilize our embankments. I think that's the technical term for that stuff.

Out of Wise and Jack Counties we administer this work out of our Decatur area office. We've got quite a bit of work programmed on US 380. In 2004 we plan to widen US 380 from Business 380 to the Denton County line for almost $35 million. We also propose to widen US 380 from Bridgeport to Decatur for $34.4 million, and the commission recently approved a $4.1 million SIB loan to Wise County for their right of way and utility adjustment costs. In 2003 we plan to widen a portion of State Highway 114 at a cost of $12 million.

We're very well aware of the partnerships that are key to addressing our transportation needs, for example, such as the efforts of our most recent Texas Road Hand recipient, Johnson County Commissioner Ron Harmon, at securing rural public transportation funds for his county, and then also to the support and integration of our aviation facilities. We've got 14 general aviation airports, Alliance Airport and the DFW Airport that we recognize that we have to interconnect and plan for the future of all modes of transportation. The district also administers Section 5311 Rural Public Transportation funds for five providers in our counties and we are working to explore opportunities for consolidation to maximize these funds.

John touched a little bit about the efforts that we recently engaged in. I'd like to commend and thank the Fort Worth Transportation Authority, The T, for assisting us in what we believe is a true partnership. They recently accepted the challenge of developing a program to administer a service contract for the Section 5310, otherwise known as the elderly and disabled program, in the urbanized area. They are the only transit authority in Texas who stepped up to assist the department with this endeavor. Their help will allow us to move to a more effective and efficient public transportation program.

And last year, thanks to Governor Perry and the commission, the application of innovative financing techniques for the construction of this project was approved. The district is in the process of developing techniques to manage and administer this project with NCT COG, the City of Grapevine and community leaders and we plan to secure construction bids as early as 2007. Partnership has been the key to continue pushing State Highway 121T/Southwest Parkway. Through cooperative efforts between the City of Fort Worth, the North Texas Tollway Authority, North Central Texas Council of Governments, Johnson County, Tarrant County, and the Fort Worth District, this project is probably closer to reality than it's ever been.

Probably the largest partnership opportunity in Texas would be the Trans Texas Corridor. We'll be looking at our existing transportation system and evaluating how it will be coordinated and connected to the Trans Texas Corridor.

And the district recognizes the environmental sensitivity of the region, so we're doing our part to promote and contribute to the fight to improve air quality. In the district's fleet of cars and trucks, nearly 300 vehicles run on propane and we average the second highest usage of propane among the urban districts. The district will also be converting construction and maintenance equipment to cleaner burning emulsified diesel fuel in the coming year, and in addition, the employees have personally adopted an employee trip reduction program. We've led the department by initiating this effort and we've received national accolades for this program as well.

We will continue to expand and explore all partnership opportunities and I thank you for your time, commissioners, Mr. Behrens, and thank you also for giving us the honor of hosting this meeting in the Fort Worth District. Thank you.

(Applause.)

MR. MORRIS: Mr. Chairman, you often speak of partnerships; the theme of our presentation was to address those partnerships in land use in the integration of transportation and land use; the partnership with transit in multimodal transportation investments; the partnership in funding projects, both in the RTC-Commission Partnership Program and with the North Texas Tollway Authority; partnership in legislation, both in Austin and in Washington; partnership in an integrated staff that works with the citizens of this region in an integrated transportation planning approach; partnerships on air quality and moving ahead ultra-low emitting vehicles and environmental speed limits; partnership on seamless information so the public can get where incidents/accidents are the need for reliable transportation can meet in a common location; partnership in performance measures and your leadership to develop performance measures and hold us all accountable in gaining increased confidence of the citizens of this state in what we do in transportation.

And we stand ready to work on new partnerships on procedures and plans. We're proud of our relationship with you in moving ahead access management and we stand ready to help TxDOT on the Trans Texas Corridor initiative as well.

Mr. Chairman and commissioners, we'll be happy to take any questions that you have.

MR. JOHNSON: Ric, any questions of any of the speakers? The microphone is yours.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Two questions. Part of your presentation obliquely referenced high speed rail and don't take it too far away from our cities, it's not going to work if it doesn't tie into urban Texas.

MS. DAVIS: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But you recognize that if we're going to pull off the Trans Texas Corridor, the costs associated with bringing high speed rail into old Union Station is just too exorbitant, we're going to have to have a commuter or light rail system from the middle of Dallas and Fort Worth connecting to a high speed rail terminal someplace near, or do you not accept that? One of the things we discovered in planning is that the whole reason that the cost per mile of building roads or building rail has gone through the roof is that we're trying to build on existing footprints that go right through Michael's backyard and it's too expensive to do that.

MS. DAVIS: Obviously, as a representative of an urban area, our concern is taking grip away from our cities, taking away that density that we're trying so desperately to create with sustainable development initiatives. I haven't seen exactly the rail route plan on the Trans Texas Corridor and what the intentions are in terms of relating that route to the urban centers. All that we are asking is that as planning is being done with regard to that rail system that it is integrally linked with those urban centers in a way that is usable, not in a way that would require so much extra time in order to take that system that it defeats the purpose of having it and not in a way that takes away from our ability to capture the dense growth potential that such a system would provide in our urban centers.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, I asked the chairman if I should ask questions as you went and he decided that that would be rude so I'd better wait till the end, but I wish I had the map up because if, for example, a private sector person proposes to bring high speed rail to intersect the rail line that the commissioner wants to bring out of west side Fort Worth south to Cleburne, that would be a logical termini that would not be threatening to urban For Worth, or would it be? The thing of it is, the commission, for the first time I suspect in a long time, is pretty aggressive about promoting rail, but we also know the reality: we can't promote rail if it -- what was the term that somebody used in the last few days, hope without funding, or unfunded hopes -- there was a term that somebody coined in the recent few days about promising high speed rail to Wendy knowing that you can't deliver it on the terms she wants it.

MS. DAVIS: Just in response -- I know Mike wants to give a response too -- one of the pressures that we face as a city, Fort Worth has an enormous extraterritorial jurisdiction; we can literally double in size, and we're always dealing with that conflict between the growth of our outer edge and the needs of our dense urban core. And we fight a lot the flight of people from our dense urban core and every time that happens it takes away our ability to revitalize and keep that core healthy.

Our concern is that we think long term when we're talking about that rail system. I understand that sometimes those types of initiatives require higher costs, but I would ask that we have a dialogue about that, obviously with the mayor of our city and the mayors of the other urban cities, and see if there is some way that maybe even if cities could share in the cost of helping to integrate that rail system more specifically with our urban cores, that we be provided the opportunity to work on that planning and that it not be set in stone until we've had an opportunity to have that dialogue with you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Don't leave, I've got a second question for you, though. Can I go ahead and ask her the second question, Mike?

MR. MORRIS: Mr. Commissioner, this is your meeting.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: You know for over a year the commission has struggled with what we now call access management, what we originally called frontage road rules.

MS. DAVIS: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And we have caught a tremendous amount of intense observation about our willingness to take up this matter. We hear an awful lot from the eastern side of the Metroplex about the objections to our approach to the frontage road rules, but we've heard virtually nothing from the western side of the Metroplex from developers, from the mayor, from the commissioner, from yourself. Do I infer from that that the western side of the Metroplex perhaps understands what we're trying to do?

MS. DAVIS: I think what you can infer from it is yes, there's an understanding of what you're trying to do and there may be a greater appreciation in the city of Fort Worth for what you're trying to do because of some issues that we've faced recently in some of our intrastate road planning. For example, on the Southwest Parkway, one of the most important parts of that issue for us was removing frontage roads as much as possible from the development of that because we understand in our urban growth initiatives that frontage roads don't always bring about the kind of development that we really feel is an asset.

We understand, though, that that kind of policy might be right for Fort Worth but it might not be the policy that's right everywhere, and as a member of the RTC, I've heard and I sympathize with and agree with those concerns of people for whom frontage roads mean economic development and without them they don't have that economic development, so we support that and sympathize with it. I think what we would say for Fort Worth is we appreciate the position you have on the frontage roads, we understand the costs that are part of that for you, and we do think there's a way to integrate our intrastate and interstate road systems with our local roads that provides economic development opportunities but does it maybe with different kinds of feeder road systems and doesn't necessarily rely on those frontage roads in order to do that.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you very much.

MR. JOHNSON: Any other questions?

MR. MORRIS: Commissioner, I was just going to add as the Trans Texas Corridor approaches an urban area, for example, in our region all the fuel pumps have a pipeline. That pipeline needs to get into our fuel transfer facilities. It's possible, at least we would like to explore with you the notion that as a major inner city corridor approaches an urban area, you may wish to pull off a public-private partnership that may include high speed rail, fuel pipeline, maybe those portions of trucks that have to go to intermodal facilities within the urban region. And we have some specific facilities in mind -- that I'd like not to mention in this audience -- and work with you to be able to integrate an urban element to the statewide plan, and it could still be in the public-private example, especially in an area like Dallas-Fort Worth which needs to fuel this system by pipeline, just as an example.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Mike, our concern is we're starting to get proposals now. We've got one fairly serious one and we think another one is coming soon, and it's apparent to our engineers that if we try to promise every city in the state a 200-mile-an-hour train every two hours, we're not ever going to have a proposal that we can sign and pay for. Just like The T or just like DART had to start someplace with what's going to become a world-class commuter rail system, we've got to start high speed rail someplace in order to get it all the way across the state. My concern anyway -- I don't speak for the other two on this, but my concern is we're burdened with don't build it unless I've got a downtown Fort Worth connect, and don't build it unless I've got a downtown Arlington connect, and don't build it unless I've got a downtown Dallas connect, we might not ever get it built.

MR. MORRIS: And I'm not sure that's what our position would necessarily be, but we stand ready to work with your staff, if asked, on what refinements you would suggest for your consideration.

MR. JOHNSON: Yes, sir?

MR. NICHOLS: Thank you, Maribel. Good presentation. One of the observations that I was paying particular attention to in some of these presentations was the population increase in ten years which is huge, the corresponding vehicle miles traveled daily which is a multiple actually of the percentage. You're dealing with, in some of these counties, 30 and 40 percent growth in the ten-year period, but the vehicle miles traveled per day increases almost twice that. In the whole district there was almost a 50 percent increase in traffic volume in a ten-year period which is a very short period of time, and if I think in terms of the -- I call it the growing blob of congestion, 1990 that showed the pink, year 2000 that showed more than half the area in pink, some level of congestion at peak hours, in the next ten years as that population increases roughly the same again, that pink blob I guess is going to cover the entire screen and the intensity or the level of congestion is going to be much greater inside that.

With the resources the department has, even with the tools of mass transit, rails, buses or whatever, and with some of the new tools, all of us working together on trying to incorporate as many toll roads as possible to help leverage the cost, I think it becomes very apparent, just in this one presentation, how really short on transportation resources not just the state but the counties and cities are, this is going to be a messy problem not just for Fort Worth but for Dallas, Houston and all around the state, and we're going to need all of your help, all of us working together to try to solve that problem.

MR. MORRIS: Commissioner, just something that supports that, the region the last three years is adding 150,000 persons a year here it Fort Worth right now. That would be equivalent to the city of Fort Worth every four years moving to this region. The city of Dallas is a little over a million; we're going to add three cities of Dallas to this region over the next 25 years.

We have some suggestions for you. We've been talking to the Regional Transportation Council for two or three months; we know you have a very tight financial situation on your hands during your 2003 UTP discussion -- which we're anxious to see when that gets released and components of that. We have several conversations we'd like to have with you on how we could enhance both the role of toll roads in that process as well as opportunities for the Regional Transportation Council to flex greater amounts of money than it has in the past and potentially focus on fewer more regional projects to combat the magnitude of that anticipated vehicle miles of travel.

Constraints breeds innovation. We're facing a major financial constraint, and we have other medicines or partnerships we would like to share with you in the next 60 days that our region is willing to do as partners to try to combat that significant increase in vehicle miles of travel, and at the appropriate opportunity we would like to meet with Mike Behrens' staff and start presenting that to him and share those.

MR. JOHNSON: We'd be happy to have that dialogue, Mike.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a couple of questions for John. I thoroughly enjoyed your presentation on transit, and as anyone who is familiar with this area knows, I'm a tremendous supporter of the transit systems we're building in the western part of the Metroplex and in Dallas.

I have two questions for you. One, when does the Trinity go west to Parker County; and how does the commission -- I use my own hometown as an example -- how does the commission help successful growing transit systems get past where they need to be to where we know they're going to need to be. How can we help make that happen, not just west to Weatherford but south to Cleburne, north to Denton? I mean, I've been tracking the DFW train to the airport business for the last couple of months, and the question in my mind is why stop at the airport, why not take it on up further up into what we know is going to be the more explosive parts growth-wise of the area?

MR. BARTOSIEWICZ: Thank you for both of those questions; I couldn't have asked them better myself. We're currently beginning the feasibility study of extending, as part of the regional rail plan, looking at all of the existing freight corridors for expansion of commuter rail, including the one that Commissioner Harmon mentioned and also to the west. So the first question, we're in the feasibility study stage of looking at how we get to Parker County.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And Hood County and Wise County, I mean, all those existing rail corridors.

MR. BARTOSIEWICZ: All those existing rail corridors. I think you've hit the nail really on the head, and I tried to get this in my presentation in terms of how we work together to make that happen. There are a lot of things we can do now without any additional funding, without any change in law, without any change in rules, where working together we can facilitate these things happening. Probably the best current example is what we're doing out at the airport, making sure when The Funnel project is designed that TxDOT leaves the opening for the rail to get into the airport. The things we're doing with the widening of 157 as we have opportunities to improve the railroad infrastructure as part of the highway project so that we can facilitate more train throughput in those intersections is a key ingredient; the Trinity Boulevard overpass. Those are the kinds of things we can be doing now as we search for ways to partner in new funding opportunities like through the Trans Texas Corridor or other things.

So I think those opportunities are there and are working and it's part of this dialogue that Michael is talking about. I think we've been very successful in our region in finding those opportunities and making them happen, and under Wes Heald's leadership when he was here, actually taking some NHS funds and using them in the I-35/I-30 project for part of the public transportation improvements. We've got those tools now and as we work and talk together, I think we can come up with ways to facilitate that, but we still have the big $64 billion question, probably, of where the funding is going to come from.

MR. WILLIAMSON: $164 billion.

MR. BARTOSIEWICZ: Yes, it's probably bigger than that. That's something, I think, through these partnerships and the relationships we're building we'll find a way to succeed in the future.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Chairman, do we have either congress persons or their representatives with us today? Is that reflected in our stuff?

MR. JOHNSON: We're anticipating representatives and representatives from Dick Armey's office, Joe Barton's office and Senator Chris Harris's office.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, perhaps those good public employees who communicate directly with our congressional delegation will take note and pass along to the big guys and gals in D.C. that there is, in fact, a lot of interest in mass transit in Texas. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: John, let me ask you a question. I want to salute your use of and conversion to compressed natural gas in your bus fleet.

MR. BARTOSIEWICZ: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: In my travels around this state and to other metropolitan areas that have endeavored to do the same, the one stepping stone that seems to be hard to get past -- or at least they're using this as a crutch -- is the dependability of the mechanical systems and the maintenance of the buses themselves. Are you finding you're being successful in that regard? I'm assuming that you are or you would not be as aggressive as you are, and I salute you personally and I believe the commission and the department salutes you also for being so aggressive in that area in helping not only the department but the community with treatment of a very challenging and complex issue and that's clean air.

MR. BARTOSIEWICZ: Thank you. In the early years -- and we've been doing this for a long time; we started literally in 1987 experimenting with CNG; we had the first CNG vehicle in Texas in revenue service and some of the first in the country. The issue with CNG isn't vehicle reliability and dependability; that's always been good because the basic mechanical technology for the engines themselves has been in existence for a long time, been proven in the oil field, for example, in stationary applications. That stuff works; that wasn't the hard part.

The hard part is in the fueling infrastructure because in order to compress the gas you have a tremendous infrastructure, a very expensive infrastructure. We have four compressors fueled by natural gas to compress the gas for the vehicles; we have one employee full-time devoted to maintaining those, so that's very costly. But the cost of that, we think, the benefits you get from that cost, it's worth doing. So that's been the issue there.

The other problem we've had, and it's finally starting to change, is that we were way ahead of the marketplace, and the marketplace is finally starting to catch up with the need for alternatively fueled engines and alternatively fueled infrastructure. For example, this latest delivery of buses we got now have new generation on-vehicle fueling storage systems and engines that gives us the range that we've been seeking on our vehicles for the last ten years. So now that the marketplace is finally starting to catch up, I think some of those other problems are going to be solved. But someone had to be out there trying to lead it and we're proud that we were doing it, and TxDOT has been a partner with us in that as well, along with the local gas company and other folks.

There have been some challenges there but I think in the long run it's been worth it. If you just look at the paper this morning, the issue the EPA is now dropping on us about cleaning up diesel emissions. I mean, we're there in the transit fleet in Fort Worth and we can get there in other ways through our partnerships.

MR. JOHNSON: Great. Do you have anything, Robert?

MR. NICHOLS: That's it.

MR. JOHNSON: Of anybody else?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm proud of my hometown.

MR. JOHNSON: Wendy, I have one observation, and this is for you. When the commission met in Irving, Mayor Barr was addressing the commission and literally all hell broke loose. There were bells and whistles and alarms and we had to evacuate the building, and I want to thank you for the demeanor of your presentation so we didn't have to do anything along those lines.

(General laughter.)

MR. JOHNSON: Mike, anything in conclusion?

MR. MORRIS: No, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you. As has been mentioned, we have, we believe, some state representatives and state elected officials and representing some of our Washington officials, and I would invite any of these people to address the commission if they are here and would like to do so. Is Representative Glenn Lewis or Representative Phil King here? They have not been able to get here yet? I don't see that they have.

From Majority leader Dick Armey's office, Jean Campbell, did you want to say anything? Thank you for being here.

From Congressman Joe Barton's office, Susan Dimaline, thank you for being here. And Peggy Dodds from Senator Chris Harris's office. We appreciate each of your being here. In this case, the gentlemen that you work for do tireless work not only for the communities they represent but for this great state.

I have one other person who has asked to address the commission if he's still here, Mayor-elect Heflin from Azle. Mr. Mayor, I apologize that it's taken a while to get to you but we're glad that you're here.

MAYOR HEFLIN: The portion thus far has been very informative. I understand a little better what some of our competition is in Azle on the Jacksboro Highway, so I appreciate greatly getting to hear what's gone before.

Mr. Chairman, commissioners, Mr. Director, I have to leave early so I thank you very much for allowing me to bring my general comments forward in your agenda. I have four things that I wish to mention to you. One is a policy concern and three are requests.

There is evidently a policy with regard to one-way frontage roads on our state highways which is, in layman's terms, something to this effect: that when improvements or expansions are done to state highways, frontage roads that are at current time two-way will be converted to one-way. And this has caused some difficulty within the city and community of Azle.

When funds were pulled -- and I heard them called earlier discretionary funds from the State Highway 199 project in northwest Tarrant County and moved to other endeavors for one reason or another, we were left with a partially finished freeway system and the need for signalization and safety issues to be addressed on the Jacksboro Highway. The City of Fort Worth and TxDOT combined efforts then to signalize four intersections to provide greater safety and better traffic control on the highway, and it absolutely is an improvement with respect to those questions.

There was, however, an alternative plan presented to TxDOT which would have allowed us to maintain our two-way service roads -- not knowing how long the delay is going to be on the completion of the Jacksboro Highway, allow us to maintain our two-way service roads which are important to us not only commercially but particularly for safety issues. We know that the two-way service road has its own safety issues that are drawbacks to that scenario, but in reality the one-way service roads have created some safety issues with us in regard to access to neighborhoods which require fire and public safety access which has been slowed by this process.

Anyway, an alternative proposal was made, and I think that actually the decision that was made to go ahead with the signalization that was based on one-way service roads was probably driven by policy without regard that there might be an exceptional case, and I would simply ask you to reconsider that policy and allow for exceptional cases when they have merit.

With regard to three requests on the Jacksboro Highway and related to the west side of Eagle Mountain Lake, northwest Tarrant and Parker Counties, the first being the request that funds be made available for the completion of the Highway 199 expansion as soon as possible. This will remedy the issues that we have with the one-way service roads, it will remedy our safety issues, it will remedy some of our commercial development issues that have been hindered by the cessation of work in that area, particularly the section between Confederate Parkway, or FM 1886, and the Denver Trail exit which is within the city of Azle.

Secondly among my requests is that if this is not able to be done in the near future that we move forward with at least completion of the intersection of the Wells Burnett and Highway 199 intersection because this is where most of our safety issues are addressed. Mr. Deckert, the council member, will also speak to you during the general comments regarding this matter, and so we're on the same track here realizing there needs to be a solution for the significant delays that have been realized through the imposition of one-way service roads. The best solution in my mind is the completion of the Wells Burnett interchange and a full freeway final solution.

And thirdly, we would like to ask you to consider the continuation of the extension of State Highway 170 across Eagle Mountain Lake. We believe that this will open up a great deal of east-west flow from Parker County which numbers indicated earlier is experiencing significant growth, provide development opportunity residentially which will enable a workforce growth for the northwest Tarrant County region and particularly the Alliance corridor, and will allow for future development of the outer loop of Fort Worth in the future.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Across the lake?

MAYOR HEFLIN: Across the lake, yes, sir. There has been a bridge proposed since at least 30 years ago. It's on the current Fort Worth master thoroughfare plan; it's currently under review. It crosses about three-quarters of the way, two-thirds of the way up the lake.

MR. WILLIAMSON: There's a bridge across Eagle Mountain Lake on the current thoroughfare plan? Oh, proposed bridge.

MAYOR HEFLIN: It's a proposed bridge. It's an extension of Highway 170 which would be, if it were continued, Fort Worth's outer loop. Fort Worth is debating at this point in time whether their outer loop will cross the lake or will go north of the lake and circle the lake altogether.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Oh, I see. So that route across the lake is not decided on; you're advocating for it to be decided on.

MAYOR HEFLIN: It's on the current master thoroughfare plan, an alternative has been proposed and that's under study right now by some economics professors at North Texas and some engineers considering economic impact and engineering impact, and there are lots of issues with regard to that regarding environmental questions, what I think is the violation of some wetlands and so forth north of the lake and what others think are concerns across the lake.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, thank you.

MAYOR HEFLIN: I'm asking that it be considered as a continuation of your efforts, and I thank you for your time.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you. We've also had a request from Mayor David Southern from Granbury to speak.

MAYOR SOUTHERN: Good morning, commissioners, and I'm really happy to be here this morning.

I mainly wanted to talk a little bit about all that you've done in our county and our city, and we really have appreciated it. As Ms. Chavez showed you while ago, 144 is the first widening of that that is complete and we asked that of you a few years ago and that has been completed. Now I believe our Loop 567 today you have on your agenda, approval of the last element of the northwest portion of Loop 567 to let that bid, and that should be completed soon. And we're really appreciative of all that you've done for our county.

I did notice when Ms. Chavez was showing her statistics while ago that our population increase in ten years between '90 and 2000 was 42 percent but our vehicle miles increase was only 18 percent, so I did want to let you know that some of us are working to keep those vehicle miles down. That may be because we don't have enough lanes of traffic, however, to do that.

I appreciated the comments that the council member from Fort Worth had regarding density and I appreciate those concerns, but I also believe that just because you build doesn't mean they necessarily will come. I know that people in the Granbury area are very spread out because of Lake Granbury. We have a 30-mile long lake in Hood County that is surrounded by 40,000 people. Our population statistics are really a little lower than they actually are because we have 10- to 12,000 residents there who are not permanent residents; they live in the Metroplex and have a second home in Granbury, so our population statistics are a little skewed by that.

But our rural highway system in Granbury is a real problem. Our rural farm roads throughout I think the whole rural areas are becoming a real issue because we only have two state highways in Granbury, US Highway 377 and State Highway 144, and then we have a number of farm roads. And as we have grown and had this tremendous growth over the last 30 years because of the lake, we have not been able to keep up in our rural farm road system with that kind of growth. We have a number of people moving to Granbury and as they come, they're getting more and more spread out throughout our community.

We're on the agenda in November to address the commission and we'll go into more specifics at that time, but I do want to say those of us in the western area of the Metroplex do understand the Trans Texas Corridor plan and we believe that that's a system that's going to have to be workable and will have to be done in a fairly non-political way in the way that's is drawn up to avoid some of the pitfalls that you get into when everybody wants a different location of a route. So I do want to confirm what you mentioned earlier that those of us in the western half of the Metroplex rural areas do realize that that's a plan that we must have for the future of our great state.

We don't really want to become more dense in Granbury, we'd just as soon Fort Worth became more dense and those folks quit moving down to Granbury.

(General laughter.)

MAYOR SOUTHERN: But unfortunately, they're coming our way, and so we do want to work with you and with the City of Fort Worth. I know we talked to Mayor Barr about a possible legislation on a corridor development plan for 377 to avoid some of the things that have happened on the other highway systems around the rural parts of the Metroplex. Highway 174 between Crescent and Godley now has probably I would guess 2- or 3,000 people living in trailer homes adjoining the highway, and we don't want to envision Highway 377 looking like that, like 174 has already begun to look, in the future, because we don't think that's in the best interest of anyone.

MR. WILLIAMSON: But those fellows that own that land and cut it up thought it was in the best interest.

MAYOR SOUTHERN: Yes, they did, and that's why we want to help develop their property for them, we want to be sure that they look at how that property develops and how it impacts future tax rates. That's been a real issue in Hood County, as you know. Hood County was developed very early on by a number of developers of that type and we have so many trailer house divisions that are going down in value, that have more and more kids to educate in our public school system, that have more and more cars to drive on our highways, and their taxes are going lower and lower, and we can't even provide adequate regional sewage wastewater systems for those places now that we're trying to do to protect our lake.

So we've worked very intricately with the other cities in Hood County and also with Hood County itself in developing a transportation plan that will be effective for us, but we continue to need your help and we appreciate what you've done for us in the past. Thanks.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

Is the group from Vital Link, have they been able to get here yet? Is the answer no? This is a group of young people participating in one of the Fort Worth Independent School District's programs in concert with the chamber of commerce, and I was hopeful that they had been able to get here. The purpose is they're going around visiting and watching the way businesses and public enterprises such as government entities conduct their affairs, and hopefully they'll get here for a part of our meeting and see how we conduct ours.

Before we recess, is J.R. Stone still here? As many of you in the room, most of you probably know, he was former district engineer here and we've had a bad habit -- or you might consider it a good habit -- of taking the district engineers from here and relocating them to Central Texas, as we've done with Wes Heald and Steve Simmons, but Mr. Stone has participated with us last night and also this morning and I was hoping that I'd be able to recognize him.

Lastly, this I believe is Helen Havelka's last meeting to serve as assistant to the commission in running these meetings, and Helen, we are grateful for your few years of service. We've gotten along without a blip with the exception of Mayor Barr's invasion from wherever all those alarms came from, but that was not your fault. We thank you for what you've done.

Helen, as you may or may not know, is going to become Robert Nichols' assistant because Robert Nichols' assistant Sallie Burk is ending a 24-year --

MS. BURK: Thirty-four.

MR. JOHNSON:  -- 34-year, pardon me, career with TxDOT; she's retiring. She's worked for Robert the last five years, and to be candid with you, if I'd had to work with Robert Nichols, I would have retired a long time ago.

(General laughter.)

MR. JOHNSON: So Sallie, thank you so much for your contributions; we'll miss you. Don't be a stranger.

(Applause.)

MR. JOHNSON: Having said that, we will take a brief recess to allow those that need to get to the other parts of their day, they may do so, and we'll reconvene with the business matters of the commission.

(Whereupon, at 10:50 a.m, a brief recess was taken.)

MR. JOHNSON: We will reconvene this meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission and begin with the approval of the minutes from our June meeting. Is there a motion for approval?

MR. WILLIAMSON: So moved.

MR. NICHOLS: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

Mike Behrens, we'll turn the meeting over to you for the rest of the agenda items.

MR. BEHRENS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We'll go to agenda item 2; we have a resolution regarding the reauthorization of the Federal Surface Transportation Program. As most folks know, TEA-21 expires at the end of September of 2003 and we have an opportunity now -- which we think is a critical opportunity -- to ensure that Texas is well represented before Congress with the one voice to express the needs to improve the Texas share of federal transportation funding, and this resolution speaks to that.

I won't read it in its entirety but the Transportation Commission invited the Texas Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations to partner with the department to develop some broad goals for reauthorization. Those goals are, of course: to obtain more money for Texas transportation; to improve Texas' rate of return; to safeguard Highway Trust Fund integrity; to ensure greater flexibility to meet Texas' needs in transportation; to improve project delivery; and to develop one Texas project list.

We'd like it to be resolved that the commission endorses the Federal Aid Highway Programs and that these goals are developed jointly by TxDOT and TEMPO and also to explore other goals that can be looked at for the reauthorization effort. Commissioners, I put that resolution before you for your consideration and approval.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions or comments?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Thank you.

MR. BEHRENS: Thank you. Going to agenda item 3, Public Transportation, we have Margot Massey. Margot, we're glad to see you made it; we were concerned there for a while. Margot has two minute orders for your consideration.

MS. MASSEY: Good morning. I missed the airbus this morning; the bus was on time and I was not, but I'm glad to be here this morning.

The first item I have to present is relative to the Section 5310 program which serves predominantly elderly and disabled persons. We had some money from previous years de-obligated and we have an agency, Texoma Area Paratransit System which serves both the Paris District and the Fort Worth District that has an alternatively fueled vehicle purchase underway. It's costing a little bit more than originally anticipated and so we recommend awarding an additional $30,030 to them to complete that purchase.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

MR. NICHOLS: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MS. MASSEY: The second item is very significant; it involves this region of the state. We have had transportation services in the city of Cleburne for a number of years under the Rural Program and within the past several years there's been a lot of enthusiasm building within the rest of Johnson County which was currently not served by public transportation services to expand that service to all of Johnson County.

And I particularly want to recognize Commissioner Ron Harmon from Johnson County. He's been very significant in helping persuade, talk to his local colleagues and make them understand how important service is for the rest of the county. We have had to really scratch our heads in terms of how to figure out how to make this happen, and I also have to give special recognition to Maribel Chavez, the district engineer here, who has worked very long and hard on this activity.

What we are proposing to do, asking you to approve today, is the award of $20,000 in state funding, $80,000 in federal funding, $93,000 worth of toll credits, and there is also mention in here of a very significant piece which is pending; it will be as of fiscal year '03. The North Central Texas Metropolitan Planning Organization, in concert with the Fort Worth District, has agreed to award almost $375,000 in surface transportation programs to expand transit services in Johnson County.

We recommend your approval and I'll certainly be happy to answer questions on this one.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a few. Margot, how does this affect or relate to the concerns I know you've had about rural transit in general in Parker, Palo Pinto and counties adjacent to Johnson County?

MS. MASSEY: We have been working with the six-county region which includes Johnson County to talk about consolidation of services to see if we can't gain some cost efficiencies and economies of scale, and those discussions are ongoing, but I think it was realized early on in those discussions that it is important to establish the Johnson County piece now to get something in place that can then be incorporated into a larger effort. We also know that two of those counties are, I think, working very diligently and we'll see some sort of consolidation among two of those systems, two of the four within the next six to nine months.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, let me be more precise about my question. Will the passage of this minute order and the commitment that the department will be making to Johnson County in any way benefit the other counties who have suffered loss in ridership for different reasons and are having to talk about consolidation at this time?

MS. MASSEY: I think ultimately yes. We have to get this piece established and then it will benefit the region as a whole by filling in the last gap that we need to talk seriously and comprehensively about regional service, and I think certainly Johnson County has indicated their willingness to participate very actively in that process, so I think we're adding a much needed player and this will serve great benefit, including financial benefit down the road.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Is there a motion?

MR. NICHOLS: I'll so move.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries. Thank you, Margot.

MR. BEHRENS: We'll go to item 4 which will be our Proposed Rules for Adoption, 4(a)(1) which are rules regarding our substance abuse program. Diana.

MS. ISABEL: Good morning, commissioners. I'm Diana Isabel, the director of the Human Resources Division, and today we have a proposal for proposed rules to make some changes to our substance abuse program, one of them that I think that you will agree with and give accolades to the Office of General Counsel for making them clearer, shorter and more concise. We went from 75 pages to 39 pages, so I think that was quite an accomplishment and I want to tell my thanks and appreciation to the Office of General Counsel.

One of the significant changes that we are recommending is that we expand the definition of the DUI/DWI conviction to include any alcohol or drug related conviction that results from a DUI/DWI arrest, and the reason that we need to do this is we want to treat any conviction for an alcohol or drug related driving offense resulting from an arrest for driving under the influence or driving while intoxicated the same as we do a DUI/DWI conviction. What has been happening is we have had employees who have attorneys who have been pleading guilty to different offenses such as reckless endangerment, deadly conduct, or public intoxication which also result from a DUI/DWI arrest and we want to be able to require the same administrative disciplinary actions taken for violation of the current DUI/DWI policy.

The second other change deals with changing proposed policy governing voluntary admissions of substance abuse problems by commercial drivers, safety sensitive employees and vessel crew members, and this policy conforms to a recent regulation adopted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

These will be published in the Texas Register, they will be for open comment for employees and the general public. The comment period will end on September 9 and then we will take those comments into consideration, and the final adoption will be presented at the commission meeting in October. We would ask at this time that you adopted the proposed rules as written.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Two questions.

MR. JOHNSON: Questions.

MR. WILLIAMSON: With regard to the first portion, the substance abuse program, is it fair to summarize that as a strengthening or toughening of our approach?

MS. ISABEL: It's trying to deal with those other plea bargaining efforts that are taking place at this point, so yes.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm trying to use words that the general public or the normal person would understand. Are we getting more stern with how we deal with our employees?

MS. ISABEL: We want to be consistent, so the policy has not changed as far as our sternness, but we want to treat everybody the same when they have a DUI/DWI conviction.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm not hearing the answer, I don't hear it with clarity, so give me an example of what under the new policy would occur that wouldn't have occurred under the old policy.

MS. ISABEL: We have had employees that have had the plea bargaining of reckless endangerment and so they are no longer subject to a mandatory referral to an employee assistance program.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So this is getting tougher; it's closing the loophole.

MS. ISABEL: Yes, sir.

MR. JOHNSON: It will prevent circumvention.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I feel certain the governor would not want us to be interested in opening loopholes; he would prefer to close loopholes.

MS. ISABEL: I would like to. Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: With regard to the second part, the commercial part, I have a lot of commercial drivers in my employ. How does this alter -- I mean, I understand that we're doing it in response to a federal regulation, but for the record how does this alter a situation, a given example of a situation?

MS. ISABEL: This would allow employees who admit prior to performing any driving or safety sensitive vehicle or crew member duties, they would not be subject to the follow-up testing requirement. We are giving them an opportunity to do some voluntary admission prior to driving.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That's a good move. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. JOHNSON: Is there a motion?

MR. NICHOLS: I'll so move.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. JOHNSON: Mike, before we get to Jim, I failed to mention when I was recognizing the representatives from various elected officials' offices that Vicki Truitt's assistant Mike Taylor was here. I don't know if Mike is still here, but we appreciate his being here. Vicki Truitt has been a staunch proponent of this department and we appreciate all her efforts, and I didn't want his presence to go unnoticed.

MR. BEHRENS: Item 4(a)(2) are proposed rules in Transportation Planning. Jim.

MR. RANDALL: Good morning, commissioners. My name is Jim Randall, director of the Transportation Planning and Programming Division.

The minute order we bring before you today proposes adoption of amendments to Sections 15.2, 15.3, 15.7 and 15.8 to be codified under Title 43 THC, Part 1, relating to transportation planning. The transportation planning rules need to be amended to comply with provisions of federal law and the governor's delegation. Federal transportation laws in Titles 23 and 49 United States Code grant state governors certain powers and responsibilities related to transportation planning, including the responsibility to designate metropolitan planning organizations, to determine the boundaries of metropolitan planning areas, and to approve statewide and metropolitan transportation improvement programs and any amendments.

Previous governors have delegated these powers and responsibilities to the commission or the executive director. Pursuant to these delegations, the commission previously adopted Title 43 Texas Administrative Code, Sections 15.1 through 15.8 to describe how the commission or executive director would carry out these powers and responsibilities.

The governor wrote a letter to Chairman Johnson dated June 13, 2002 delegating certain powers and responsibilities under Title 23 and 49, USC to the commission or designees. The governor retained the power or responsibility to designate or re-designate the MPOs, to determine the boundaries of the metropolitan planning areas, and to request the designation of additional transportation management areas.

In addition, TEA-21 repealed 22 USC, Section 157 relating to the minimum allocation of funds to the states. Provisions in Section 15.2 and 15.7 relating to minimum allocation of funds are no longer applicable. 221 also amended 23 USC, Section 134(c) relating to metropolitan area boundaries. The relationship between the transportation planning area boundaries and non-attainment area boundaries was revised. In general, future expansions of non-attainment area boundaries do not force expansion of the transportation planning area unless agreed to by the governor and the MPO.

The minute order presented for your consideration authorizes the publication of the proposed adoption of Sections 15.2, 15.3, 15.7 and 15.8 in the Texas Register for the purposes of receiving public comment. In addition, a public hearing will be scheduled for August 26, 2002 in Austin. Staff recommends approval of this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Explain that in layman's terms, Jim.

MR. RANDALL: Real quick, the federal transportation laws delegate certain responsibilities to the governor regarding designations of MPOs and things like that. The governor can delegate that responsibility down to the commission and to the executive director. These rules are amended so we have that flexibility in future situations. Also, it amends language that was in our rules that is no longer applicable because of TEA-21 and it also amends regarding the transportation planning areas and the non-attainment area boundaries.

For example, I'll take Austin CAMPO, that MPO area, if they designated a non-attainment area that maybe included Caldwell County, what this does is the MPO does not have to expand out to Caldwell County, they can stay within their boundary if it's agreed upon between the governor and the MPO.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So it's a way of limiting the expansion of an MPO boundary.

MR. RANDALL: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: That's a good thing. I move.

MR. NICHOLS: Second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. BEHRENS: Item 4(a)(3) we have proposed rules for registration of fleet vehicles. Jerry.

MR. DIKE: Thank you. Commissioners, Mr. Behrens, my name is Jerry Dike, director of Vehicle Titles and Registration Division.

This minute order proposes the adoption of new Administrative Rule 17.49 to implement a system for registering a fleet of motor vehicles. This implements House Bills 1368 and 2124 of the previous legislative session and this will allow a fleet owner to register a fleet in either the county of residence, the principal place of business, or where the vehicles are most regularly operated. We recommend adoption of these proposed rules to be published in the Texas Register.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So we're doing this because the legislature passed some laws.

MR. DIKE: Also because it does make it more efficient and it will save the department money, yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, then I so move.

MR. NICHOLS: I'll second it but I had a question.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I withdraw my motion.

MR. NICHOLS: No.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Oh, please.

MR. NICHOLS: You're so kind.

(General laughter.)

MR. NICHOLS: I remember when this went through the legislative session, I think one of the bigger concerns was that counties get reimbursed by motor vehicle law in those counties, and when you consolidate it, then it's all consolidated from all around the state into one county. What percent of the vehicles are we dealing with here?

MR. DIKE: The percent of vehicles, we estimate there will be about 1,000 fleet owners taking advantage of this, probably a total of about 300,000 vehicles.

MR. NICHOLS: Good gosh.

MR. DIKE: And the fees would still go to the county where they're registered; if they register a fleet in Hood County, that county tax collector or that county would receive those fees.

MR. NICHOLS: But percentage-wise?

MR. DIKE: Percentage-wise, that's approximately 2 percent of Texas fleets.

MR. NICHOLS: I did second it.

MR. JOHNSON: There is a motion.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I'm still moving.

MR. JOHNSON: And a second. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. DIKE: Commissioners, Mr. Behrens, it's my pleasure to introduce the local Tarrant County tax assessor-collector to you, Betsy Price.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Oh, yes.

(Applause.)

MS. PRICE: (Speaking from audience.) What you just voted on will save us a lot of manpower hours in the tax office. It's very cumbersome to do the fleets one at a time, so that's a real plus for the local tax assessors.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, good.

MR. JOHNSON: After hearing that, do you want to reconsider your vote?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Absolutely not. She's one of the premier public servants in North Texas.

MR. JOHNSON: Great. Thank you for being here.

MR. DIKE: Betsy recently hosted the annual tax assessor-collector conference here in Fort Worth and Monday morning she's the guinea pig -- I mean the pilot tax-assessor- collector for a dramatic new version of the registration and titling system, and it comes up Monday morning for all Tarrant County residents. Thank you.

MR. BEHRENS: Thank you, Jerry.

We'll go to item 4(b) and we have two rules for final adoption, the first being rules pertaining to leasing of highway assets. John.

MR. CAMPBELL: Good morning. For the record, my name is John Campbell, director of the Right of Way Division, and I'd like to present for your consideration this minute order, item 4(b)(1) which provides for the final adoption of amendments to rules included in various sections of Title 43, Texas Administrative Code, Chapter 21 with regard to the operations responsibilities of the TxDOT Right of Way Division pertaining to the leasing of highway assets.

The commission, by Minute Order 108866, dated April 25, 2002, proposed these amendments; no comments were received and no changes have been made to the amended sections as they were originally proposed. Staff recommends your approval.

MR. JOHNSON: Questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I had a comment afterwards. I move.

MR. NICHOLS: And I'll second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Wait, John. You know after we approved the corridor proposal you got a new nickname. Has anyone shared it with you? Condemnation Campbell. That's what they're all calling you out there.

MR. CAMPBELL: I think I know who dubbed me with that.

(General laughter.)

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

MR. BEHRENS: Item 4(b)(2) this will be, hopefully, the adoption of our toll equity rules, Phillip Russell.

MR. RUSSELL: Good morning, commissioners. For the record, my name is Phillip Russell, director of the Texas Turnpike Authority Division.

Under agenda item 4(b)(2), as you know, Senate Bill 342 amended the Transportation Code to enable the department to expend funds by grant or by loan for the cost of a public or private toll project. The proposed minute order would adopt Sections 27.50 through 27.58. These rules describe the policies and procedures by which the department will participate in financing the toll facility that is not under the jurisdiction of the department. The rules apply to the NTTA, Harris County Toll Authority, local governments, regional mobility authorities, and private toll corporations. By law, a private entity is not eligible for a grant, only a loan.

The rules provide for a two-step approval process. The requester would submit certain preliminary information and the commission may at that time grant preliminary approval and authorize the department to begin negotiating the terms. At the completion of the negotiations, the commission may grant final approval.

These new sections were proposed to the commission in January of this year; we of course held our public hearing in Austin in February; we did receive quite a few comments and I think the rules now are in pretty good shape where we have good support from folks across the state. We would suggest approval of this minute order.

MR. JOHNSON: We're about to find out about that support.

(General laughter.)

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, sir. Happy to address any questions you might have.

MR. JOHNSON: Before we inundate you with questions, we have one person who has asked to speak on this subject, Jerry Hiebert, executive director of the North Texas Tollway Authority. Jerry, welcome.

MR. Hiebert: Good morning, commissioners, Mr. Behrens. My name is Jerry Hiebert, executive director of the North Texas Tollway Authority.

I'm really here for two purposes today: first of all, to let you know that we were one of the agencies that provided Phil with a number of comments at that public hearing, but I'm here to express our appreciation to Mike and Steve and Amadeo, and particularly Phil, who I know has been involved in this, and then also the Office of the General Counsel, particularly Bob Jackson and Jack Ingram who have worked very closely with us in the intervening weeks and months to address issues, to allow us to present some of our concerns, and really to work through this document to come up with something that I think is much improved; and the second reason for my being here is to say that having gone through that process, that NTTA does support the rules as presented today and we think that it's something that we can work with to help accomplish transportation improvements across the state.

MR. JOHNSON: Terrific. Thank you. Any questions of Jerry, or observations?

MR. NICHOLS: I just had a comment. We do appreciate the work and help that you gave us in putting that together, but also this is a final rule, this is it.

MR. Hiebert: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: It's something I know that is going to have a huge impact on the state. I think the legislation, the constitutional amendment that built up to this began a number of years ago, had very strong support not only by the metropolitan areas but the rural areas, the leadership in the House, the Senate, Governor Perry. Everybody worked together very hard to get this and I think it's probably going to have some of the most dramatic impact, not this year or next year or next year, but over a 20- or 30-year period of time. I think it's going to have one of the biggest impacts on transportation in the state of Texas. With that, I'll just so move.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Hear, hear, and I second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item 5, we have three minute orders pertaining to turnpike authority and minute orders that are needed to keep us moving forward on the Central Texas Turnpike Project.

MR. RUSSELL: Thanks, Mike. Yes, all three of these minute orders are kind of a culmination of a lot of hard work of probably half the people in this room over the past several months. We've all been kind of running around with our hair on fire trying to get all of these documents put together, but I think we're in pretty good shape.

This minute order under agenda item 5(a) would approve the various agreements, statements and ancillary documents necessary for the issuance, marketing and sale of obligations for our 2002 Central Texas Turnpike project which, of course, is composed of the top 50 miles of State Highway 130, State Highway 45 North, and Loop 1. By approving this minute order, you will authorize the execution and delivery of a number of issues. Let me try to go through those one by one.

Series 2002A bond purchase agreement, Series 2002B bond purchase agreement, Series 2002 second tier bond anticipation note agreement, the standby purchase agreement, the remarketing agreement, the flow of funds agreement which essentially is the agreement between us and the comptroller; you would approve the preliminary official statement and other ancillary documents related as needed. These are the final documents; there will of course be minor changes. I know general counsel and bond counsel are probably fine tuning a couple of technical comments over the next day or so, and the TTA representative of course will have the ability through this minute order to execute other changes necessary, as Mr. Behrens has indicated, to bring this bond issuance to fruition.

I would be happy to address any general questions you might have. Obviously we're a little thin today. We have some of our folks in Washington trying to complete the TIFIA loan; we have other folks at the AG's office trying to fine tune those documents. But Teresa Lemons, our director of Finance Administration is here, Becky Heflin and Lisa Driesner from Dain Rauscher are also here, and I think James Bass is holding down the fort in Austin.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions or comments?

MR. NICHOLS: Some that I've made before, not on the specific rule but just appreciate the work that everybody has given, Becky, and the help and support; you've come up with some great ideas that saved the state a lot of money on this thing the staff all keyed [phonetic] together. Have we had any word in the last two hours from the USDOT? I did call.

MR. RUSSELL: I have not. The last word I got everything was on track. Becky, do you have any other?

MS. HEFLIN: We have an agreement on all the documents; we're waiting for final numbers; we had to set our TIFIA rate this morning based upon the SLB rates that came out last night. We'll be getting a 5.41 on the TIFIA loan which is excellent for non-investment grade third tier debt going out 40 years. We expect to close probably within two hours.

MR. RUSSELL: Becky, originally I think some of our planning documents we had the TIFIA rate at that time set at what, 5.75 or 6? So that's a pretty good savings.

MR. NICHOLS: That's fantastic. Also, I know that Attorney General Cornyn's office has been working through a lot of paperwork real fast too.

MR. RUSSELL: Yes, they have.

MR. NICHOLS: Items that normally take the attorney general's department -- not that they're slow -- but normally a one-week process or a two-week process, they're staying there at night and cranking these things out on a daily basis, and all of this is to the benefit of the State by any little point shaven that we can get on those interest rates because it's a couple of billion dollars in bonds that are being issued and the pricing is set catching a 40-year low, so it's real critical.

MR. RUSSELL: I agree. Every day counts.

MR. NICHOLS: Anyway, did we get a motion?

MR. JOHNSON: Ric, any questions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: No.

MR. JOHNSON: I have one question on nomenclature. We have a remarketing agreement and we have a remarketing agent, do we have a marketing agent or just a remarketing agent?

MS. HEFLIN: The differentiation between underwriter and remarketing agent I think is what you're getting at. The underwriters purchase the bonds from us and then resell them in the primary market. A portion of this transaction is a variable rate transaction, $150 million; that portion has to be remarketed after its initial marketing every week to reset the rate. So we have our underwriters doing the primary marketing and the remarketing agent does the weekly reset of the rate and sells the bonds if the current holders will not accept that rate.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you, Becky.

MR. NICHOLS: We are not bound forever with that remarketer either; at any time we want to find a more competitive situation, we can change.

MR. JOHNSON: Do you want to make a motion?

MR. NICHOLS: I so move.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And I second.

MR. JOHNSON: All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. JOHNSON: Motion carries.

MR. RUSSELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Agenda item 5(b) concerns our investment policy. As you know, under the Government Code the commission is required to adopt a written investment policy as well as an investment strategy for the individual funds or group of funds. You're also required to designate an employee of the Texas Department of Transportation or employees to act as the investment officer.

We've had several changes over the last week or so just tweaking our investment policy and these were to make sure it's in conformity with the indenture which we've had two or three moving parts, and so we've had some last-minute double and triple checks to ensure that we have complete conformity between our investment policy and the indenture, as well as the Public Investment Act. Just in very general terms, obviously our goal will be towards safety, followed by liquidity and ultimately yield.

Also, as far as the investment officer, I think the way it's set now the director of the Finance Division of TxDOT will be the primary investment officer. If he or she is not available, then the director of Finance and Administration would act in his or her place.

MR. NICHOLS: That's done by position and not by name?

MR. RUSSELL: By position, yes, sir. We'd be happy to make any adjustments or alterations. We recommend approval of that minute order as well.

MR. JOHNSON: Any questions or comments or suggestions?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Yes, I have a comment.

MR. NICHOLS: I had a question too.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, my comment is nothing against any of the persons in those posts, but why isn't the executive director of the department doing it?

MR. RUSSELL: I think it can be the executive director. My suggestion, of course, would be the director of the Finance Division. It would take a great deal of insight, not that Mr. Behrens doesn't have that, but in the financial area it will take a lot of experience, a lot of insight, and a day-to-day level of involvement into that process, and for that reason I would suggest the director of the Finance Division. We can certainly put executive director in that as well.