Texas is interesting because at one time it was the state most aggressively pursuing tolling and P3s. But a populist backlash led to formation of an unlikely coalition opposing both and the state legislature in a special session last year failed to reauthorize long-term highway P3s. As a result, until at least 2011, only new toll projects launched by public sector toll authorities can go forward in the state.
The reasons for the backlash were wide-ranging and in some ways unique to Texas, analysts say. Conservative ranchers were concerned about a land grab to make possible the ambitious Trans-Texas Corridor project, which was originally conceived as a 4,000 mile network of supercorridors up to 1,200 feet wide to carry parallel tollways, rail and utility lines. Conspiracy theorists feared the project's first corridor, which was to run parallel to congested I-35 from the Mexican border to Oklahoma, was part of a plan to eliminate border control. The Spanish company Cintra then won a contract to plan the corridor, which caused some to question the issue of foreign control. Finally, public-sector toll agencies in Dallas and Houston expressed concerns that P3s were a mortal threat to their own continued growth.
Texas lawmakers did consider legislation during their 2009 session to extend P3 authority. It was amended to include a termination-for-con-venience provision that would have required all P3 agreements to contain a rider allowing the state to buy out the concession at a pre-determined price. The legislation also included a local primacy provision that would have allowed future P3s to move forward only as a last resort if the local toll authority did not want to tackle the project. Controversy over those two provisions combined with the backlash provided the momentum to kill the bill and effectively enact a moratorium on P3s, in the process also killing the original plans for the Trans-Texas Corridors.21