HCTRA: from model agency to delay, divert and do nearly nothing
This week we have one of Oscar Slotboom's best guest posts to date, although sadly with bad news about the state of HCTRA, which used to be one of the crown jewels of Harris County. If you know anybody in the Texas Legislature (including your rep), please pass it along. Thank you.
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Once upon a time, the Harris County Toll Road Authority was a model agency that regularly delivered projects quickly and efficiently at a low cost. This efficient and financially conservative approach put HCTRA in a very strong financial position.
Democrats took majority control of Harris County commissioners court in 2019. Since then, HCTRA has degenerated into an agency which gets very little done and takes forever to move forward with any project, in spite of collecting huge revenues from the public.
Reduction in new contracts since Democrat control
HCTRA has awarded only two new major construction contracts since 2019, with a nearly five-year hiatus between awards, and only one project which was planned and prepared after 2019. (reference 1, 2)
The list below shows contract awards in the six years before Democrat control and six years after, keeping in mind that the 2019 project on the Tomball Tollway was already poised to proceed.
| Contract(s) Awarded | Project |
| August 2024 | Sam Houston Tollway at SH 225, 5 connection ramps, $205 million |
| December 2019 | Tomball Tollway (SH 249) at Grand Parkway, 4 connection ramps, $92 million |
| 2017 | Sam Houston Tollway widening, I-45(S) to SH 225: $199 million |
| 2017 | Sam Houston Tollway Ship channel bridge : $934 million (original contract amount) |
| 2016-2017 | Hardy Toll Road downtown connector, Lorraine and Collingsworth: $47 million |
| 2015-2016 | Sam Houston Tollway widening, SH 288 to I-45(S): $185 million |
| 2014-2015 | Hardy Toll Road widening, FM 1960 to Grand Parkway: $84 million |
| 2013-2016 | Tomball Tollway main lanes, Spring Cypress to county line: $200 million |
Ship Channel Bridge
The project contract was awarded in April and June 2017. It has been delayed for years and sustained a major cost increase, around $487 million. This 2023 HCTRA document lists the current cost at $1.449 billion, up from the original reported cost of $962 million.
The 2018 failure of a bridge designed by the same engineering firm, Figg Bridge Group, prompted an independent design review.
Based on the design review findings, HCTRA made major changes to the design, including replacing structural concrete bridge sections with steel structures.
Figg also designed TxDOT's new Corpus Christi harbor bridge, which is longer and taller than the ship channel bridge. TxDOT paused construction for an independent design review which resulted in findings and recommended adjustments, but a major redesign was not required and the concrete structural design was retained.
Of course this problem occurred before 2019 and was inherited by the post-2019 management. But was the costly major redesign really necessary? HCTRA can justify it based on the independent consultant report, but a major redesign was not needed for the longer and taller Corpus bridge.
Delayed Projects
Toll plaza modernization
HCTRA has plans to replace the outdated toll plazas along the original three sections of the Sam Houston Tollway, from the Southwest Freeway to the North Freeway. This project was listed as costing $494 million in this 2022 document, but the current cost of this project is unclear.
This project is surely a sore point to customers on these three sections of the tollway. This segment consistently generates over $300 million per year in revenue ($336 million in 2023) and has paid for itself many times over since all sections were completed in 1990, but HCTRA wants to spend hundreds of millions to continue to collect tolls. It certainly smells like paying tolls to pay for the collection of tolls.
An eye-opening investigative report on Click2Houston.com in February 2024 was not able to get answers from HCTRA about this project, stating "that the total price tag remains uncertain as HCTRA was unable to provide us with numbers". The report concludes that this relatively simple project would require "a total of nearly 8 years to reconfigure and reopen the publicly funded toll lanes along the Beltway" at the plazas. The video states "The now four-year delay in reengineering of the tolls is attributed to the pace Harris County government operates these days."
Hardy Toll Road Downtown Connector
Preliminary work on this project has been ongoing for a very long time, starting with work to relocate a railroad track in June 2003. Contracts for completed projects at Collingsworth and Lorraine were awarded in 2016 and 2017, and the project appeared ready to proceed to construction in 2018.
When Democrats took control of Commissioners Court in 2019, it became clear that the majority did not want to this project to proceed, in particular Judge Lina Hidalgo, and the project was suspended in May 2020. But there were longstanding agreements between HCTRA, the City of Houston and TxDOT to build the project, and TxDOT funded the $36.5 million replacement of the Elysian Viaduct, which connects to the project.
So HCTRA went into the delay mode. It hired a consultant to conduct a reevaluation process, community meetings and "visioning" in 2022. This visioning process resulted in recommendations to make the entire length an elevated structure or a cut-and-cover tunnel (1 2 3), with a 0.83-mile-long tunnel from north of Lorraine to south of Collingsworth. No cost estimates were provided, but the vision design would drastically increase the cost, probably by hundreds of millions of dollars.
Parks on a deck ("cap" in TxDOT parlance) above a freeway are trendy these days, but this is the most absurd proposal for a cap park I've ever seen. The purpose of cap parks is to connect neighborhoods which were severed by past freeway construction, or create park space where land is not available. Neither condition exists along the downtown connector. The connector is alongside a long established and heavily trafficked multi-track railroad corridor. The deck park will be alongside or near the railroad, not connecting any neighborhoods. It would, however, provide good views of warehouses, scrap yards and freight terminals on the east of the the railroad. Google aerial view shows there is plenty of vacant land in the area, and it's difficult to justify a massive expenditure for a strip of park land around 80 feet wide.
So is this super-expensive redesign a poison pill intended to indefinitely delay construction by increasing the cost? Maybe. Since the majority on Commissioners Court appears to be against improvement and expansion of the toll road system, it could also be a way to burn up money which otherwise could be going to highway and street improvements.
Interchange at the Sam Houston Tollway and SH 225
This project is the low hanging fruit among the planned projects, since it has negligible negative impact and would directly benefit motorists connecting to and from the Sam Houston Tollway and SH 225. This project has been delayed for years, but HCTRA was obligated to proceed because it is part of a 2018 agreement between HCTRA and TxDOT. The $205.4 million contract for five connectors was awarded in August, and this is the first HCTRA contract for a major project planned and prepared after 2019.
Interchange at the Hardy Toll Road and Beltway 8
The project has been delayed for years and the HCTRA site now says "Construction is expected to begin in 2026."
HCTRA's Guiding Principles since 2019: Delay and Divert
HCTRA revenue has fully recovered from the impact of Covid, with revenue at a record $935 million in fiscal year 2023, including $896 million in toll revenue. (However, inflation-adjusted revenue was higher in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019, see chart).
Every planned project is being delayed year after year, and of course costs have escalated rapidly during this period, with the highway cost index up 65% since October 2021. Delay may be the intent of the majority on Harris County Commissioners court, since they appear to be against making improvements to the toll road system.
Instead, Harris County Commissioners Court has drastically increased diversions of surplus revenue out of HCTRA, which is called "transfers out" in financial reports. Diversions include a longstanding amount for general mobilty, and additional transfers are mainly or entirely to flood control budgets, but of course budgeting is like a shell game, where money that normally could have gone to flood control can be redirected to other purposes. In the four years from 2020 to 2023, Harris County diverted $1.29 billion out of HCTRA ($1.45 billion in 2024 dollars), which is about $824 million above the long-established transfer rate. HCTRA toll revenue has become a slush fund for Harris County Commisioners Court.
Have Legislators in Austin Noticed?
The Texas Legislature authorized HCTRA with legislation in 1983 (SB 970). HCTRA in 2024 collects massive revenue from the public, diverts toll revenues to general government and gets very little done in terms of construction. Is this what the Texas legislature intended? I don't think so.
Toll roads have become a hot political issue around the state in recent years due to sky-high tolls, excessively punitive penalties and general arrogance of toll road agencies. In May the Dallas Morning News did a comprehensive report of the discontent called Toll Trap (overview, part 1), and an accompanying DMN editorial stated the following in a commentary called "Texas made the wrong decision on toll roads".
The state of Texas has abdicated its responsibility to provide necessary transportation infrastructure in exchange for a vast web of toll roads controlled by a patchwork of powerful, self-interested organizations that often act to the detriment of residents.That’s our conclusion after reading a yearlong investigation conducted by our newsroom into how Texas built more toll roads than nearly all other states combined over the last two decades, and the alarming consequences for the public.
A subsequent report hinted at the possibility of toll road reform in the 2025 session: "As lawmakers have grappled with how to ease toll expenses on motorists, some say the time is ripe for them to reform Texas’ complex tollway system"
My Preference
The state Legislature gives, and it can also take away. My preference is for the State of Texas to disband HCTRA due to its mismanagement and ineptitude, and take control of toll road system, including assuming its debt. Under state control via TxDOT, diversions of toll revenue to Harris County would stop. Then the system should be managed to be customer-friendly by reducing and eliminating tolls. TxDOT should cancel plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to modernize toll collection on older parts of the system which have long paid for themselves. Instead, tolls on the original sections of the Sam Houston Tollway, from the Southwest Freeway to North Freeway, should be entirely eliminated. Surplus toll revenue should go to local projects, including projects currently being planned by HCTRA.
This may be wishful thinking. But it appears that Harris County is attempting to repair its soiled reputation in Austin, possibly to preempt any legislative action. At the November meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission, Harris County Commissioners Tom Ramsey and Leslie Briones spoke to the commission in support of a new era of partnership between TxDOT and HCTRA. HCTRA Executive Director Robert Trevino, whose salary was recently increased to $485,000, was also in attendance. (video, "open comment period" starting at 34:15)
All the the long-planned projects remain on HCTRA's to-do list, and this October 2024 document has schedules for contracts. HCTRA also launched two studies, the Westpark Tollway Capacity Optimization Study and the Harris County Truck Route Study & Freight Corridors Plan. Will HCTRA actually be able to get these jobs done, or just continue its policies of study and delay?
Let's hope something happens to improve HCTRA's performance - either legislative action or mandates from Commissioners Court to get things done. Ideally, we can bring back the pre-2019 HCTRA that got the jobs done quickly and efficiently.
Labels: governance, mobility strategies, toll roads
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