A flurry of bills filed in the first months of the legislative session could reverse state tolling policies that have been in place for decades, an acknowledgment by a growing number of legislators that Texas may have gone too far in its expansion of toll roads.
If passed, the bills would stop the criminalization of toll road offenses, enact enforcement reform, add transparency to billing, provide discount programs for some motorists, end tolling on certain state roadways, require voter approval for the construction of new toll projects and ensure local governments are not required to pay for toll roads that compete with their non-tolled highways and feeder roads.
The package of bills — 19 and counting — seeks to address many of the issues revealed this past year by The Dallas Morning News in its investigation, “Toll Trap.”
The investigation noted that Texas, which isamong the U.S. states with the most tollways, is one of only a handful of states that criminalize toll drivers for unpaid fees and regularly issue arrest warrants over the debts.
From 2001 to 2021, Texas built more toll road miles than nearly all other states combined, the examination found. The high concentration of toll roads came about because state leaders wanted to prepare for unprecedented growth without raising taxes. The News’ investigation, however, has revealed widespread adverse effects on Texas drivers and small business owners.
While many lawmakers say the state’s governmental entities, including the Texas Department of Transportation, were rightfully tasked by the Legislature to build roads for a booming Texas population, they argue that the chosen solution – a toll-building spree – has created large and powerful bureaucracies unlike any other system in the country.
Toll operators, according to some lawmakers, lack sufficient government oversight, in some cases circumventing traditional legal processes and are focused more on profits than safety or treating customers fairly.
In Texas, “it’s hard to distinguish somebody who just robbed the local convenience store from somebody who may have not paid last month’s toll bill,’’ said state Sen. Bob Hall, R-Rockwall, who filed Senate Bill 137, which drops the criminal penalty on toll violations and make it a civil offense.
“To me, the criminal penalty is ridiculous on something like this,” Hall said. “Stop beating up on people for simple mistakes.”
Some lawmakers also have been approached by the families of victims of the Feb. 11, 2021 multi-vehicle crash on a toll road on Interstate 35W in Fort Worth – a deadly, 130-vehicle chain reaction collision that killed six people and injured dozens. Families want lawmakers to strengthen laws that govern the safety and operations of that and other Texas private toll roads.
Federal regulators had approved the design of the toll road before it was built. However, families’ concerns are that the roads have especially narrow shoulders enclosed by concrete barriers, and can lead to a similar catastrophe even during perfect weather because the toll road’s design features little room to escape a crash or road hazard.
Lawmakers so far in the session have not introduced bills to address families’ concerns.
An official with the toll road operator, NTE Mobility Partners, has said the company was confident that it had followed “broadly accepted and standardized protocols” for operations in snow and ice events on the day of the crash.
Among others pushing for reforms to toll billing and penalties is Texans Uniting for Reform & Freedom, TURF, a group of grassroots activists who have been working for two decades to oppose tolling on existing corridors across the state.
It’s time for legislators to take action, said TURF founder and executive director Terri Hall.
“Texas drivers are in desperate need of toll billing reform,” she said. “Between predatory billing practices, the outrageous fines and fees and criminal penalties for an unpaid toll bill, reform must happen this session.
“No more excuses.”
For the first time in years, the Texas Republican Party platform in 2024 called on the Legislature to abolish existing toll roads and prohibit future construction, while placing new roads under local control.
Decriminalizing tolls
Some of the proposed legislation would end the practice of courts issuing arrest warrants for motorists who don’t show up in court to pay their toll bills.
Texas seizes thousands of driver’s licenses a year and also blocks vehicle registration stickers for unpaid toll fees. A total of 226,847 motorists in 2023 received letters that their registration renewals would be blocked by just two of the state’s largest tollway authorities — the North Texas Tollway Authority in Dallas and the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority in Austin. NTTA also has impounded a handful of cars over the last 10 years.
In addition to Hall’s SB 137, two other bills have been introduced to decriminalize tolls.
Senate Bill 756, introduced by state Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, would suspend registration blocks for motorists with unpaid fees.
“How can you pay off the unpaid tolls if the toll collection companies have made it illegal for you to drive to work?” Middleton wrote in response to questions from The News. “It’s time to save thousands of hardworking Texans from threats of criminal charges and vehicle registration suspension from toll collection companies.”
According to state Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Waxahachie, Texas has charged “exorbitant” toll fines and fees for “far too long.” Harrison is the author of House Bill 1333. He said current toll billing practices are “anti-consumer” and wants to introduce transparency in billing to help motorists better understand what they owe.
The News’ examination also found that some toll operators might not have processes in place to adequately ensure that drivers understand the fees and fines they are being charged. Some motorists are routinely surprised by penalties. Sometimes, they occur because drivers don’t know their credit cards stored with the tollway authority have expired, the investigation found. Other times, it’s because someone sold the vehicle but didn’t notify the state about the sale.
NTTA said it sends notifications to anyone who opts into their alerts. State lawmakers passed a law in 2023 that now requires tollway operators to notify drivers if the payment methods they link to their NTTA accounts have expired.
State Rep. Ben Bumgarner, R-Roanoke, has introduced House Bill 2208, which would require a toll bill be sent by a certified letter or by an electronic record if the registered owner of the vehicle agrees to the terms of the transmission.
State Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, wants to end tolls on one Houston roadway altogether.
In October, the Texas Department of Transportation terminated its agreement with the private company that operated the toll road, known as State Highway 288. TxDOT’s plan is for future toll rates to be reduced and be escalated at a slower pace than allowed under the agreement with the private company. It said future toll revenues would be able to fund ongoing and future maintenance on SH 288, along with improvements such as additional non-tolled lanes on a portion of the SH 288 corridor.
Cain’s bill would prohibit the collection of tolls on SH 288.
Cain said he filed the bill to stop TxDOT from using taxpayer funds to purchase a toll road and then charge taxpayers for driving on it.
“I hope TxDOT will stop charging taxpayers for using roads,’’ he said.
In recent years, Texans approved a pair of propositions that set aside billions for road construction in order to stop building toll roads, yet new toll road construction has continued, said state Rep. Matt Shaheen, R-Plano, who introduced a bill — HB 2323— that would remove tolls once roads are paid off.
“We have a lot of people who can’t afford those toll roads and the prices keep going up every year,” Shaheen said.
Yet another bill — SB 848—introduced by state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, would prevent the Texas Department of Transportation from asking a local government to compensate it for potential or actual lost toll revenue.
Pflugerville and Round Rock paid $32 million to build frontage roads, exit ramps and U-turn bridges parallel to the tolled main lanes of State Highway 45 near Austin. But now TxDOT wants the local governments to pay an additional $38 million in potential toll revenue losses that it estimated were incurred when drivers used “competing infrastructure,” such as the non-tolled frontage roads and other facilities. Eckhardt’s office also told The News that it’s important to note that such roads are state right-of-way. So it is the state’s responsibility to pick up the tab.
Spokesman Adam Hammons said TxDOT does not comment on pending legislation.
Mistakes acknowledged
In response to questions from The News as part of its investigation, Texas’ largest public toll operators acknowledged that their systems make mistakes. But when there’s an error, it is addressed, officials said.
Overall the system works, they said. The North Texas Tollway Authority, for example, processes close to 3 million transactions a day. The vast majority are undisputed.
The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority in Austin also will dismiss charges if it is proven that its technology or processes were at fault, a spokeswoman said.
Only a small percentage of Texans don’t pay their tolls. And those are the ones who are subject to more serious consequences, the toll operators said.
Nonetheless, some state lawmakers said they objected to the methods NTTA and others use to apprehend motorists.
They don’t dispute that motorists who use toll roads should be held responsible for tolls. But they believe that the criminal basis for a violation does not make sense and could be overturned in a court of law.
Under criminal law, evidence must support convicting someone without any doubt that they acted illegally. The snapshot of a license plate isn’t sufficient, legal experts told The News. If there isn’t proof to show who was driving, there isn’t enough evidence to convict, legal experts said. In 2019, the Texas Legislature voted overwhelmingly to ban red-light cameras because of similar concerns.
“That’s one of the reasons we got rid of red light cameras,” said Hall, the Rockwall senator. “You have machines that are deciding if someone has done something or not, where we need to have humans involved in it.”
Unpaid debts
Another reason NTTA and other toll road operators say they support current laws in apprehending toll evaders is because they are under pressure to collect. The tolling operators owe billions of dollars in loans that were used to build and maintain the roads and they must have enough money to repay the loans.
Hall, though, is one legislator who says he doesn’t buy that, either.
“That’s their problem,” he said.
Motorists who fall behind in payments often must pay additional fees that could be 150% or more of what they originally owed in tolls, he said. By contrast, NTTA borrows billions at low interest rates.
“You can’t justify the amount of their fees or fines that they have based on having to meet their interest rates,” he said. “It just doesn’t match up.”
It’s been a complex topic to address also because Texas has more than two dozen tolling operators with different rules, pricing structures and safety requirements, he said.
“Each toll agency does it differently,” Hall said. “There is no common policy. They write their own rules. They do their own thing.
“It has frustrated people for so long, they just quit talking about it and they just accept the pain.”
It remains to be seen whether that frustration will lead to actual reform. Some of the bills have been referred to the Senate Transportation Committee for hearings. Once a bill is reviewed by the committee, it must be voted on by the full Senate and must pass by a majority vote in the Senate and the House. After that, the governor will sign, veto or allow the bill to become law.
