A letter to the editor I sent to the Austin American-Statesman, 1/4/05.

January 4, 2005

To the Editors,

The sidebar to the column by Ben Wear on July 13, 2004 ("Toll-road plan gets the green light") showed costs / mile for various segments.

Of these, three exceed $60M / mile, two exceed $40M / mile and four are less than $30M / mile.

Mr. Wear's January 3, 2005 column ("Concrete facts about 2004 in Central Texas") shows that the combined Texas 45 North and Loop 1 will cost about $59M / mile while Texas 130, Ed Bluestein (U.S. 183) east of I-35 and Texas 71 east of I-35 will cost between $25M - 31M / mile.

Given that previous columns by Mr. Wear documented the costs of extending 183 North to be between $20M-30M / mile, why are some of these toll segments costing double that of the gas-tax funded roads and other toll segments?

Regards,
Brendan