TxDOT's "pass-through" Road Projects and Lack of Oversight

The evolution of the Texas Department of Transportation stinks like month-old fish.  The state agency does whatever it wants, with little direct oversight.  It continues to milk millions of tax dollars for its elite management's special interests, which also happen to be Gov. Rick Perry's special interests.

TxDOT prefers what it calls "creative methods" of building roadways, a.k.a., toll roads and/or "managed care lanes" that also are toll roads.  Toll roads create long-term debt and are NOT cost-effective methods of building and maintaining our roads.

The "pass-through" projects are the new way TxDOT suckers various communities and districts into putting their hard-earned tax dollars down for new roads and road improvements with the agency's ridiculous promise to repay the communities sometime "down the toll road" --- only where will TxDOT get the money to repay the communities?  Who knows, since TxDOT continues to whine that it has no money.

It may be a good idea to shut down TxDOT completely and have private companies plan and build our roadways.

TxDOT already contracts out a large part of its work, but does not maintain a good oversight on the work done.  That's why some areas need work done twice using twice the tax dollars to do the job correctly once.

 No one is held accountable... ever!

It's time Texans know exactly where their tax dollars are going and the agency needs much better oversight than it currently gets.

Furthermore, the Texas Governor should NOT appoint the head of TxDOT.  It is a position that should be determined by Texas voters, even though the possibility of corruption is still present.  It is a top state position and one of great importance to the Texas community to leave it up to the Governor to appoint one of his top campaign contributors and/or special cronies.

One thing is certain.  We can no longer let TxDOT be managed without more careful scrutiny.  The Texas Legislature knows this already, but does nothing about it.