A planned increase in tolls on some Houston-area roads is very small -- measured in pennies in some cases -- but at least one Texan says any increase is too much.
At the first of the year the Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority is raising toll fees on 99-The Grand Parkway, on the Westpark Toll Road and the Fort Bend Parkway.
In those cases the costs are going up one or two cents, but for those who don't have a tollway tag like the E-Z Tag, it's going to cost an extra 25 cents beyond previous fees.
Texans for Toll Free Highways Founder Terri Hall laments the basic unfairness of some of these toll roads.
"Y'know at the end of the day this is really a punishment for people who have to live near toll roads. And that's wrong."
Ms. Hall says most people can't afford to live near Downtown Houston or Greenway Plaza or Galleria, so they have to move to the outskirts.
"They tend to take the folks who have to move further out to afford housing and punish them the most by building toll roads for them to get in to their jobs every day," she says.
And just like the concept that a few of our Houston area-toll roads were supposedly based on -- that as soon as the toll road was paid off the lanes would be opened up to free travel -- the paying of tolls never seems to end.
And Hall says they really won't end until voters demand either road payoffs result in free pavement, or all toll roads are banned.
"Because once you give any kind of government entity a new revenue stream, they're not going to give it back until we force them to take it down."