"Managed Lanes" for MoPac? Oh, you mean toll roads.

That's quite a disguise for toll roads, isn't it? "Managed Lanes" sounds quite similar to "managed care," only there's no "caring" in most of the Texas Department of Transportation's road plans. TxDOT may be a lot of things, but it's certainly not community-friendly.

Five years ago Gov. Rick "39-percent" Perry gave TxDOT the green light to become more creative in locating new revenue for building and maintaining Texas roadways. So TxDOT geniuses now keep on trying to bilk taxpayers out of their hard-earned money, while the agency that's supposed to be working for hard-working Texans is securing top-dollar payoffs and increased revenue for its wealthy pro-toll lobby.

TxDOT engineer Bob Daigh wants to convince us that TxDOT has learned its lesson on road building and that the proposed MoPac road work will eliminate the problems encountered in the Dallas road work. Can you believe the chutzpah?

Five months ago, Mr. Daigh, Area Engineer Don Nyland, and the rest of TxDOT approved work on FM 1826 in Hays and Travis Counties. They "resealed" the small 2-lane country roadway with cheap materials that immediately smeared at intersections from the cars and trucks turning there. In addition, TxDOT won't put "crowns" on roads because it's more costly — even though it's the right way to build a roadway. Currently, FM 1826 is riddled with water and road smears after a rain. Obviously, TxDOT doesn't care much about serving the community and protecting it from such hazardous conditions. However, TxDOT certainly seems interested in making money for themselves and for special interests.

Anyway, what exactly are we talking about with this proposed road work on MoPac? MoPac is an already-paid-for-with-our-tax-dollars "free" highway which TxDOT now wants to "improve" by removing the train tracks in the middle island and replacing them with a 2-lane toll road — er, "managed lanes". Oh, yes. That will work fine. All the traffic and bottlenecking at key locations on MoPac will be totally relieved by the 2 additional lanes. Dream on!

Texans need to band together and stop TxDOT from being the "runaway stallion" the governor and legislators have permitted it to be. The Sunset Commission and/or the Travis County District Attorney's Office should follow the money and paper trails that TxDOT has left and eliminate the idea in the public's mind that TxDOT is acting questionably and/or illegally in its many wheelings and dealings with privateers. Something doesn't smell quite right in Central Texas, and it's not from our oversized vehicles burning high-priced gasoline.

Stop the toll road/"managed lane" fever crusading in Central Texas by contacting elected officials. What happens here will occur throughout the state. That's not a tax legacy we want to leave to our children's children.