Texas is abdicating safety to private toll road operators

A Dallas Morning News investigation into the deadly pileup on Interstate 35W in Fort Worth three years ago has illuminated a disturbing lack of oversight by Texas’ transportation agency of the private entity that operates the toll road.

Reporter Yamil Berard scoured through thousands of pages of court records, documents from the National Transportation Safety Board, and videos of that tragic day in February 2021 when 130 cars, trucks and semis piled up along a stretch of the North Tarrant Express. Early morning commuters, unaware of the black ice beneath them, crashed one after another along two lanes bound by concrete barriers on both sides. The horrific scene spanned the length of three football fields.

Among the most alarming revelations in the News investigation is that the operator, North Tarrant Express Mobility Partners, or NTE, did not have a final winter maintenance plan in place in February 2021 when the accident claimed the lives of six people and injured scores more.

Even more troubling is that the contract between the Texas Department of Transportation and NTE, a consortium headed by the giant Spanish firm Cintra, apparently did not even require the operator to have such a plan, according to the investigation.

NTE has a winter maintenance plan in place now, the investigation found, but has fought its disclosure in civil court where dozens of plaintiffs are seeking damages. NTE claims that the plan is proprietary and shouldn’t be revealed.

Proprietary? Critical safety information on the maintenance of public roads traveled every year by thousands of Texans shouldn’t be disclosed to all of us?

Not only should state officials require such information be readily available, but they should demand that the operator is adhering to best practices in highway safety. TXDOT simply cannot abdicate its vital responsibility to keep drivers safe by allowing this kind of obfuscation.

An agency spokesperson told Berard that it regularly communicates and coordinates operations with the NTE. But that’s not enough. Any contract between the agency and private toll road operators should omit the non-disclosure provisions that impede public scrutiny, as several experts in the News investigation noted.

Indeed, the News investigation “reveals a lack of general oversight by the Texas Department of Transportation of private toll operators — an issue that also was previously raised in “Toll Trap,” The News’ ongoing year-long investigation into the state’s toll roads,” Berard wrote. In their final report in early 2023, federal investigators looking into the I-35W crash also cited a lack of coordination between TXDOT and NTE, something we raised serious concerns about in 2022.

This is particularly concerning given that Texas, which has more toll roads than any other state, often struck contracts with private entities to build them. Toll roads have done much to alleviate clogged roadways in the state. But Texas must do much better in overseeing these operators.

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