Toll roads in Texas have increased due to insufficient funding for public road construction, with the Dallas-Fort Worth area now housing one of North America's largest networks. These roads are primarily operated by private companies, leading to public frustration over their expansion and the necessity of paying tolls. Without a viable alternative for transportation funding, the reliance on toll roads is expected to continue, despite growing public unrest.

1. Toll Roads in Texas

2. With all of the recent road construction over the past 5
years in the area, it is hard to not notice the increasing
amount of toll roads in Texas.

3. As more states find it hard to fund road construction to
fight off the rising levels of traffic congestion, the popularity
of toll roads is growing rapidly.

4. Toll Roads Around DFW

5. The area of Dallas-Fort Worth is home to more than 6.

6. 5 million people and now has one of the largest networks of
toll roads in all of North America.

7. These toll roads are not the toll roads of the past.

8. These toll roads are entirely built and operated by private
companies that maintain the rights of the roads they built
for decades.

9. One such company, Texas Turnpike Corp.,even possesses
eminent-domain powers granted by a law that has since
been rewritten, and has plans of making the only privately
funded, built, operated, and OWNED toll road in the entire
country.

10. Many Texas residents are getting fed up with the ever
increasing expansion of toll roads.

11. Some claim that it is completely impossible to go about
their lives without having to pay a toll somewhere.

12. While many of them are suggesting that the state just stop
sanctioning private companies to build roads they can not
build themselves, traffic congestion is a serious and still
growing problem in the area.

13. The main source of revenue to fund road construction for
the state comes from its 20 cent tax is placed on every
gallon of gasoline purchased.

14. However, those 20 cents have not changed since 1991 and
is a major cause for the lack of funding.

15. A National Problem With Toll Roads

16. Currently the U.S.has 5,400 miles of toll roads, an increase
of 15% since 2003, and 500 miles of that has been built in
Texas in the last decade.

17. With an additional twenty or more toll road projects
currently being planned or in construction, that number can
be expected to rise more than 300 miles in the next five to
ten years.

18. With the state nearly $5 billion short of transportation
funding, there are few alternatives to toll roads or higher
taxes.

19. However, with large sections of major cities being sectioned
off by toll roads, public unrest is becoming a major concern
for lawmakers and city officials.

20. Despite the growing frustration over toll roads in Texas, if a
more reliable method to increase transportation funding is
not found, toll roads will continue to be privately built for
the state.