A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

La Dolce Fino

I'm trying really hard here, but I just can't seem to get all that worked up about this story:

As soon as the toll hike story first broke, we set out to do what many of our viewers asked -- investigate if anyone gets a freebie. We asked the toll road for records under state law.

Last week we broke the first story -- 5,500 free tags were out there and all toll road employees got to use the EZ tags for a free commute. Late Wednesday afternoon, we got a computer disk detailing every single free toll for a single year and at first blush, the numbers appear to be staggering.

In one month -- May of 2007 -- there were more than 172,000 free tolls. And the change adds up quickly to $150,000 in one month. If that number holds true, imagine how many millions in tolls have been given away in the fifteen years the freebees have been in effect.

Now remember -- some of the tags are given to emergency vehicles and toll road businesses, but in the few minutes we had to look at just one month, we saw the signs of potential abuse -- tags used very late at night or in the middle of the night.

We looked first at west side cops who have dozens of free tags. You'd expect them to travel the Sam Houston Tollway on the west side, but you see tolls in the south and southeast -- far outside the beats.

Again, we are just starting to look at the data, but we wanted to tell you were on top of it. And as we got the records, the toll road had another announcement.

Two months of policy review is apparently enough for the toll road bosses to figure out they should stop giving away free rides that county leaders never approved. It's been a great perk -- a free commute if you work for the Harris County Toll Road Authority. Hundreds of employees had it for 15 years. Not anymore.

A memo Wednesday morning told toll road employees they'll have to pay like everyone else starting right now. The toll road was questioning its own free ride policy at the same time as it was raising toll rates. But once they wanted more money from you, Eyewitness News wanted to know who was getting freebies. And just days after we got that list, the freebies ended.

This story isn't quite synched with the one that aired on ABC13's broadcast tonight (linked on the same page), which said a mere 650 of those 5,500 free tags were given to HCTRA employees. There was also no breakdown on charges for emergency and police vehicles versus those of Toll Road Authority employees, so it's impossible to tell just how much of the "staggering" $150,000/month total is attributed to HCTRA workers.

I don't doubt there are abuses, and the HCTRA's policy probably stipulated the free tags were only to be used for commuting to and from work and for Toll Road Authority-related business, but look at the numbers: 172000 free tolls / 5500 free tags = 31.3 tolls per tag. I'm no big city mathematician, and even allowing that not every tag is used every day (not that we were given any concrete numbers for any of this) that's not even two per workday in May. This is a scandal?

The story that aired on TV was headed up by ABC13's Ted Oberg and APCB favorite Wayne Dolcefino, who solemnly informed us of this injustice while conveniently ignoring both the common practice of employees getting company perks (do ABC13 employees get discounts for Disneyland resorts and cruises?) and the generally shitty pay earned by county employees.

Maybe it's just me, but my righteous indignation meter failed to register on this.