The Texas Transportation Commission on Thursday unanimously voted to eliminate a $1.8 billion rebuild and expansion of Interstate 635 East from the state's 2018 plan.

By taking I-635 East — the No. 1 project on regional planners' list — and Austin's Interstate 35 project off the table, the state commission accomplished its task of scrubbing all tolled projects from its Unified Transportation Program.

The 10.8 miles of freeway in Dallas, Garland and Mesquite was to have included both free and managed lanes, with tolls on the managed lanes used to pay back the project's debt. But Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told commissioners last month that toll roads were no longer an option.

"It's pure politics," Garland Mayor Douglas Athas told the Regional Transportation Commission during its meeting Thursday in Arlington. "A few people financed by a few people are holding up things across the state over and over and over again. And I don't know when we're going to get tired of that."

The RTC said it would send a delegation to the Texas Transportation Commission's January meeting to emphasize the need for the I-635 East expansion and to present managed lanes as a successful tool for mobility in North Texas.

More immediately, it planned to send a letter to the state commission — copied to the governor and lieutenant governor — expressing disappointment with the decision to drop the project from the 2018 plan.

The RTC did not approach the question that has stalled expansion through the last three legislative sessions: If not with tolls, how does Texas fund massive road projects?

'Power struggle'

The busy freeway currently has four main lanes and one express lane in each direction. Some areas don't have frontage roads. The RTC-approved plan calls for five free lanes, two tolled managed lanes and continuous frontage roads in each direction.

The portion of LBJ Freeway yet to be rebuilt, between Interstate 30 and Central Expressway, handles about 200,000 cars per day.

Dallas City Council member Lee Kleinman said that I-635 East improvements are long overdue, that managed lanes are an acceptable model and that the managed lanes on Interstate 635 from Central west to Interstate 35E have been a success. Whether to drive on the tolled lanes is up to individual motorists, and Kleinman said the managed lanes help move traffic in all the lanes.

"There's an ongoing power struggle between locally elected officials that attend those homeowners association meetings and get those calls day in and day out to try and solve problems vs. a Legislature that stands on rhetoric and not solutions," he said in an interview this week.

Kleinman told the RTC Thursday that he didn't have much faith that sending a delegation to Austin would change minds. Dallas County Commissioner Mike Cantrell pointed out that the city of Austin itself had had no luck when its real estate, business, economic development and elected leaders stated their case Thursday.

Austin's portion of I-35, like I-635 East, is a 50-year-old model that is failing to handle a regional boom.

"No one likes paying tolls. At the same time, no one likes being stuck in traffic," Austin Mayor Steve Adler told the state commission. "It is real clear that in Central Texas and in Austin, our priority in that choice would be to go and fix I-35."

Neither project has the legislative approval needed to be built with toll revenue. Before its unanimous vote, Texas Transportation Commission members said the agency was only following the guidelines it had been provided.

Sen. Bob Hall's view

The plan for LBJ East included both free and managed lanes, like the freeway's rebuild between Central Expressway and Interstate 35E. (Ashley Landis / Staff Photographer)

State Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, has opposed tolls for the I-635 East project, which is partly in his district. He said recently that regional planners were allocating money to lesser projects only to come back later and say there wasn't enough money for the mega-project now at the top of the list.

"If you are focused on LBJ construction and have the design, go put in the service roads first," Hall said. "That will inspire economic development. Then come back later as the money becomes available and put in the rest of the road."

The state commission directed the Texas Department of Transportation and its regional funding agencies, such as the RTC, to focus on the state's top 100 projects and kick shortfalls back to the Legislature.

"If the funding streams are insufficient, the source should be a policy decision, not for this [Texas Transportation] Commission," said J. Bruce Bugg Jr., chairman of the panel.