Apr. 2--RAIL NORTH TEXAS -- Locally levied taxes and fees could support regional light rail projects, should the gist of several bill proposals pass the Texas legislature this session.

Receiving heavy local attention is Rail North Texas, proposed in Senate Bill 855, with HB 9 as the identical bill in the House of Representatives.

Senator John Carona of Dallas introduced SB 855, which is in the Transportation and Homeland Security Committee, possibly to be referred back out this week.

Rockwall County Judge Chris Florance is against it, noting in January, "This local option would provide a means for taxing our people but how it is spent would be determined by a regional authority."

Rowlett Mayor John Harper supports it -- "For the city of Rowlett to prosper, we need to be in the middle of all these mass transit opportunities," he said in a separate February interview.

Hunt County County Judge John Horn supports a regional mobility plan he told a Herald-Banner reporter in a recent interview on transportation in general: "The primary goal that we are going to be looking at countywide is to establish a regional mobility plan that takes into consideration major junctions and roadways that are coming in from the west," Horn told Chad Blackshear.

State Representative Jodie Laubenberg is adamantly against it. "I have a major problem with that bill, it is very vague," she said in March.

As of press time, each bill is in that body's transportation committee.

"That is not the place for it," Rep. Laubenberg said in a recent interview. "It is a tax bill, it should be in the Ways and Means committee, she said.

As presented to the committees, the twin bills propose that voters in regions, or counties, depending upon interpretations, be able to vote to allow a locally-levied gas tax to increase each year, and/or to institute parking fees and new resident roadway impact fees, among other fees.

"Once we open this up, it will open up all over the state," Laubenberg said, noting that several such proposals are before the house and senate.

"They tell you light rail will open up traffic, stop congestion, clear the air, but less than 1 percent of the of the population rides mass transit; you have to have 100 percent of the population paying to subsidize it. Plus, the cities are already paying 1 cent in those cities with mass transit -- that would be double taxation," she said.

Rep. Laubenberg began expressing strong disagreement in November, during a meeting of the Rockwall County Road Consortium, which did not pass a resolution of support for the measure.