The Texas Department of Transportation announced in a Nov. 8 news release that the Harris County Toll Road Authority will take over management of the billing and customer services operations for all toll roads in the Houston and Austin regions.
What you need to know
On Nov. 6, TxDOT officials approved a new toll services agreement with HCTRA to manage toll collections for the Houston and Austin areas, ending the longstanding TxTag service provided through the state for those areas.
Established in 2006, TxTag was the toll service operated by TxDOT for collections on toll roads across the state; the service expanded to also support drivers on toll roads in Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
Current holders of a TxTag will still be able to use the tag on all toll roads; however, all TxTag accounts will be switched to EZ Tag accounts by Dec. 2, according to TxDOT. EZ Tags are used by HCTRA for collections, and anyone who does not have an existing TxTag in good standing will have to register to get an EZ Tag through HCTRA.
The details
The tolls roads switching to HCTRA’s collections system include:
Austin
SH 130
SH 45 N
SH 45 SE
Mopac/Loop 1
Houston
Grand Parkway
Hwy. 249
The majority of in-person TxTag centers in Austin will remain open for customers following the completion of the transition, but the toll collections center at 2420 Ridgepoint Drive in Austin will close by mid-2025, according to TxDOT. However, customers will also be able to pay tolls at all Walmart, H-E-B, and other retail centers that partner with HCTRA for bill payment.
In their words
“HCTRA has successfully performed toll services as its core business for 40 years, and we expect them to deliver reliable, high-quality service for our Central Texas and Houston toll road customers,” TxDOT Executive Director Marc Williams said. “This will bring significant savings and efficiency gain for the state of Texas. Customers could see less fees and it’ll help keep tolls low going forward.”
What else?
During the transition, TxDOT officials warned in the release that some customers may not be able to access their accounts for short periods of time. A system maintenance “blackout period” is currently scheduled from Nov. 15-18 to transition the majority of TxTag users to the EZ Tag collections system, during which customers will not be able to access TxTag accounts.
DICKINSON, Texas (KTRK) — According to officials, cleanup is underway after a large amount of gasoline spilled into the storm drains and into a bayou in Dickinson.
The Dickinson Emergency Management Office said about 1,000 to 1,500 gallons of gasoline were spilled, potentially overnight during a fuel tank refill in the 2200 block of FM 517 East near Timber Drive.
On Monday, as of 3 p.m., the city’s emergency management office said crews are working to apply a dispersal agent to the fuel in the storm drains.
The office said the agent contains microbes that will work to dissolve the fuel mixed in the water.
Investigators said the fuel that leaked into the bayou continues to evaporate, and levels are decreasing, but responders are continuing to work the scene and are monitoring for any potential impacts.
“The business where this incident occurred has had the power shut off as a health and safety concern due to strong fuel fumes traveling through the conduit from the fuel storage tanks into the inside area of the structure,” the emergency management office said on social media.
Officials said this threat is isolated, though nearby areas may occasionally have a brief odor of gasoline as wind speeds change.
The single eastbound outside lane of FM 517 remains closed from Timber Drive to Dickinson BBQ.
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — We still don’t have that “fall-feeling” yet in Southeast Texas, but that should change later this week when the next cold front rolls through.
Temperatures will rise into the low 80s with an abundance of sunshine expected for Veterans Day. Another warm and dry day on tap for Tuesday with our next cool front moving in during the day Wednesday.
When can we expect temperatures to really cool off again?
We’ll get a taste of some more seasonal conditions Tuesday morning when temperatures fall into the upper 50s. Things really turn around though later this week when the next front rolls through. Our next cool front is penciled in for Wednesday night, but this is looking more and more like another Pacific front that drops the humidity for a day or two and doesn’t deliver much in the way of cooler air. We are now expecting one morning in the mid 50s and two afternoons in the 70s after the front arrives.
Any rain or thunderstorms expected with that front on Wednesday?
Right now there’s a 20% chance for showers Wednesday with this front. There’s the chance some deeper moisture form over the gulf could creep up towards the Southeast Texas coast, providing some moisture for this front to work with. This would also add a small rain chance Tuesday as well. Otherwise, this is a drier front that will more so influence temperatures alter this week. In all, rain chances are slim over the next 7 days.
What are you tracking in the tropics?
Rafael has weakened to a post-tropical system over the Gulf of Mexico. Some moisture from the system could approach the Gulf coast and possibly bring some light showers ahead of the next front midweek. Head to our daily Tropical Update page for a complete look at what we’re covering in the tropics.
President-elect Donald Trump is naming cabinet members to his administration.
The cabinet appointees will have a direct impact on implementing Trump’s policies in his second term.
Here’s a look at the president-elect’s appointees so far.
This split image shows, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., left, Stephen Miller, middle, and former Immigration and Customs…Show more
Susie Wiles
Trump’s incoming White House chief of staff, veteran Florida political strategist Susie Wiles, moves from a largely behind-the-scenes role of campaign co-chair to the high-profile position of the president’s closest adviser and counsel.
A chief of staff serves as the president’s confidant, helping to execute an agenda and balancing competing political and policy priorities. They also tend to serve as a gatekeeper, helping determine whom the president spends their time and to whom they speak – an effort under which Trump chafed inside the White House.
FILE – Trump co-campaign manager Susie Wiles is seen at Nashville International Airport, July 27, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn.AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File
The daughter of NFL player and sportscaster Pat Summerall, Wiles worked in the Washington office of New York Rep. Jack Kemp in the 1970s. Following that were stints on Ronald Reagan’s campaign and in his White House as a scheduler.
Wiles then headed to Florida, where she advised two Jacksonville mayors and worked for Rep. Tillie Fowler. After that came statewide campaigns in rough and tumble Florida politics, with Wiles being credited with helping businessman Rick Scott win the governor’s office.
After briefly managing Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman’s 2012 presidential campaign, she ran Trump’s 2016 effort in Florida, when his win in the state helped him clinch the White House.
Two years later, Wiles helped get Ron DeSantis elected as Florida’s governor. But the two would develop a rift that eventually led to DeSantis to urge Trump’s 2020 campaign to cuts its ties with the strategist, when she was again running the then-president’s state campaign.
Wiles ultimately went on to lead Trump’s primary campaign against DeSantis and trounced the Florida governor.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump brings Susie Wiles to the podium at an election night…Show moreAP Photo/Alex Brandon
Joining up with Trump’s third campaign in its nascent days, Wiles is one of the few top officials to survive an entire Trump campaign and was part of the team that put together a far more professional operation for his third White House bid – even if the former president routinely broke through those guardrails anyway.
She largely avoided the spotlight, even refusing to take the mic to speak as Trump celebrated his victory early Wednesday morning.
In his first administration, Trump went through four chiefs of staff – including one who served in an acting capacity for a year – in a period of record-setting personnel churn.
Stephen Miller
Trump is naming longtime adviser Stephen Miller, an immigration hard-liner, to be the deputy chief of policy in his new administration.
Miller is one of Trump’s longest-serving aides, dating back to his first campaign for the White House. He was a senior adviser in Trump’s first term and has been a central figure in many of his policy decisions, particularly on immigration, including Trump’s move to separate thousands of immigrant families as a deterrence program in 2018.
Stephen Miller arrives before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally a…Show moreAP Photo/Alex Brandon
Miller has also helped craft many of Trump’s hard-line speeches, and was often the public face of those policies during Trump’s first term in office and during his campaigns.
Since leaving the White House, Miller has served as the president of America First Legal, an organization of former Trump advisers fashioned as a conservative version of the American Civil Liberties Union, challenging the Biden administration, media companies, universities and others over issues such as freedom of speech and religion and national security.
He was also a frequent presence during Trump’s campaign this year, traveling aboard his plane and often speaking ahead of Trump during the pre-shows at his rallies.
Tom Homan
Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan is going to be the “border czar” in the Trump administration, Trump announced on Truth Social.
Homan, a staunch Trump supporter, will be in charge of the mass deportations that have been promised by Trump throughout his 2024 campaign.
“I’ve known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders,” Trump wrote in his post on Sunday evening.
Former ICE Director Tom Homan is going to be the border czar in the Trump administration, the president-elect announced Sunday.
“Likewise, Tom Homan will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin. Congratulations to Tom. I have no doubt he will do a fantastic, and long awaited for, job,” Trump added.
Homan oversaw ICE during the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” enforcement that separated parents from their children at the border.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) estimates there are anywhere from 500 to 1,000 families who have not been reunited.
Rep. Lee Zeldin
President-elect Trump has selected former Rep. Lee Zeldin to serve as EPA administrator, the second New Yorker to be selected to the cabinet.
Zeldin, who left Congress in 2023, was a surprising pick for the role. His public appearances both in his own campaigns and on behalf of Trump often had him speaking about issues like the military, national security, antisemitism, U.S.-Israel relations, immigration and crime.
FILE – Former Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., speaks at a rally in Concord, N.H., Jan. 19, 2024.AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File
He was among the Republicans in Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 election results. While in Congress, he did not serve on committees with oversight of environmental policy.
In 2016 he pushed to change the designation of about 150 square miles of federal waters in Long Island Sound to state jurisdiction for New York and Rhode Island. He wanted to open the area to striped bass fishing, which is allowed in state waters but banned in the federal area.
Rep. Elise Stefanik
President-elect Donald Trump selected Rep. Elise Stefanik to be his U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, multiple Trump officials confirmed to ABC News.
Republican Rep. Stefanik won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing New York last Tuesday.
FILE – Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., waves to supporters at CPAC in Oxon Hill, Md., Feb. 23, 2024.
Stefanik built up a national profile as an unwavering ally of President-elect Trump and as a sharp-tongued partisan critic.
First elected to Congress in 2014 at age 30, she eventually shed her early reputation as a moderate Republican and rose to become the highest-ranking woman in the House Republican leadership.
Stefanik represents a largely rural northern New York district that includes some of the most sparsely populated parts of the state.
NEW YORK — The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree arrived in New York City on Saturday, signaling the start of the holiday season in the Big Apple.
The 74-foot Norway spruce was driven into Manhattan’s Center Plaza, where it was hoisted in place by a crane. It will take 5 miles (about 8 kilometers) of light strands with more than 50,000 multicolored LED bulbs to wrap the tree, whose diameter measures 43 feet (13 meters). A Swarovski star crown sparkling with 3 million crystals will top it.
The towering conifer, donated by the Albert family in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, was cut down Thursday morning and loaded onto a flatbed truck for the 140-mile (225-kilometer) trip. It is the first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree to come from Massachusetts since 1959.
It was met in New York City by smiling crowds who held cellphones aloft from behind barriers as crews attached cables to the giant tree, pounded a stake into its base and guided it into place.
“The crowds were big today. They were one of the biggest crowds I’ve ever seen that come to a tree raising,” said Erik Pauze, the head gardener at Rockefeller Center, who wore a candy cane-striped hard hat.
He first spotted the tree in 2020 while in search of another tree. Once in its new home, the adjustments began to get it ready for the elaborate tree-trimming to come.
“We stood it up, and now we’re going to lower some of the branches down by hand, because they’re so heavy and so big that we have to lower them down by hand,” Pauze said.
The lighting ceremony is Dec. 4.
When the tree is taken down in January, it will be milled into lumber for Habitat for Humanity.
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Neighbors in north Houston are sounding the alarm about a street corner that they say has become a hotspot for vagrancy and crime.
At all hours of the day, you’ll catch people loitering at the METRO light rail station and parking lots on the corner of Fulton and Cavalcade.
“We’ve seen cases where they’re trying to stab each other. They’re fighting each other,” a North Houston resident, Antonio Avalos, said.
“They’re using the restroom. They’re defecating on themselves. They are urinating. They are naked,” Monica Avalos said.
Others say they’ve caught people committing lewd acts and using drugs.
“Just the other day, we were passing by and there was a woman prostituting herself out there,” Cheryl Baxley said.
Neighbors say they’ve been reporting what they see to police but that the problems continue.
The Houston Police Department tells Eyewitness News that officers are handling the matter as best they can.
“When you’re too scared to get onto a bus or stand at the bus station, that’s not good,” Baxley said.
Councilman Mario Castillo agrees.
“Can we get an officer out here to enforce loitering or camping? That’s a struggle when we have a shortage of officers and they are responding to high-priority, high-level emergency calls,” Castillo said.
Castillo said his office has given HPD $100,000 to respond to calls in his district.
He’s urging people to report issues to a special website he’s set up: DistrictHPatrol.com.
“As you report, we’ll route it to HPD. They report back to us on what the disposition is, and we put that right back on the website,” Castillo said.
METRO police sent Eyewitness News the following statement:
“The safety and security of our customers, employees, and the overall community are METRO’s highest priority. The MPD Crime Suppression Team and C.A.R.E. (Crisis, Assessment, Response, and Engagement) Unit are closely monitoring this area. The C.A.R.E. team frequently visits the Cavalcade rail platform and bus shelters on Fulton and Cavalcade, providing resources and support to people experiencing homelessness. MPD’s Crime Suppression Team, working in partnership with the Houston Police Department, has also conducted joint operations around Cavalcade, Airline, and I-45, resulting in numerous arrests.”
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Houston police are asking for the public’s help to identify a man who has sexually assaulted five women inside their apartments on the city’s northwest side.
On Friday afternoon, HPD released video of the suspect just hours after the latest attack at 5454 W. Gulf Bank.
According to police, he has targeted five female residents at four apartment complexes in the greater Inwood area since Aug.14. The following three attacks each happened a week apart on Oct. 9, Oct. 17, and Oct. 24. The fifth was on Friday around 7:30 a.m.
Sometimes he gained entry into the victim’s apartment through an unblocked door, police said. Once he was waiting for his victim to come home. In three attacks, he forced his way in and was armed with a gun and wearing a ski mask.
The four other attacks happened at 5454 West Gulf Bank, 5300 West Gulf Bank, and 5350 West Gulf Bank.
Friday morning, his face was not concealed. A security camera captured him walking between apartments and then running from one.
HPD described the suspect only as a Black male in his 20s.
Anyone with information on his identity or whereabouts is urged to contact HPD Special Victims Division at 713-308-1180 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — New arson charges have been filed against a suspect who is accused of setting a three-alarm fire to a warehouse where a Houston Fire Department firefighter died and another was injured in east Houston late Wednesday evening.
The Houston Fire Department Arson Bureau announced 1st-degree arson charges against a 38-year-old who they determined purposefully ignited the vacant building fire on Polk Street near Wayside Driver just before 11 p.m.
Fire officials said firefighter Marcelo ‘Ox’ Garcia III responded to the scene with HFD, where a second alarm was called for before a mayday call was activated when a wall collapsed, killing the 42-year-old.
HFD said that another firefighter was injured and didn’t sustain serious injuries, but Garcia was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Garcia served with the department for 10 years and spent the last six years on the southeast side at Station 23 on Lawndale Street.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Texas State Fire Marshal’s Office will continue the investigation.
“This charge is the first step in a long healing process for the firefighters of this city,” HFD Fire Chief Thomas Muñoz said. “I want to extend my personal gratitude to our Arson Bureau, the Houston Police Department, and the METRO police department for their collaboration on this investigation.”
Houston fire officials said the suspect is not in custody as of Saturday morning.
The top college football teams in the country now know exactly where they stand heading into Week 11 of the season after the sport’s first edition of the 12-team playoff rankings were released this week.
While many fans are still working to understand how the automatic qualifiers will function, ESPN’s Paul Finebaum tells ABC13 in an extended interview that the perceived power conferences after realignment have proven to be exactly that.
“The tree-top story was the Big 10 and the SEC. We knew they were the power brokers, but four teams seems to be the magic number for both conferences. They’re pretty much dominating the 12-team playoff,” Finebaum said.
The SEC this weekend will see two games pitting college football playoff contenders against each other, starting with No. 3 Georgia at No. 16 Ole Miss (2:30 PM, ABC13) and the perennial showdown between No. 11 Alabama and No. 15 LSU on Saturday night in Baton Rouge (6:30 PM, ABC13).
“We have rarely, if ever, had a game this important between these two teams at this point in the year,” Finebaum said of the matchup in Tiger Stadium. “The fact that the loser between Alabama and LSU is out of the playoff, it just gives this an even more premium feeling. It’s going to be a feverish atmosphere.”
Finebaum also weighed in on the merits of No. 5 Texas (vs. Florida, 1130AM on ABC13), the pressure on Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin against Georgia, and the SEC’s announcement surrounding the fake injury controversy swirling in the conference.
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A METRO driver was stabbed during some sort of altercation on the bus Friday morning on the northwest side, authorities told ABC13.
Numerous police cars were spotted just before 8 a.m. at the scene along Highway 249 and Gessner, near Willowbrook Mall.
According to a METRO spokesperson, the bus driver, a woman, suffered injuries to her hand, head, and shoulder. She was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
It wasn’t immediately known if the alleged attacker was a passenger or someone else.
The suspect ran away, but was later taken into custody by police.
