AUSTIN -- This one comes from a user on Reddit asking how to find out when a toll road will be paid off and if it would then become free of charge.

KVUE reached out to The Texas Department of Transportation and the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority to verify these questions.

When will they be paid off?

The agreements between managing agencies and local governments are available online and they show that it will be quite some time before Central Texas toll roads are paid off.

State Highway 130, for instance, was made under a contract agreement signed in 2007. The document details a 50-year contract between Travis County and the managing agency, "SH 130 Concession Company, LLC."

The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority said their projects, including 290, 45 and the express lanes on MoPac, will take multiple years to reach their debt limits.

None of the the agencies KVUE spoke with indicated any plans or deals to then make toll lanes free.

Will the lanes then be free?

While there has been one historical case of a toll lane becoming free after it's debt was paid, there hasn't been another since.

In that case, in 1977, the turnpike between Dallas and Fort Worth was turned into part of I-30 once it's debts were paid.

It's never happened again and there are multiple reasons.

As a TxDOT representative explained, roads don't simply become free when their debts are paid. There are still costs for maintenance and upkeep and, without tolls, the local municipalities would have to relocate funds for those costs from within their budgets.

We can Verify that historically, and in general, the idea that toll roads become free after their debt is paid is a false one.

That could change though.

There are no laws mandating toll roads are handled on a state level. How they are used after their debt is paid is a decision left to each local government.

The experts we spoke to said a change to those policies could come, but it would have to be from the lawmakers.