[A. Pole]

In exchange for its upfront payment, Cintra-Macquarie will collect and keep all money from tolls from the Skyway and will be able to raise tolls as incorporated under the terms of the agreement. The company is modernizing toll collection with an electronic transponder system. Until the technology is fully operable, toll collectors have been newly but temporarily recruited. But instead of earning an average hourly wage of $20.00 as their predecessors did, they are paid a $10.00 to $12.00 hourly wage. And as contracted, the Skyway offers the buyer an asset without having to deal with improvements or debt.

Low wage bump

[butternut_squash_bisque]

This is nuts. And it goes right along with the NAFTA, CAFTA crap and the globalism path CFR has nudged us into. The NAFTA Superhighway will be one more rust hole in the armor. Soon enough, when Canada, the US and mexico are *one* (think EU), our national soverignty will be a distant memory, as will The US Constitution.

(((sigh)))

[Legallyhere1]

I hope the British don't get control of the highways here! Everytime I go back for a visit, the roads get worse and worse and more crowded. The Highways Authority (a sort of governing body) just acts like the proverbial ostrich and sticks its head in sand hoping problems will go away. Perhaps the germans should run them - that way we can all drive at 100mph like they do over there!

[cripplecreek]

We don't have any toll roads here in Michigan (yet) but I know I'll oppose them every step of the way.

[jpl]

Is there any part of America that's not for sale to the highest bidder these days?

[Tokra]

Eisenhower was prompted to persuade the nation’s people to build the interstate highway system, as a matter of national securitybeing convinced to do so by General Motors.

"What's good for General Motors is good for the USA."

[F.J. Mitchell]

We are being sold out to Foreign interests by the slimy sonovabitches we are paying and trusting to look after our own interests, and learning about the treason, after the fact.

We are like a roadkill carcass being eaten by vultures,opossums and maggots, while being swarmed by green flies.

[Calpernia]

Before:

After:

If you ever plan to motor west:

Travel my way, the highway that's the best.

Get your kicks on Route 66!

It winds from Chicago to L.A.,

More than 2,000 miles all the way,

Get your kicks on Route 66 !

Now you go thru St. Looey...Joplin, Missouri!

And Oklahoma City looks mighty pretty.

You'll see Amarillo...Gallup, New Mexico.

Flagstaff, Arizona: don't forget Winona,

Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino.

Won't you..get hip to this timely tip:

when you..make that California trip.

Get your kicks on Route 66!

[Hardastarboard]

the Secretary of the Department of Transportation, Norman Mineta

Here's a big part of the problem, now resolved.

[Mike Darancette]

If it sounds too good to be true or too bad to be true it probably isn't true.

Red Meat Headline Alert.

[Valin]

The deal which started a flurry of more than 18 proposed foreign financed interstate highway projects across the nation over the past year in amounts of over $25 billion was in Chicago, IL in December 2004. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley proposed an agreement to lease the Chicago Skyway for $1.83 billion dollars to Cintra-Macquarie Consortium, a Spanish-Australian conglomerate, doing business as State Mobility Partners in the U.S. The deal, finalized in January 2005, gave Cintra-Maquarie a 99-year lease for which it is responsible for the maintenance and structural quality of the 8-mile elevated structure.

OMG It's the end of the republic!.....or not

[Jonathan E]

I do not think that in the maintenance budget the cost of the material is the problem. I believe that there is not enough money,presently, available to pay salaries, benefits, retirement of government workers. Selling of the highways is, possibly only the beginning. Lets sell of National Parks, Forests, etc. Doesn't it seem strange that corporate America goes off shore to to save money as not to have to deal with overly regulated bureaucracies, and the bureaucracies sell off public assets to foreigners in order to get funds that they cant get fast enough from taxing the citizens, or God forbid reduce the cost of government by reducing those bureaucracies?

[Lazamataz]

Foreign Control of U.S. Interstates Encouraged By Feds

Bush is clearly running a Going-Out-Of-Business sale.

His prices are INSANE!!!

[mississippi red-neck]

Non-compete clauses are often inserted in such contracts such as inducing lower speed limits on parallel free roads to drive traffic to the toll road.

We are already and or going to continue to have our ass and our bill folders herded like sheep we are.

Gives new and more transparent meaning to the term "selling out our country".

This evil self- enriching alliance of greed between Big Business and government is rapidly destroying what was America.

Our country rights,freedoms, properties,and the future of our country and our children are being sold to the highest bidder.

It will very soon now exist in name and memory only with no borders.

The definition of an American and America has been so diluted by our politicians and special interests that they are almost extinct and though past administrations have had a hand in it none have advanced it like this administration and Congress have.

As soon as they pass this amnesty bill you can bend over and kiss your country goodbye.