Two things:
First, if you had a 99-yr lease on the turnpike, would you let it fall into disrepair? Of course not. It would be like any other business, if you're running it for your own profit, you maintain it.
Second, as to your premise that leasing public assets to private business is a bad idea. If there is a need for something like the JOB program that Blackwell describes -- and Ohio could sure use a dose of something -- then there are two ways to fund it: a.) raise taxes or b.) liquidate an asset.
The one should be DOA, I trust. Thus, you start looking for assets to liquidate...
To answer your first point, if I'm running it for profit I wouldn't put a dime into it over the last 10 years of the lease unless I absolutely had to. The result of which would be an asset in absolute disrepair at the end of the lease.
As to your second point if it's such a profitable venture to run then they can use the "profit" to fund the JOB programs etc. and stop selling the right to monetarily rape travelers to the highest bidder.
I have no interest in paying someone else a profit to ride on an asset we paid for that should be maintained at cost at the worst and should be free at best now that the original bonds have been paid off.
If this goes through it's legislative theft and I expected better from Blackwell.
Lest anyone kid themselves the companies that are pushing for these programs and winning the bids are foreign owned. The Trans Texas corridor being the largest example of something new along these lines that will be foreign controlled.