Posted on 01/31/2006 12:54:00 PM PST by calcowgirl
California could dramatically accelerate its use of public-private partnerships -- arrangements in which a for-profit company builds a transit project at its own expense in exchange for the toll revenues it generates -- under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to pump $222 billion into the state's infrastructure.
"We believe there are literally billions of dollars available in the private market to greatly enhance our infrastructure, particularly in roads, that can be brought to bear," said Sean Walsh, director of the governor's office of planning and research. Resulting projects such as toll lanes, truck-only lanes and expanded rail lines would ease gridlock and be used by everyone from soccer moms to multinational shipping companies, he said.
Proponents of public-private partnerships say they're a cost-effective way to get roads built faster and cheaper without taxpayers footing the bill. But opponents say they hand private companies a license to print money, can hurt existing roads and create a two-tier system in which wealthy drivers zip past average Joes stuck in traffic.
Right now, public-private partnerships require case-by-case approval by the Legislature. California briefly flirted with the concept more than a decade ago, and private companies built two toll roads in Southern California that have generated mixed reviews. But the governor's office hopes to get a bill passed that would give the state sweeping authority to make deals with private companies.
"We are in the process of finding authors to sponsor these types of private-public partnership legislation that would allow us to utilize this valuable tool for infrastructure," Walsh said. His office has spent the past nine months researching the topic and has identified about $17 billion of transportation improvements suited for public-private partnerships during the next decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Public-private partnerships
What are they? Transportation projects with a revenue stream, such as toll lanes, financed and built by private companies, which hope to generate a profit by collecting the resulting tolls.
Why now? Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office is studying the use of public-private partnerships as a way to pay for needed highway upgrades.
Pros: Projects get financed without taxpayer money and sometimes can be built more quickly. Toll lanes could provide a fast network for express bus service.
Cons: Private companies, not taxpayers, benefit from projects' success. If agreements are poorly drafted, companies can raise tolls or exercise non-compete clauses that hurt nearby roads. Toll lanes are sometimes criticized for creating a two-tiered transit system, in which wealthier people can buy their way out of congestion.
The Wilsonegger gang is corrupting California's political systems, abridging the fundamental principles of those proven systems by altering the necessary balance between state and private interests.
This would be just fine with me if the state weren't collecting a ton of money from us in gas taxes, supposedly for the purpose of building more roads. Tax me or toll me, but not both.
Yup. I made that charge about Arnold's plan before the recall.
A public private partnership in transportation will require the use of the public power of eminent domain for private benefit. The very existence of the threat suppresses the value of residential real estate. It is a theft of capital value from small landowners and land speculators.
Right now, public-private partnerships require case-by-case approval by the Legislature... But the governor's office hopes to get a bill passed that would give the state sweeping authority to make deals with private companies.Would anyone think this is a good idea if Davis or Bustamante were in office?
The 91 toll road through Orange county is such a screaming success....we should do more.
I hear ya. But I also don't like the tolling authority completely outside the government process.
And those private enterprises fail, the taxpayers have to bail them out.
I assume that was sarcasm. From the article:
Controversy arose over the privately built toll lanes adjacent to Highway 91 in Southern California because of a non-compete clause that let the private operator veto widening and other improvements for 91. The situation got so bad that Orange County ended up buying back the toll lanes for more than $200 million.
Given that the state government isn't likely to build another inch of freeway in this state, I'd be willing to have some private company do it, go belly-up, and us take it over. Even if it ended up costing us much more than if it were built by the state, at least it would exist.
My interpretation:
The state forces John to sell his property. The state cedes exclusive use of John's former property to a third party, Great Highway Adventures. GHA then uses John's former property to personally enrich it ewe's until GHA management is forced to ask it's owners to reduce their personal profits to allow for necessary maintenance of their little toll road project. The owners refuse and dump GHA's once golden goose back into state's hands, at a profit. Then the state forces John to recover his own property at his own expense and pay for its future use, again at his own expense, while the owners of GHA rest comfortably in their villa in Spain, playing tennis with their buddy, a retired US governor, who lives next door.
Does this really make sense John?
ABSOLUTELY !
Actually no; I couldn't follow your example. There's the state, there's GHA, but who are the "owners" in your scenario?
The Wilsonegger gang's largest donors that directly benefit from improved transportation and public right-of-way acquistion; delivery (Robinson), lenders (Arnall), automobiles (Toyota), developers (Bren), construction (Lyon), fiber communication (Folino), fossil fuel (Chevron) and future fuels (Pickens).
They are something that stupid Sunne McPeak dug up as an idea that does not and will not work as a partnership is a marriage of sorts and you can't have much of a marriage when one partner can perpetually over-rule the other! Nor when one partner is expected to take all the risks but the owners of the other partner will not an should not allow it!
This is how we come up with these lousy public financed stadium deals like the one in Stockton that just failed to sell out when Neal Diamond showed up to entertain fans and not necessarily taxpayers that financed the "Public/Private Sector Partnership" that's already headed for the rocks!!!
DING!DING!DING! WE HAVE A WINNER!!!
The Austrian is verrrrrrry eeenterested in this over arching concept. It was tried with great speed in a neighboring country early in the last century!!!
This is what happens when a politician has Party supporters that are afraid to question anything the fearless leader proposes and don't remember that we're not supposed to have "Government by Whim!" (oh! and we are supposed to have limited government, too)
Public-private partnerships are fascistic in their very nature and expand the hand of government exponentially.
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