did someone call the hogs to the trough?
is that squealings of glee and a stampede of hooves I hear in the distance headed for california?
With all the bovine heading to Sacramento, how will
California meet its Kyoto-like greenhouse gas goals?
Will the U.S. transportation community rise to the challenge?
By C. Kenneth Orski
January 15, 2006Macquarie, Cintra, Transurban – these names are acquiring a familiar ring to the U.S. highway community, even if they still mean nothing to the general public. All three are foreign companies that are pioneering new approaches to highway financing, construction, and operation in this country – and helping to speed up development of highway infrastructure, that otherwise, might have stayed on the drawing board for years to come.
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They perceive America as having a large reservoir of unsatisfied highway needs; they think the prospect for increased public funding is problematic; they see a growing acceptance of tolling; and they sense a climate of greater receptivity toward public-private partnerships, in which private companies serve as financiers and managers of transport infrastructure. Their speculations may well prove to be correct. So far, no fewer than six states – Indiana, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and Delaware – are weighing awards of long-term concessions of their toll roads, in return for up-front capital. Their appetite has been whetted by the experience of the city of Chicago, which received a $1.83 billion windfall from a 99-year lease of its Chicago Skyway. Should any of these states negotiate similarly profitable deals (Indiana being the most likely early prospect, hoping to realize more than $2 billion from a long-term lease of its toll road), the news will undoubtedly spur other financially-strapped states to seek similar arrangements.
Is America Ready for Toll Roads?
By C. Kenneth Orski
November 1, 2005"Is a tolled highway system truly the answer for our future? Can it pass the political hurdles?" These are the questions syndicated columnist Neal Peirce posed in a recent column, after noting local reluctance to raise gas taxes (as evidenced most recently by a legislative moratorium on raising the state gasoline tax in Georgia); an expected drop in tax receipts flowing into the Trust Fund, as people cut back on driving in the face of rising fuel prices; and mounting interest in revenue producing HOT lanes and toll roads ("Is America Really Ready for Toll Roads", The Denver Post, October 9, 2005).
According to Peirce, questions about the future prospects for tolling are ones that "very few of us – politico or plan citizens – seem ready to answer." But, evidence from across the country seems to belie Peirce's skepticism. Indeed, recent months have seen strong indications that tolling is becoming accepted, by both politicians and the transportation community, as a necessary and proper supplement to traditional highway revenue sources.
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In California, Governor Arnold Schwarzeneger has signed legislation (A.B. 850), allowing private contractors to build toll roads and express toll lanes throughout the state.
Texans, who appear to be ahead of California on the 'toll road curve,' seem to have more than a few complaints about the current path of politicians. I found CorridorWatch.org (which even quotes McClintock talking about the 91 Freeway fiasco: "We must never allow the state's obligation to build a first-rate public highway system to be compromised again")
Texas Freepers, of course, are right on top of it. See keywords TransTexasCorridor or TTC.