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Mon, May. 19, 2008
Spanish firm offers $12.8 billion to lease Pa. Turnpike
By Paul Nussbaum INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
A Spanish toll-road operator won the bidding war to operate the Pennsylvania Turnpike, offering $12.8 billion for a 75-year lease, Gov. Rendell said today. The proposal by Abertis Infraestructuras, of Barcelona, must be approved by the Pennsylvania legislature, and legislative leaders in Harrisburg have said the plan faces tough sledding with lawmakers.
TxDOT plan would convert some interstates to toll roads
Plan includes buying interstates and charging drivers a toll
By POLLY ROSS HUGHES
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
AUSTIN - The Texas Department of Transportation is pushing Congress to pass a federal law allowing the state to "buy back" parts of existing interstate highways and turn them into toll roads.
The 24-page plan, outlined in a "Forward Momentum" report that escaped widespread attention when published in February, drew prompt objections Thursday from state lawmakers and activists fighting the spread of privately run toll roads.
"I think it's a dreadful recommendation on the part of the transportation commissioners here in Texas," said Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee Chairman John Carona, R-Dallas.
"I feel confident that legislators in Austin would overwhelmingly be opposed to such an idea," he said. "The simple fact is that taxpayers have already paid for those roadways. To ask taxpayers to pay for them twice is untenable."
Bush official promotes Rendell's push to lease Pa. Turnpike
By Marc Levy
Associated Press
HARRISBURG - Gov. Rendell enlisted the Bush administration yesterday in his push to get wary legislators to agree to privatize the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Rendell, a Democrat, appeared with U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters to extol the benefits of a proposal to lease the turnpike, an arrangement Rendell hopes will provide nearly $1 billion a year for the state's highway network.
"This partnership," Peters said at a news conference in the state Capitol's rotunda, "could generate billions of dollars that could be used to repair deteriorating roads and bridges, and free up money for construction and keep the state moving both now and into the future."
Selling Off Public Roads Isn't A Transit Strategy
March 1, 2007
ROBERT PUENTES
Back in the 1970s, the humor magazine National Lampoon wrote a commentary on corporate influence in America titled "We're Changing the Name of the Country to Exxon."
It doesn't seem like such a stretch today. From naming rights to professional sports venues, to companies offering financial support to cash-strapped public schools in exchange for marketing their brands and products, corporate influence in America today is pervasive.
Now, commercial interests and smart investors are turning their eyes toward some of our nation's most prominent roadways. We need to slow down.
Certainly states and cities across the country face massive transportation challenges. Roads and bridges are crumbling, traffic congestion has become intolerable, air quality is deteriorating, working families are having difficulty reaching many jobs, and several transit systems are either constrained or seriously overcrowded.
So politicians are looking for a quick fix.
...
Robert Puentes is a fellow at Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. His expertise is in transportation, urban planning, growth management, suburban issues and housing. This was distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
New Idea for the Turnpike: Let the Pension Fund Run It
By DAVID W. CHEN and KEN BELSON
TRENTON, Feb. 27 - With legislators lining up against the possibility of leasing the New Jersey Turnpike to a private company, New Jersey lawmakers are now considering another option: having the state pension fund run the Turnpike Authority's operation.
Legislators said Tuesday that they had had discussions with Gov. Jon S. Corzine and other officials about the unorthodox solution to the state's financial difficulties, but they said the idea was only in a preliminary stage.
Spinning toll roads' asphalt into gold
Pennsylvania and New Jersey are considering leasing them to firms. The states could get billions. But at what cost?
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
What is a turnpike worth?
The answer to that billion-dollar question is critical in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where venerable state-owned toll roads now are being viewed less as ribbons of commerce than as streams of revenue.
Political leaders in both states are considering leasing the toll roads to private operators. What the states receive is clear: lots of cash. What they lose is the subject of intense debate.
Estimates of the roads' value vary wildly - from $2 billion to $30 billion for the Pennsylvania Turnpike and from $12 billion to $38 billion or more for the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway. Because there are few examples to look to for guidance, the two states are essentially guinea pigs in their own experiments.