Archive: Public-Private
The Highways of the Future -- Or Not
Please join me today for a Live Online discussion of transportation topics at 1 p.m. The future of our roads and transit systems have been in the news lately and an election is coming up that could affect the destiny of some transportation projects, particularly in Maryland. With governments so reluctant to raise more money for transportation projects, many are looking to various forms of public-private partnerships to build roads and even transit systems. In Maryland, Gov. Robert Ehrlich's administration recently put out a call for new proposals along those lines. But in today's Post, Eric Weiss shows that this approach may have some real difficulties. See his story headlined "Beltway Toll Plan May Need Va. Funds" to see that the plan to have a private company build express toll lanes on the Capital Beltway in exchange for some of the toll revenue -- one of the major congestion-relief projects...
By Robert Thomson | October 23, 2006; 09:11 AM ET | Comments (6)
Environmental Group Says Toll Highways Okay
We take a break from bad commuter week to share an interesting development in the transportation world. The advocacy group Environmental Defense has come out in favor of using public-private partnerships to build tolled highways. Their support, as you might imagine, came with a couple caveats. They prefer tolls to be added to existing lanes with minimal widenings and for some of the revenue to be used to fund public transit and to protect the environment. If highways are done in this way, Environmental Defense sees winners all around. Taxpayers don't have to pay for most of the fixes, drivers gain more capacity and more assurance, transit options are increased and the environment is protected. In the real world this means that they do not think that the intercounty connector is a good idea because it is a brand new highway that brings with it a number of environmental concerns....
By Steven Ginsberg | June 7, 2006; 11:15 AM ET | Comments (11)
Mr. Kaine Goes to Washington
I just got back from Capitol Hill, where Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine spent the morning telling the House Subcommittee on Highways, Transit and Pipelines (say that five times fast) all about the state's public-private highway and transit ventures. Virginia has the most in the nation and I believe has been doing this the longest, so the subcommittee wanted to talk to Kaine about a practice that is fast spreading across the country. Kaine shared the stage with Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who recently signed a 75-year, $3.8 billion deal--the biggest in American history--to lease the Indiana turnpike to a private consortium. Kaine knew his stuff (as did Daniels) and you got the sense that he was excited to be on the Hill, but not so much that he was overwhelmed by it. In his opening remarks, Kaine noted that Virginia manages the third largest highway system in the United...
By Steven Ginsberg | May 24, 2006; 12:54 PM ET | Comments (9)
