View Single Post
  #13  
Old Posted Jul 28, 2007, 10:11 PM
MarkDaMan's Avatar
MarkDaMan MarkDaMan is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Portland
Posts: 7,508
^there is ABSOLUTELY no reason a private company should have control to toll public roads. If a private company wants to purchase right of ways, build a roadway, and toll the hell out of it, all the more power too them But I have to agree with Rep. DeFazio in this Blue Oregon article.

Quote:
In the Mother Jones article, they point to the toll road scandal in Indiana -- where Republican Governor Mitch Daniels gave a multinational company the rights to charge tolls for 75 years. There's an extensive segment with Congressman Peter DeFazio -- due to become the chairman of the Highway and Transit Subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Here's that clip:

The hearing was a fairly docile affair—that is, until Oregon's Peter DeFazio, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, got his turn questioning [Governor Mitch] Daniels. "So you're saying that there's no political will to raise the tolls," he began, "but if you enter into a binding contract which gives a private entity the right to infinitely raise tolls, then that'll happen—but politically you couldn't say we're going to go out and raise the tolls."

"Well, you're a busy man, Congressman," Daniels responded dryly. "I don't expect you to understand our state."

"No, sir. I'm just asking a question," DeFazio shot back, his voice rising. "Are we outsourcing political will to a private entity here?"

When DeFazio spoke with Mother Jones months later, he was still seething. Daniels, he said, "just screwed the state of Indiana and the people of the state of Indiana." In his view, mig-Cintra has "a license to print money here. They do the deal, put money up front, turn around and go to a bank, which will gladly give them whatever they want, and pay themselves back, and they are left with equity and debt. They are projecting that they already would have broken even around the 15th year. So we've committed an asset for 75 years and after 15 years the state could have been making money on it."

DeFazio continued, "When you look at the Chicago Skyway, that's even worse. They are not even reinvesting the proceeds of the sale in transportation. They're using them for operating costs. That would be like anybody selling their assets in order to live. You can't sell your assets very long to put food on the table—before long you're out of assets. Chicago has sold an asset, which will be extraordinarily profitable for the company that got it."

DeFazio's take harkens back to Eisenhower and his vision of a national highway system as vital to economic development, commerce, and even national security. "It's a scam, basically," he says. "And you lose control of your transportation infrastructure. It means you fragment the system ultimately. It just does not make sense for an integrated national transportation system."
http://www.blueoregon.com/2006/12/peter_defazio_i.html


Once the roadway is congested enough, or failing, the residents will eventually tax themselves, or allow a public agency to toll, to fund the upgrade or risk having the highway completely shut down.
__________________
make paradise, tear up a parking lot
Reply With Quote