Recently in Transportation Category

Source: By Tom Barnes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA), Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Advisers to Gov. Ed Rendell say the state could rake in up to $18 billion by leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike to a private operator for 30 years, which in turn could produce funding for fixing miles of roads and hundreds of bridges and even generate enough money to bail out mass transit agencies.

Source: by Pam Fessler, National Public Radio Morning Edition, May 21, 2007

The busiest border crossing between the United States and Canada — the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit — is privately owned. It carries one-quarter of all trade between the two countries, worth about $100 billion a year. But government inspectors have limited access to the bridge, and it's not clear who is in charge of making sure it doesn't become a terrorist target.

......One of the big issues is security. Gregg Ward, who runs a nearby ferry for trucks that carry hazardous materials, is disturbed that uninspected trucks are allowed to park underneath the base of the Ambassador. They park there while truckers shop at the bridge's duty-free store on the American side.

....... A spokesman for the Federal Highway Administration says his agency has raised concerns about the trucks with Moroun, but it doesn't have jurisdiction. Neither does the federal agency that oversees the transportation of hazardous materials. Nor does the Coast Guard. Nor does the Michigan State Police.

Source: By Dale Kasler, Sacramento Bee (CA), Friday, May 18, 2007

If California tries to lease its state lottery to private investors or unload a state-owned student-loan business, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposes, there will likely be no shortage of interested parties. Providing capital to a growing privatization movement, investors are offering billions for state lotteries, toll roads and other government-owned assets nationwide.

Source: By Kevin Flynn, Rocky Mountain News (CO), May 19, 2007

FasTracks is nearly $1.5 billion over its original $4.7 billion budget, forcing RTD to look even more closely at hiring private companies to build and operate rail lines.

Source: National Association of State Highway and Transportation Unions

NASHTU has provided links to reports on transportation privatization from a variety of sources.

Source: Indianapolis Star, May 14, 2007

Stephen Goldsmith, who championed privatization as mayor of Indianapolis for two terms in the 1990s, has joined an investment company with money to spend on government assets. Goldsmith will work for CapitalSource, a commercial lender and investment business in Chevy Chase, Md., as director of its new Infrastructure Finance and Investment Group, a news release said. ……. "The new group will focus on acquiring and financing long-life infrastructure assets -- transportation, utility or recreation -- across the United States," the company said.

Source: Houston Chronicle, April 29, 2007, 10:17PM

…… Fearful that Texas drivers will wind up padding private investors' pockets to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, the Texas Senate last week approved a two-year moratorium on private financing of toll roads. The measure goes to the House, which can accept it or negotiate a compromise with its own transportation bill.

Source: By Emily Thornton, Business Week, MAY 7, 2007

……With state and local leaders scrambling for cash to solve short-term fiscal problems, the conditions are ripe for an unprecedented burst of buying and selling. All told, some $100 billion worth of public property could change hands in the next two years, up from less than $7 billion over the past two years; a lease for the Pennsylvania Turnpike could go for more than $30 billion all by itself. "There's a lot of value trapped in these assets," says Mark Florian, head of North American infrastructure banking at Goldman, Sachs & Co (GS ).

There are some advantages to private control of roads, utilities, lotteries, parking garages, water systems, airports, and other properties. To pay for upkeep, private firms can raise rates at the tollbooth without fear of being penalized in the voting booth. Privateers are also freer to experiment with ideas like peak pricing, a market-based approach to relieving traffic jams. And governments are making use of the cash they're pulling in—balancing budgets, retiring debt, investing in social programs, and on and on. But are investors getting an even better deal? It's a question with major policy implications as governments relinquish control of major public assets for years to come.

Source: By Nikita Stewart and Yolanda Woodlee, Washington Post, Tuesday, March 13, 2007

About half of the 50 red-light enforcement cameras in the District have been out of service in recent months, giving a pass to drivers and potentially depriving the city of millions of dollars in fines, according to a firm that has taken over the system.

……. Although officials were not able to estimate the amount of lost revenue, the city has collected more than $40 million in fines from drivers photographed running red lights from August 1999 to January, according to the D.C. police Web site. More than $128 million has been collected for speeding violations in the automated system since 2001. The cameras were managed during that time by a rival to ATS, Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services, or ACS, which was criticized recently in a city audit for its poor management of the city's 16,500 parking meters.

Source: Land Line Magazine, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2007

Monday, Feb. 5, President Bush unveiled a $67 billion funding request for transportation in his 2007-08 budget. ……. The U.S. Department of Transportation has had public-private partnerships on its agenda for quite some time, even recently providing model legislation for states seeking to privatize their highways and toll roads. Joyce said that agenda will likely be furthered later this week with an event scheduled at the White House. Friday, Feb. 9, the White House has scheduled a meeting that is billed as a “Transportation Legislative Leadership Summit.” The keynote address will be given by Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters, her topic – public-private partnerships. Participants in that summit include privatization notables such as Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and private-sector representatives from companies like Australia’s Macquarie Infrastructure Group and New York-based Merrill Lynch.