Recently in Transportation Category

Source: By Eric M. Weiss, Washington Post, Monday, October 23, 2006

A privately backed plan to build express toll lanes on the Virginia portion of the Capital Beltway, which was promoted as a way to ease traffic without using taxpayer money, has become so expensive that the firms behind the project could require more than $100 million in public funds to make it work, according to state transportation officials. ……. Virginia and Maryland leaders have been counting on privately funded highways as a quick, cheap way to ease congestion when there is little public money to build big projects. Now the changes in the Beltway plan, as well as delays in a similar project on Interstates 95 and 395, have politicians and transportation officials wary. "I think it demonstrates the risks involved in seeing privatization as a panacea," said Gerald E. Connolly (D), chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.

Source: By KAREN RICHARDSON, Wall Street Journal (subscription req.), October 21, 2006

........ Using his knowledge as a public official, he helped companies bid for municipal contracts. Two big-name clients were M.R. Beal & Co., a minority-owned New York investment bank, and Waste Management Inc., a giant garbage-hauling company based in Houston.

Municipal contracting has expanded rapidly in recent years as cities turned to private companies to provide basic services. Last year municipalities issued $408 billion in bonds to pay for filling potholes, laying sewers, wiring street lights and picking up trash -- nearly double the sum of a decade earlier. It is a business notorious for corruption, in part because of the clubby nature of city governments.

Source: BY CHARLES THOMPSON, The Patriot-News (PA), Wednesday, October 18, 2006

No slow toll collections. Special overnight rates for trucks. Time-of-day pricing to encourage motorists to drive other than during rush hours. All are some of the measures in use on privately managed highways around America. Within the next week or so, an Altoona lawmaker will introduce legislation he sees as the first step toward coaxing more of those efficiencies in Pennsylvania while filling a transportation funding gap.

Source: MICHAEL J. O'BRIEN, president of the Connecticut State Employees Association 2001 SEIU Local 2001, Hartford Courant (CT), October 12 2006

A year ago, our union released a report, titled "Highway Robbery," (.pdf) detailing the abuses of contracting out inspection and design work to consulting engineers by the state Department of Transportation. This report detailed the DOT's practice of wholesale contracting-out of inspection and design work, wasting at least $7 million a year and lessening accountability for state designs, construction and inspections of roadways and bridges.

Source: By Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA), Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Privatization of Pittsburgh's repair garage hasn't saved much money or improved service, acting city Controller Tony Pokora said yesterday. Because the city underestimated the costs of vehicle repair, it must pay $1 million more than budgeted this year, and $3.5 million more than anticipated over the following two years, he said upon release of an audit of the garage. The privatization effort, launched by former Mayor Tom Murphy, "is a failure if we look at the numbers across the board," he said. "We're seeing problems consistent with when the city operated" the garage.

...... First Vehicle Services of Cincinnati, which took over the garage from the city in February 2005, issued a 35-page rebuttal.

Source: By JAY MILLER, Crain's Cleveland Business, 3:01 pm, September 13, 2006

Ken Blackwell, the Republican candidate for governor, has been talking about privatizing the Ohio Turnpike on the campaign trail, and now a nonprofit organization has been created to jump on the bandwagon. Road to Work Ohio will meet with legislators, community leaders and others to promote selling or leasing the 51-year-old highway.

Source: By Chuck Sweeny, ROCKFORD REGISTER STAR (IL), August 30, 2006

SOUTH BELOIT — Gov. Rod Blagojevich, moments before giving the green light to open-road tolling at the South Beloit toll plaza, said he’s solidly against selling the Illinois Tollway to a private consortium. “We’re not going to sell the tollway. I’m not interested in that, for several reasons. We’ve done a lot of great things at the tollway to help commuters get to where they want to go faster. One of the problems with privatizing the tollway is the private companies whose motivation is to raise profits. They’re apt to raise tolls, and they may be less interested in maintaining the infrastructure,” said Blagojevich, a Democrat in his first term.

Source: NPR Morning Edition, August 23, 2006

With the encouragement of Washington, local and state governments are privatizing roads. Chicago has leased its Skyway to an Australian-Spanish firm for nearly $2 billion. And Indiana has leased its entire toll-road system to the same company for nearly $4 billion. Kathy Schalch reports.

Source: Carmen Paige, Pensacola News Journal (FL), August, 17, 2006

An unusually high number of complaints about school bus transportation has some Santa Rosa County School Board members disappointed and looking for answers. Board members have scheduled a workshop today with district officials to try to iron out bus problems, such as children being picked up or delivered home late. The problems have been attributed to a lack of drivers and route changes. "I've been disappointed because we have Laidlaw, and their job is to address drivers and routes," said Diane Coleman, School Board chairwoman. "I want to be sure they are doing what we hired them to do."

Source: Tri City Herald (WA), Thursday, July 20th, 2006

Selling assets to solve a cash-flow problem might bring temporary relief, but it's no way to run a business. It's an even worse way to run a country. …… While some experts believe privatizing roads and bridges is a good way to give a budget boost to the government, something seems instinctively wrong with the practice. It isn't right, or fair, for Americans to pay tolls to foreign companies for the use of roads and bridges they've already paid for with taxes. ….. Someone ought to set out the flares and slow down this scary practice before it zooms out of control.