Recently in Transportation Category

Source: By THEODORE KIM, The Dallas Morning News, Sunday, October 19, 2008

The welcome signs still say "Indiana." The truck stops sell the same greasy hamburgers. And the road still carries thousands of drivers daily across the far northern part of the state between Ohio and Illinois. But motorists on the 157-mile Indiana Toll Road have noticed one big difference since it came into private hands: They are paying higher tolls for the first time since 1985. Fees for cash-paying car motorists who drive the whole road nearly doubled recently. Truckers pay even more. Toll rates, which the state partially regulates, are expected to double again within 10 years.

...... Texans need look no further than the Hoosier State for a glimpse at what private toll roads might mean for them. While the models are different, the concept is the same. Texas is looking at private firms to build and run new roads, while Indiana privatized a highway that opened in the 1950s. But both states are outsourcing toll roads in exchange for upfront cash, using that money to build new highways.

Source: Dan Mihalopoulos at 1:55 p.m., Chicago Tribune (IL), September 30, 2008

Mayor Richard Daley said today the city has accepted a bid to lease Midway Airport to a private operator in a deal that will bring in $1 billion for city coffers. But the tentative deal is not expected to solve Chicago's current budget woes.

Source: By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette (PA), Friday, September 12, 2008

The federal government's rejection yesterday of a plan to put tolls on Interstate 80 means Pennsylvania is facing a transportation "crisis," and heightens the need for the Legislature to quickly approve a private bid to operate the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Gov. Ed Rendell said.

Mr. Rendell said yesterday he doesn't think the $12.8 billion lease offer from a consortium of New York-based Citigroup and the Spanish firm Abertis "will stay on the table past Jan. 1. It would be playing Russian roulette for the Legislature not to act [this fall] on the Abertis proposal."

Source: By JENNY ANDERSON, New York Times, August 27, 2008

Cleaning up road kill and maintaining runways may not sound like cutting-edge investments. But banks and funds with big money seem to think so. Reeling from more exotic investments that imploded during the credit crisis, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the Carlyle Group, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse are among the investors who have amassed an estimated $250 billion war chest -- much of it raised in the last two years -- to finance a tidal wave of infrastructure projects in the United States and overseas.

Their strategy is gaining steam in the United States as federal, state and local governments previously wary of private funds struggle under mounting deficits that have curbed their ability to improve crumbling roads, bridges and even airports with taxpayer money.

Source: Reuters, Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:53pm EDT

Texas-based funds could invest directly in transportation projects through a new corporation under a plan unveiled on Thursday by the state's legislative leaders and the governor. Texas has the nation's biggest road privatization plan but the legislature, reacting to criticisms that developers were enriching themselves at the expense of taxpayers, enacted a two-year moratorium. That has crimped planned road-building projects though investment banks and developers have expressed keen interest in them.

Source: By DEBBIE PALINSKY, Star Beacon (OH), August 25, 2008 11:34 pm

Bus delays and problems Monday morning and afternoon for the Madison Local School District with the private bus company Community Bus Services were called "unacceptable" by many furious parents who made many angry calls to the schools and the transportation department.

......... Michelle Popovich said she was willing to give CBS the benefit of doubt and realized that delays are normal for the first day of school, but found the delays on Monday ridiculous.

........ Madison's school board hired CBS to transport students after negotiations broke down with the Ohio Association of Public School Employees Local 238, representing district bus drivers.

Source: By CRAIG KARMIN, Wall Street Journal (subscription req.), August 26, 2008

Hobbled by the credit crisis, Wall Street firms and many state governments are hoping that a pockmarked strip of Pennsylvania highway could provide a road out. Next month, the Pennsylvania legislature is expected to vote on a $12.8 billion deal struck between the governor and a group of private investors to lease America's oldest major toll road, the 537-mile Pennsylvania Turnpike. If it passes, the deal would be by far the largest ever of its kind in the U.S. Under these arrangements, known as public-private partnerships, investors lease or buy roads, bridges or other infrastructure, operate them independently and collect tolls.

A green light in Pennsylvania could bolster the political will of officials in other states trying to hash out similar deals. That in turn could jump-start projects in waiting, from Florida's Alligator Alley to Chicago's Midway Airport. Last month, New York Gov. David Paterson urged legislators to consider leasing some of his state's roads, bridges and tunnels to help shrink a budget deficit projected at $26.2 billion by 2011.

Source: US Dept of Transportation news release, Tuesday, July 22, 2008

The number of public-private partnerships in the U.S. transportation sector has soared to record levels in recent years and continues to climb, according to a new Department study, announced today by U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters.

"This nationwide trend on the part of state and local governments is further proof that innovative approaches to financing and managing transportation are increasingly attractive compared to traditional tax and spend methods," Secretary Peters said. "States and local governments across the country are recognizing public-private partnerships are an effective means to deliver transportation projects."

The new report found that more transportation public-private partnerships were completed over the last three years than in any other compatible time period in history. According to the report, more than 20 major highway and transit projects are currently being conducted in partnership with the private sector at various stages of development in the United States.

Source: Reuters, Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:53pm EDT

Texas-based funds could invest directly in transportation projects through a new corporation under a plan unveiled on Thursday by the state's legislative leaders and the governor.

Texas has the nation's biggest road privatization plan but the legislature, reacting to criticisms that developers were enriching themselves at the expense of taxpayers, enacted a two-year moratorium.

That has crimped planned road-building projects though investment banks and developers have expressed keen interest in them.

Source: BY FRAN SPIELMAN, Chicago Sun Times (IL), August 8, 2008

The Daley administration is negotiating with a private contractor to take over random drug and alcohol testing of city employees with commercial driver's licenses after the city's in-house program inadvertently excluded more than 800 truck drivers.