March 2008

Remember that federal grant that Seattle received last summer to study tolling on 520? The Washington Post has a story on the program behind it, which is part of a larger effort on the part of the Bush Administration to privatize roads:

When Democrats took control of Congress and stripped most earmarks from last year’s federal budget, Peters took $850 million that would have been shipped to hundreds of municipalities and poured it into Urban Partnerships, a pilot program awarded to five cities on the condition that they test congestion pricing.

The focus on toll roads alarmed the transit industry, which argues that public transportation is the best way to fight gridlock in cities. Industry leaders say the DOT has made it increasingly difficult for expensive rail projects to qualify for federal dollars. The number of major new rail and bus projects on track for federal funding dropped from 48 in 2001 to 17 in 2007, even as transit ridership hit a 50-year high last year and demand for new service is soaring.

William Millar, who heads the American Public Transportation Association, says he set up three appointments with Duvall to try to influence how the Urban Partnership money would be spent, but each was cancelled. “They just see no role for transit,” Millar said.

I think congestion pricing of some sort is inevitable, and probably a good idea in the long run, but we have to keep in mind that once you’ve moved to a tax-supported infrastructure to a fee-supported infrastructure, the next logical step can be to privatize the whole darn thing. This is one reason why environmentalists oppose use fees for parks: once you’ve created a consistent revenue stream, sooner or later it makes sense to let the Mariott Corporation, say, come in to run Yellowstone and collect the fees.

In other words, we need to tread carefully here. That’s not to say that tolls are impossible. After all, highways on the East Coast have been tolled for decades and have still stayed within public ownership. But beware the words “public-private parntership,” which can often lead to a whole lot of public funds going to enrich private companies with little emphasis on what the public’s getting in return. But don’t take my word for it, listen to the GAO:

Public distrust of privatization, however, remains high. Republicans lost control of the Indiana state legislature in 2006 partly because of controversy over the governor’s lease of a public highway to Macquarie. Political opposition has also forced governors in New Jersey and Pennsylvania to suspend plans to lease roads. Texas lawmakers put a two-year freeze on the governor’s strategy to privatize a 4,000-mile network of tolled highways.

Last month, the Government Accountability Office warned that tolls on privatized roads are typically higher than if the roads remain under public control, because of the need to generate steady profits for private investors. The report said the federal government needs to better protect the public interest.

“This is all about making money,” said Frank Busalacchi, the Wisconsin transportation secretary and a member of a congressionally chartered commission that last year studied transportation funding and supported raising the gas tax. “The financiers, bankers, people coming in — the foreign dollars coming in and buying infrastructure in this country that American people put down.”