Taking a toll on our highway system

[Staff]

I have a photo, from 1956, of a truck making its way through a Kansas Turnpike toll plaza. The truck, emblazoned with the Graves Trucking logo, belonged to my father's company.

As it turns out, 1956 was the year that the Kansas Turnpike opened. The project predated the Federal-Aid Highway Act -- President Eisenhower's historic initiative. In those days, a toll road was one of very few options available to states to build a freeway. Fifty years later, toll roads are surging in popularity -- but as a quick fix for state financial woes.

With state budget shortfalls and a general unwillingness to raise taxes, state politicians are flocking to private investors for the highway equivalent of the payday loan.

In 2005, Chicago leased Interstate 90 to the Australian Macquarie Infrastructure Group and Spanish Cintra for $1.83 billion to pay off city debt and fund nontransportation projects. In 2006, Indiana leased the Indiana Toll Road to the same firms for $3.85 billion. Gov. Ed Rendell recently asked for expressions of interest to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike for as much as $16 billion. Other deals are in the works.

(Cintra and Zachry Construction of San Antonio are proposing to use $6 billion in private investment to build a 316-mile, four-lane toll road -- the Trans-Texas Corridor-35 -- from Dallas-Fort Worth to San Antonio and pay a $1.2 billion concession to the state. Cintra-Zachry would collect tolls for 50 years.)

It is easy to see why this new scheme is tempting to politicians. The nation's highway system needs to grow and be maintained, but states are facing crushing debt loads. Funds to relieve these problems must come from somewhere.

But the United States cannot maintain a national highway network if key segments are leased to the highest bidder. More than money is at stake. Leasing roadways allows states only to postpone, not solve, their budget problems -- and without understanding the long-term implications.

Source: star telegram (more)