New Misinformation on Public-Private Partnerships
Anticipation that the Trump Administration’s trillion-dollar infrastructure plan will be based largely on long-term public-private partnerships (P3s) has led to a number of attacks on the P3 concept, most of which either fail to understand what it is or deliberately misrepresent it.
Rights and Wrongs of Interstate Tolling
Rights and Wrongs of Interstate TollingThe prospect of a $1 trillion federal infrastructure program has led to numerous hands out for pieces of the action. Some officials are presenting the mismanagement of their highway systems (“years of under-investment” in South Carolina; “crumbling roads” due to underfunding in Mississippi) as a reason why someone else should […]
Progress on Trucks and Tolling?
Politico reported last week (Feb. 8th) on an interview with Chris Spear, the relatively new CEO of the American Trucking Associations. Spear told Politico that ATA sees room to compromise on toll finance—for newly constructed roads or bridges. But he drew the line on tolls for “existing roads that we’ve already paid for.” The previous […]
Infrastructure Wish Lists vs. Sound Investments
The months since Election Day have brought forth a proliferation of lists of “needed” infrastructure projects. First came the Treasury’s list of 40 mega-projects that I critiqued last month. This was followed in short order by a list of 50 projects that was presented as if it came from the new Trump Administration (but was […]
Removing Federal Barriers to P3 Infrastructure Investment
The Trump campaign proposed a $1 trillion program to foster private investment in aging public-sector infrastructure. According to a proposal by Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro, eligible projects would be large-scale infrastructure that has, or could have, robust user-fee revenue streams. Revenue-based financing (equity and debt) would be used to raise the needed capital up-front, […]
A Careful Look at the Trump Infrastructure Proposal
Since the November 8th election, a flurry of media attention has been devoted to the “Trump infrastructure plan.” As I pointed out in my column in the November Public Works Financing, three separate proposals have been made by people involved with the campaign or the transition: a $550 billion number with no details on how […]
The China Syndrome
Conventional wisdom in the U.S. transportation infrastructure community is that our infrastructure is “crumbling,” and that China shows the way forward by “spending more on infrastructure each year than North America and Western Europe combined.” This has also been a theme of economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman in recent years. The comparison […]
Toll Road Reorganization Unleashes Critics of Tolling and Concessions
Back in March the portion of the Texas SH 130 toll road that was developed as a public-private partnership (P3) concession filed for bankruptcy, since toll revenue had not recovered enough post-recession to cover its debt service. And last month, the SH 130 Concession Company filed a bankruptcy plan in federal court, transferring ownership to […]
Managed Lanes Maturing, Adding New Locations
In my June column in Public Works Financing, I wrote about two ongoing developments in the evolution of priced managed lanes. First, a growing number of projects now require at least three people in the vehicle to qualify for free passage; 10 such projects are in operation, with more under construction (such as the I-77 […]
What is Behind the Great Transit Crackup?
This year has seen a plethora of major troubles in legacy transit cities—Boston, San Francisco, and Washington, DC in particular (but there are also serious deferred maintenance problems in Chicago and Miami). In addition, there were major disruptions within the American Public Transit Association, the trade association for nearly all of America’s public transit systems. […]