Originally Posted by
VA_Dave
I live on the outskirts of the DC Metro region, and there are two toll roads nearby (for all practical purposes they're the same road). One is owned by the state, and goes from the beltway to Dulles airport, and was supposed to become free once it had paid for itself. Yeah, right. The other, the Greenway, is private, and continues out to the "exurbs."
The Dulles Toll Road will cost you up to $1.25, depending on distance. The other will cost you nearly $4 even if you only ride it a mile. It's priced that way to discourage heavy use, so only those who can afford to throw over $2k a year away in tolls will use it daily. My take on this is that public ownership is for the people, while private ownership is for a profit. With all that we pay in taxes -- and we've got nothing on Canada or the U.K. -- there's no excuse for not being able to maintain the roads. I don't think we need new taxes, just better oversight on where our money is indeed going.
The kicker is this part in the original summary:
"But there are other devils lurking in the details, like noncompete clauses that may prevent transportation agencies from building new roads, or the inability to use roads for economic development by, say, adding a new exit to attract businesses."
Supposedly VA and the company that operates the Greenway have some sort of similar arrangement which to me is frigging nuts.
I agree with you - there's no reason this needs to be done except for bureaucratic incompetence. They're basically giving the road away for a big up-front cash outlay, after which the private company gets to collect tolls and make a big profit. OK. So instead, issue a bond, get the same cash up-front, collect the same toll, and pay less on the bond than the private corporation's equivalent profit. I'd rather pay 5% annually on a bond than sell the road to a company that will jack tolls up high enough to make double-digit profit.