They are taking away our open highways

[neverforget]

230. If? It's happening now. Corporations are buying roads because governments are strapped for cash

and they offer a quick fix.

http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/sites/default/files/Private%20Roads%20Public%20Costs%20(CO).pdf

Oh look! As soon as the corporations get in trouble, they ask the public for more money. Private profits, Public loss. Prepare to get fleeced like these states in the articles below. Corporation runs into trouble financially so they turn to the taxpayer to cover their loss. It's a win-win scenario for them. They own the roads AND get the taxpayers to make sure they make money. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me. That's why I am against toll roads.

Private Toll Road Investors Shift Revenue Risks to States

Companies that build private toll roads are pressing states to assume more financial risk of traffic not meeting expectations, a change that benefits the operators while threatening to increase taxpayer costs.

Illinois and Indiana are among states offering set payments instead of the right to keep toll revenue, the standard financing method in the past. A similar approach is being used in Florida to expand highways in Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, and by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for a bridge to Staten Island.

The new financing arrangement decreases the risk for operators, which include Madrid-based Ferrovial SA and Sydney-based Macquarie Atlas Roads Group, after at least 11 private U.S. toll projects since 1995 have struggled financially due to traffic not meeting projections.

“We are seeing more of that because investors are a bit skittish about the U.S. market,” said Richard Geddes, director of Cornell University’s Program in Infrastructure Policy in Ithaca, New York. “If it’s a new road, there is a lot of risk on how many vans, trucks, motorcycles and other vehicles will end up paying the tolls.”

Private Toll-Road Investors Get Low-Risk Deals From States

Private companies that invest in highways have typically shouldered the risk that income from tolls might not be enough to make the deal pay. Now, after at least 11 projects have struggled financially since 1995, the companies are persuading states to make fixed payments so it’s taxpayers who roll the dice. Under the arrangements, states receive toll revenue and have to cover any shortfall with money from their operating budgets. The terms typically call for the states to take over the roads after several decades. “It’s a very good idea to have private people provide roads,” says Gabriel Roth, a retired traffic consultant who has worked for the World Bank as a transportation economist. “But the condition in which the state pays up if there is no traffic is a disaster.”

In 2009, Florida agreed to pay private investors, including Madrid-based Actividades de Construcción y Servicios (ACS:SM) and pension fund TIAA-CREF, $66 million annually over 30 years to renovate an interstate highway near Fort Lauderdale and add toll lanes. The investors will also get payments of as much as $686 million linked to completing the project by June 2014. Without private investment, the state couldn’t have finished the project until the late 2020s, according to Paul Lampley, a construction manager for the Florida Department of Transportation. The arrangement will inflate Florida taxpayers’ costs by $13 million or save as much as $244 million, depending on which assumptions are used about construction costs and interest rates, according to the department. “With the financial crisis going on in 2008 and 2009, this structure made the deal close, despite all the turmoil,” says Leon Corbett, project finance manager at the department.

Illinois and Indiana are offering investors set payments instead of toll revenue to build roads. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is using similar financing to build a bridge to Staten Island from Elizabeth, N.J. “We are seeing more of that because investors are a bit skittish about the U.S. market,” says Richard Geddes, director of Cornell University’s program in infrastructure policy. “If it’s a new road, there is a lot of risk on how many vans, trucks, motorcycles, and other vehicles will end up paying the tolls.” There are at least six unannounced toll-road projects under discussion in which states would make fixed payments, says Peter Raymond, leader of U.S. capital projects and infrastructure at PricewaterhouseCoopers, which consults for companies building the roads. “For the financial community, it makes it much less risky and less costly,” he says. “It makes it easier for the concessionaires to get the deal done.”