More foreighn firms "invest" in US roads, bridges...

[TriSec]

Methinks this doesn't bode well...

DCScripts

Foreign Firms invest in US highways & bridges

WASHINGTON -- Roads and bridges built by US taxpayers are starting to be sold off, and so far foreign-owned companies are doing the buying.

On a single day in June, an Australian-Spanish partnership paid $3.8 billion to lease the Indiana Toll Road.

An Australian company bought a 99-year lease on Virginia's Pocahontas Parkway, and Texas officials decided to let a Spanish-American partnership build and run a toll road from Austin to Seguin for 50 years.

Few people know that the tolls from the US side of the tunnel between Detroit and Windsor, Canada, go to a subsidiary of an Australian company, which also owns a bridge in Alabama.

Some analysts welcome the trend. Robert Poole, transportation director for the conservative think tank Reason Foundation, said private investors can raise more money than politicians to build new roads because these kind of owners are willing to raise tolls.

``They depoliticize the tolling decision," Poole said. Besides, he said, foreign companies have purchased infrastructure in Europe for years; only now are US companies beginning to get into the business of buying roads and bridges

[WCGreen]

1. Well, if they want to segregate the poor folks....

You know, when the troubles start....

They will be able to "police" access to where the rich folks live by hiring thugs and goons to be "private" police .....

And with the schools being more and more economicaly segregated, where else are people going to mingle...

[Pithlet]

2. Duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2391691&mesg_id=2391691