Corporate Expressways, Brought to You by Macquarie and Transurban

[antigop]

The road to corporate control is paved with high tolls and non-compete clauses.

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/11/12301/corporate-expressways-brought-you-macqaurie-and-transurban

At ALEC’s 40th anniversary party in Chicago this past August, the corporate lobbyists and legislators on the Commerce, Insurance, and Economic Development Task Force brushed off a statement of principles on transportation urging “a market-driven highway system” that operates “on a user-pays basis.”

ALEC’s vision would implement a fractured system of toll roads crisscrossing the country, with the proceeds going directly into the coffers of private corporations and their shareholders. This is a far cry from Eisenhower’s vision of “mighty network of highways spread across our country” seamlessly enhancing the nation’s economy, public safety and the national defense.

It is not surprising that the same corporations that benefit from road privatization were at the table spearheading this extreme outsourcing agenda.

Geoff Segal, Senior Vice President of the Australian firm Macquarie, is the private sector chair of ALEC's Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee. At ALEC's 2011 Annual Meeting, for example, Segal introduced the "Establishing a Public Private Partnership (P3) Authority Act" as a “model” bill to promote the privatization of public assets.

The bill calls for an unelected committee to serve as a one-stop-shop for the privatization of any public service. Segal also moderated a panel at that meeting called "Tapping the Private Sector to Save Money and Improve Performance," and was featured in the 2012 edition of the "Inside ALEC" magazine urging privatization of roads, bridges and other public assets. Already, Macquarie runs Chicago’s Skyway and Indiana’s Toll Road; it has a stake in Acquarion a private, for-profit water service provider in New England, and continues to put skycaps out of work with its acquisition of airport baggage cart company “Smarte Carte.”

[Blue_Tires]

1. kick for truth

[Blue Meany]

2. This might have some unintended consequences for the privateers

Trucks hauling cargo create a disproprotionate amount of damage to roads; since this is paid for mainly by tax-payers, this amounts to a substantial subsidy for the trucking industry (and indirectly to truck and tire manufacturers and oil companies) without which they would not be able to compete with railroad transport, wherever that is available. I doubt private road owners will want to continue these subsidies, so privatized highways might result in a shift to shipping by rail. With rail shipping increased, the companies might be better positioned to re-enter the passenger rail market, for which a there would be an increased market as a result of toll road.

This would actually be a positive outcome, but I suspect that, instead, the oil and auto industries would intervene to prevent the private highways from getting too far along.

[pscot]

3. Macquarie bought up Puget Sound energy

a few years back. At the time there was a ballot referendum to turn PSE into a publicly owned co-op instead of selling it. The voters, in an act of consummate folly, voted no. PSE had $140 million reserve fund and employed its own maintenance crews at the time. Maintenance is now contracted out and I'd bet that reserve fund has been paid out to the big players as "dividends".