The Stealth Privatization of Pennsylvania's Bridges

[n2doc]

At midnight of January 20, 2014, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced that the administration of Gov. Tom Corbett finally decided to take action on the state's crumbling bridges. The action it is taking is to sign a 40-year contract to privatize Pennsylvania bridges.

The word privatization does not appear in any of the announcements. Instead, PennDOT refers to the project as a public-private partnership. However, whether called a PPP, P3, public-private partnership, contracting out or privatization, the result is the same. Infrastructure privatization - that is privatization of roads, bridges, parking garages, parking meters, airports and the like - involves signing a contract, generally for a term of 30 to 99 years.

In the case of Pennsylvania's bridges, the private contractor takes on responsibility for designing, constructing, financing and operating bridges for up to 40 years. [PennDOT, McCalls] Experience with infrastructure privatization shows what we can expect as the bridge privatization proceeds.

Pennsylvania will hire a privatization industry insider as a consultant to advise the state. International firms such as Mayer Brown, Morgan Stanley and Macquarie frequently are hired to act as the consultant and, in other cases, will sit on the other side of the table as the private contractor. Consultants often are paid a "success fee" if a privatization agreement is reached. The success fee will motivate the adviser to recommend privatizing.

more
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/21513-the-stealth-privatization-of-pennsylvanias-bridges

[factsarenotfair]

1. OMG. He's going to make sure that PA is screwed no matter who succeeds him.

[pscot]

2. Ah the beauties of Democracy

Pennsylvanians are getting what they voted for, good and hard.

[blue neen]

4. Some of us DID NOT vote for Corporate Corbett.

We have to suffer, all the same.

[ebbie15644]

3. WTF then why are we paying such a high gas tax! What an asshat!

[Curmudgeoness]

6. You said a mouthful there. Exactly! nt

[JPZenger]

5. Unusual

It has become common to have "design-build" contracts where one firm is responsible for taking care of all aspects of a project from design to completion. This is unusual to have a private firm own the bridge for 40 years. Why would they want to agree to do that, unless they collect tolls?


There is a mixed history about private ownership of toll roads. The Dulles "Greenway" in No. Va. I believe went bankrupt under the first owner. Now the tolls are so high that few people use it.