Indiana privatizing toll road - I think it's shit. What do you think?

[Rabrrrrrr]

Here's a summary:

http://www.in.gov/gov/majormoves/lease.html

Here's an article:

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/editorial/13795521.htm

The transaction occurs thousands of times every day. For $4.65 you can drive all the way across Indiana. That's the deal on Interstate Highway 90, the Indiana Toll Road.

But the deal could change in big ways - some known, some unknown - if Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels succeeds in the most aggressive highway privatization venture in the country: turning day-to-day management of the 157-mile tollway over to Australian and Spanish operators for the next 75 years, in exchange for an upfront payment of $3.85 billion.

In recent years, local and state governments have slowly moved toward privatization of public services. Cities have contracted with local companies to run their water systems. A private company owns and operates a 14-mile highway linking Washington's Dulles International Airport to Leesburg, Va. In late 2004, Chicago collected $1.8 billion by turning over control of the 8-mile Chicago Skyway to a private company - the same one involved in the Indiana proposal - for 99 years.

This is just awful, braindead, foul idiocy; if they go ahead with this, the state is gonna be so fucking screwed they will wonder what the hell happened. And this is the only northern path between Chicago and Ohio, too, which means not only are Hoosiers gonna be fucked, lots of others are gonna get fucked, while the company owning the road grows fatter and fatter and fatter.

Stupid fucking privatizing dumbasses.

A 75 year lease - fuck, if I could come up with 4 billion, I'd start buying road systems, too. What a fucking cash cow!

[JitterbugPerfume]

1. I have lived in Indiana most of my life

and I am here to tell you INDIANA is shit , The toll road thingy is just a symptom

[Rabrrrrrr]

4. I didn't want to insult Indiana, but yes, it is a shit state.

My cousins there hate it, and my few friends who grew up in Indiana and still live there have always, and continue to, hated it.

Indiana really is a singularly odd state - it doesn't have the rampant racist kind of ignorant intelligence-fearing Christianity of the south, but it does have something sort of weirdly similar, mixed in with a weird kind of non-progressive progressiveness, some northern/midweswtern social pragmatism, and an odd sense of self.

In all my travels and studies of other states, I do place Indiana as the only state (besides Hawaii, but that's more like a foreign country than anything "odd") that stands truly unique and unlike any of the others. Odd mix of religion, politics, frontierism, intellectualism, and ignorance.

[bif]

2. Toll roads should be outlawed.

Never could understand it. I-80 is an Interstate Highway. So why do they get to charge a toll?

[Hugin]

3. It's the right winger's Holy Grail...

I can remember them talking about privatizing the Interstate system at least
as far back as Reagan.

It has to do with Ayn Rand.

In my opinion it violates the spirit of the U.S. Constitution at least as far
as the second Continental Congress which was held more or less to address the
issue of interstate trade and tariffs.

[Nikia]

5. Living in a state without a toll way, I would prefer a toll

If it meant a road that was always in good repair and overall lower taxes. I have more state tax witheld from my paycheck than Federal tax. When I lived in Ohio, it was the opposite. Roads are expensive.

[Deja Q]

6. Upfront? If peak oil is real, someone's about to be guilty of a swindle.

Dunno if I should laugh or cry. The Spaniards are usually sensible, but the Australians are a penal colony! I'm sure the Aussies would fall for it. I recall the car a couple months' back with the "W '04" logo shaped like a road sign, combined with a sticker readijng "Smart women vote"...

[yellowdogintexas]

7. bet you still can't get to Indy from Evansville without going

through TerreHaute.

There is no direct route from southwestern Indiana to the state capitol. They have been trying to get that damn diagonal road built for ever.

Even a decent 2 lane as long as it was a straight line would be preferable to what we used to have to do..

so did they ever build that road, any one?