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Can you say, "Big Dig"? The way we'll know is when the cost overruns begin -- or when the toll increases start...

Toll roads in Texas have tended to be just the opposite. They get built faster and significantly under budget compared to public sector projects. The Hardy toll road in Houston is a good example of that. It was finished a year ahead of schedule and $50 million under budget. I've never seen state owned highways that got built as fast.

The "Big Dig" is a financed by the federal fuel taxes paid by drivers all over the US. At least with toll roads, the money doesn't get allocated according to which senator has seniority or which one is the party leader. I wonder how many people have died in other states due to the diversion of highway funds away from them postponement or cancellation of highway improvements.

"Toll roads in Texas have tended to be just the opposite. They get built faster and significantly under budget compared to public sector projects."

If it were only that simple, when you have back-room deals with Cintra. As the Canadians learned the hard way, there is no way to have a functional "free" highway system operating operating in parallel with privately run and protected toll roads. These toll roads will not get built UNLESS improvement of the "free" roads is stopped dead in its tracks, as is exactly what happened in Ontario. It was real easy in that case - the deal with Cintra was that any parallel improvement that reduces revenue to Cintra (i.e., maybe a widened, or even repaved?, I-35) means Cintra gets compensated for the next 50 years. The bottom line - I-35 is either left to wither on the vine, or tolls get charged on I-35, and all of that toll money goes to Cintra.

That, my friends, is simply a sellout.

There are other options.