Anybody got any dimes?
Posted on 07/24/2010 4:20:59 PM PDT by Willie Green
Private investors to build large-scale for-profit toll
Faced with growing highway congestion and a lack of tax money for road projects, Texas is turning to a group of investors to build private toll roads as a way to ease the gridlock.
Construction is set to start soon on two such projects -- the North Tarrant Express along Loop 820 and Highways 183 and 121 in Tarrant County and the LBJ Express along Highway 635 in North Dallas.
Critics say the move amounts to a privatization of an essential government function -- building and maintaining highways -- and that drivers will end up paying far more in the long run.
Backers of the idea say the state has few other options in a time of whopping budget deficits.
"We provide the funding to actually build this project,” said Robert Hinkle, spokesman for NTE Mobility Partners, which represents a number of companies involved in the project. “We bring it to fruition in less than five years, we open the road, we manage it and operate it for the 52-year contract.”
The state does provide roughly a quarter of the upfront money, he said.
The investors, led by a Spanish company called Cintra, collect the tolls over those 52 years and keep the profits.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcdfw.com ...
ping
“broke” texas was named the top state in the country for business. nit-picking on roads is missing the point.
Yeah, if Texas is “broke” then states like California and New York should be “deceased”.
Highway taxes have been largely collected by the feds and redistributed by them. Lately, Texas has been told they’ve been in the pipeline for public highway funds in the latter half of the decade and Texas is saying “we can’t wait that long” so they have been looking at a number of alternatives to get more highways built faster and that has included privately-financed toll roads.
Texas is far better off financially than most states of their size. That they haven’t chosen to invest in highways with state tax money is no sign that they are “broke”.
And STILL BETTER THAN RAIL...
michigan probably has great roads. or at least constant work on their roads. and it’s still an economic wasteland.
For you conspiracy theorists out there, Cintra was also the company Gov. Perry had enlisted to build the Trans-Texas Corridor which now appears dead in the water.
Anybody got any dimes?
Do you live in Michigan? Last time I was on 27, it wasn’t great...
I would think Texas could afford some roads given all the money they save on a. not having to plow and patch in the winter and b. not bothering to put roofs on the rest area bathrooms.
nope. the only time I was in michigan, it was because another airport was snowed in. I was making a bit of a rhetorical point.
I guess Michigan had roads to no where before they knew they did.
any road that leads to detriot (sic) is a "road to nowhere" ;)
Maybe they would not be broke if they did not have to provide for the illegals.
Exactly :) Sad, but true.
Not dead, just rebranded.
Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner!
“Maybe they would not be broke if they did not have to provide for the illegals.”
Yep. Or Fort Worth garbage can police.
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