As great as the Kansas Turnpike is to drive on, could that asset be doing even more for the state? What’s going on in other states may make Kansas leaders wonder. Citigroup and a Spanish partner Abertis won the bidding last week to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike for 75 years, in a $12.8 billion deal meant to spare the state from charging tolls on more roads and to help fund mass transit and road and bridge repairs. Gov. Ed Rendell called it “a very good deal for Pennsylvania drivers and taxpayersâ€; but first, state lawmakers must agree.
Similarly, Chicago leased its Chicago Skyway for $1.83 billion in 2005 and Indiana obtained $3.85 billion in 2006 on a lease of the Indiana Toll Road.
12 Comments
Good luck!!!!
Bad deal, that is leasing public infrastructure and public institutions to private investors, often foreign countries with NO real interest in maintaining the publicly financed projects.
Would you sell and lease back your residence which you plan to continue living in to an investment company for short-term financial gain? Remember the investor could raise your rent, fail to do maintenance, kick you out if you fail to follow the leasing agreement to the letter.
The reason some governmental agencies consider doing this is to raise money for their short term objectives, perhaps to use for their own salaries, perks and delicious snacks at the office.
Of course, selling and leasing out our Wichita City Hall might be the only way for citizens to regain control.
Under a lease, the tenant, sets the price of the toll. Deregulation!!! Look at everything else that is deregulated. Deregulated means, “No Government Regulations or Enforcments of any removed Regulations”. An open grant to price and do as they feel. This is selling our state resources and removing a regulated state resource to the private sector. Is the Capitol for sale? Is the state considering selling the Highway Patrol? If the new company gets the tolls and the highways they sit on, they will use their own patrol. The states Highway Patrol can not enforce deregulations. When these regulations are removed, what is there to enforce??? Lease?? Heck No!!!! Herbert West III, Candidate for Sheriff, Miami County Kansas, Nov 2008. west.herb@yahoo.com
Lots of negatives, no positives? I would first like to read the lease prior to making a decision. It just might be good for the state.
The states are reduced to selling their internal assets to finance the illusion. The end of the empire has arrived.
Selling off our nation to private corporations, this is the disaster capitalism Naomi Klein wrote about. The intent of the fascist element of the Republican party (the Bush regime) wanted to make the economy so bad so taxpayer financed programs can be sold off.
Now if the turnpike gets sold off simply expect the toll prices to get higher. Such is always the end result of privatization.
Not much to add to what other folks have said. Yet another example in the drive by capital to privatize public goods. We taxpayers assume the risk, and private investors bleed off the profits.
Reminds me of that story a few years ago, in which some sharp operator BOUGHT the development rights along the entire length of the Erie Canal–for $30,000.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE2DD113DF93AA1575AC0A9659C8B63
No never!!!!! Privatization of the commons should never be allowed.
Not only NO, but hell NO. And the turnpike that is currently there should be turned over to be FREE and shut down as a turnpike. This piecemeal crap on the interstate system should never have been allowed to start with and the piece South of town should never have been a toll way and should be stopped now. Never to be allowed again.
Roads are governments job and should remain that way. Otherwise if we don’t tie up the money that way, they will find some new social ethnocentric clap trap boondoggle and turn it into an “entitlement program” that you can never shut down to spend it on. Or some type of grandiose Building.
Governement is well suited to fill pot holes.
This is a bad deal. As stated, the Commons are just that: Commons, for everyone. Roads are part of the Commons.
Anything sold off or leased to a for-profit corporation will hurt the users and Kansas residents in the long run. In the turnpike example, revenues (tolls)will rise and expenses (maintenance, new construction, snow removal, toll-takers) will be slashed to maximize profits. Does anyone really think a foreign investor gives a damn about what’s good for Kansas??? Would these foreigners (like the Saudis and Chinese) be buying up America if the dollar weren’t being devalued so severely?
The turnpike was supposed to be free by now. Neither it, nor any other Commons should be leased or sold off.
Look at Mexico, this sort of thing is how we will end up just like that country. It starts like this.
Wasn’t the Kansas Turnpike Authority supposed to have gone out of existence years ago? Where’s the government accountability?
We need a plan to reduce the length of the Turnpike by one mile per year, so that eventually (not in my lifetime) it will be a free road.
If the turnpike becomes a free road, who will pay for the maintenance that are now covered by the revenue it generates?