America’s transportation infrastructure, after decades of neglect, is crumbing at a rapid pace. I agree with the Governor that all options must be put on the table to improve its condition. However, I am very disappointed about the Adminstrations approach. Why has the Governor decided to exclude the Legislature from this process? Why haven’t the bids to lease been shared with the public? Will the bids, along with the company’s financial statements, every be made public? The Turnpike, as a public assest, is the property of the people; therefore, granting the them the final say in a lease. We cannont make an informed decision without full access to all necessary information.

Maybe I’m jumping the gun right now, and the Adminstration will open the bids and company financials to public inspection. The Legislature needs to pay close attention to this process, and when the time comes be ready to throughly review all aspects of a lease. Again, I’m not removing a lease from the table, I am merely requesting the information we all have a right to.

JM

I agree with all you say, JM. Perhaps, the Governor knows that if the Legislature gets involved, it will die without a decision one way or the other. Harrisburg has a way of doing that to bills.

Why not just get rid of the Turnpike Commission and it’s high, inefficient costs and give it to PennDot, with legislation requiring that it be run with the same number of employees per mile as, for instance,the Ohio Turnpike?
Are jobs for the otherwise unemployable more important than efficiency?
Or, let Wal-Mart run it.

...is in need of repair, too. :-)

I’ve never been a fan of these lease deals. It’s one more private sector, market-driven solution that I simply don’t believe is the panacea it is set up to be.

What if, for instance, the company who wins the bid decides at some point to “get out of that business.” This happens every day. But I want to know how we would be deal with that? What would it cost to reinstitute the state-run system after we’d disassembled our knowledge-base of workers and administrators? Has this even been considered?

The financial markets surely are in disrepair right now….so what’s the rush to get this done? Why not wait until things stabilize and capital becomes abundant? Is Ed just anxious to get his kickbacks for himself and his buddies before he’s out of office?

And how ‘bout we wait to see how the Indiana and Illinois experiments in leasing work out over say, the course of 5-6 years? I’d rather learn from their experience than learn from our own mistakes!

Honestly, this begs for a referendum…but that can’t happen here in PA.

Citizens should have much more oversight on something this important.

Pilt

I favor a potential lease of the Turnpike, and here’s why: Why not? We’ve tried it the other way (higher taxes, fees, “surcharges”, tolls, etc.) for generations, and look where we are. Once again the Commonwealth is facing down yet another “transportation crisis” and once again state officials are crying poverty as to the means to pay their bills. Anytime any level of government utters the word “crisis”, it means taxpayers will end up footing the bill for the whole debacle. Now, privatization doesn’t have a perfect track record, but I’d argue that it works more often than not. In the case of the Turnpike, the proposed contract with the Commonwealth would provide incentives to perform (something that is completely lacking now under the TPA) and provide a timetable and limits for future toll increases (as compared to motorists living under the mercy of the TPA’s random hikes now). Some attempt to scare up opposition to a private outfit running the Turnpike by claiming excessive toll hikes could occur whenever the company feels like it. If you read the proposals currently out there, this clearly is not the case. Let’s cut away the chatter and get to the real issue ; in reality, the bureaucratic/legislative matrix in our state doesn’t cede power easily. The government and unions have “run the roads” for generations, and some believe it should stay that way, regardless of efficiency or quality. Others, such as myself, believe that, just once, Pennsylvania should think “outside the box”. A lease would actually take care of three birds with one stone. First, it would provide a dedicated source of revenue for our highways as well as regional MTAs, which would solve very contentious issues in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Two, future toll hikes would be limited. If a lease occurs, tolls will probably jump by 20-25% in the first year (the TPA itself has guaranteed an increase of that amount in the near future), but become almost insignificant after that. Three, it’s the best available deal for taxpayers all around. It literally solves the transportation “funding crisis” that has haunted the state for years without raising a tax or having to divert money from elsewhere.The only negative? The bureaucracy in Harrisburg won’t be calling all the shots anymore. Well, that’s a negative for some anyway…