In Pennsylvania, Gov. Ed Rendell is expediting a plan to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike to the highest bidder. The plan includes a 75-year lease to a private consortium, which may be a foreign company. If this lease is completed, will outsourcing our toll roads become a trend across the United States?
Any plan of such magnitude and significance is unlikely to be sought without opposition, and it appears, in this case, that the resistance is coming from within Gov. Rendell's own party. Democratic Representative Joe Markosek, chairman of the Transportation Committee, opposes the lease. Despite the opposition, Rep. Markosek favors placing tolls on Interstate 80, a bill which he sponsored.
State lawmakers insist that Gov. Rendell release additional information on the bidders, not just the name and bid from the highest offer. Furthermore, legislators seek additional discourse and "extensive hearings throughout the state" before the mid-June vote that Gov. Rendell is seeking. Many view the mid-June vote as unreasonable and require additional time to sort out the details of the lease.
The turnpike is managed by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, which would soon be obsolete, putting many out of jobs, some of whom are friends and relatives of politicians. While this may be a hard pill to swallow, it will provide long term assurance that the turnpike will be kept safe and at the same time, generate approximately $12-18 billion dollars for the state. The state is in desperate need of funds to improve nearly 6,000 structurally deficient bridges and state-owned highways that are in poor condition.
While to some, leasing such an important road to a foreign entity seems irrational in the short term; in the long term, such a move would benefit the state greatly. The move will provide the state with much needed funding for road improvement. As we have seen with the recent Minneapolis bridge collapse, more attention is needed on roads and bridges throughout the country. Leasing the road to a private, and possibly foreign, consortium is the first step in establishing a new means of obtaining funding to fix America's ailing highway system. In the future, we may see more state's jumping on the leasing bandwagon, providing safer roads for everyone.
Whatever efficiencies a "business" might offer, would be eclipsed by the inefficiency of separate organizations maintaining individual roads. Experience of the past 30 years has demonstrated that the talk of "running a public agency/service like a business" is empty rhetoric because the priorities and dynamics are different. It's not a business, it's a public service.
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