Reason's Frequently Asked Questions On Transportation
Reason publishes three short "Frequently Asked Questions" documents on road-building financing tools like public-private partnerships, leasing toll roads, and high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes.
Following are several excerpts from each of the documents:
"Question: What is a Public-Private Partnership?
Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs or P3s) are collaborations between governments and private companies that aim to improve public services and infrastructure in a manner which captures the benefits of private sector involvement (such as cost- and time-savings) while maintaining public accountability.
How common are public-private partnerships in the transportation world?
PPPs for complex, multi-billion dollar transportation projects have been used for decades in Europe, and more recently in Australia and Latin America. During the 1990s they began to be used in the United States and Canada as well. PPP toll projects are in operation in California, Texas, and Virginia, as well as several Canadian provinces. Large transportation PPPs in excess of $1 billion are in operation or under construction in Melbourne, Sydney, Paris, Israel, Santiago, and Toronto.
Are HOT Lanes just "Lexus lanes"? Do they only benefit the wealthy?
In 2005, there were over 12 million trips on Orange County's HOT Lanes. Over a decade of data is available from the 91 Express Lanes in Orange County and the HOT lanes on I-15 in San Diego. It indicates that the vast majority of drivers—high and low income—use the HOT lanes only on occasion, instead of every day. While studies of the 91 Express Lanes indicate that use increases slightly with income group, 19% of the users have an annual household income of less than $40,000, and another 23% have household incomes between $40,000 and $60,000. A 2001 telephone survey of San Diego I-15 Express Lane users revealed that 80% of the lowest income motorists ( [under] $40,000 annual household income ) in the corridor agreed that "People who drive alone should be able to use the I-15 Express Lanes for a fee." In fact, they were more likely to agree with that statement than the highest income users.
Why are states leasing their roads and turnpikes?
Long term leases—also known as monetization, privatization, toll concessions or public-private partnerships (PPPs)—help taxpayers unlock some of the inherent value in tollroads lost under government ownership. The extra value can be gained by state or local government owners through upfront concession fees or in profit-sharing arrangements written into the concession contracts. These leases are an effective way of financing, managing and operating roads while minimizing taxpayer costs and risks."
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Other Reason
The Reason Foundation is big on toll roads and private sector, one of many tools available for transportation. The private sector is profit motivated. A profit motive efficiently balances toll rates and service level (transit time) in order to maximize profit. The public sector is service motivated. A service motive effectively balances taxes and service level in order to maximize service.
Note the pubic sector’s “service” is not limited to transit time. Service includes transit time, traffic safety, cost, air quality, water quality, visual impacts, noise impacts, and now the Climate Crisis. It would be a shame to shackle our transportation resources to the profit motive just as vastly improving electronics technology makes tremendous service improvements (that diminish profits) a done deal.
For the current state of individually autonomous vehicles, see Popular Science, May 2007, pg 58 for a description of the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge vehicles. Communicating semi-autonomous vehicles (smart as a horse) can happen much faster, at fractions of the expense, with better reliability than the DARPA vehicles. On page 66, Seth Teller, MIT faculty adviser, points out, “If cars are communicating, no one has to idle at a light for three minutes again.” Jacob Peters, University of California at Davis notes that “Active safety technology that makes cars drive closer together would easily double (road) capacity.”
Thus far, public sector planners have been intimidated by the uncertainties involved in the timing of and exact capabilities of accident-free and congestion-eliminating vehicles. Our planners need to more aggressively guide and accelerate the introduction of this technology. I suggest a civilian imitation of the DARPA Challenge. We need a Transportation Challenge for practical fuel-efficient, zero-crash, zero-congestion vehicles.