Globalizing tolls
The next time you drop a few quarters at a toll booth, your change may be going to the most unlikely of places: the coffers of a foreign firm. Introduce a cash-strapped state government to an international corporation flush with capital and the result just might mean the privatization of Indiana’s toll road system. Indiana has ...
The next time you drop a few quarters at a toll booth, your change may be going to the most unlikely of places: the coffers of a foreign firm. Introduce a cash-strapped state government to an international corporation flush with capital and the result just might mean the privatization of Indiana's toll road system.
Indiana has leased a 157-mile toll road for 75 years to a Spanish-Australian consortium for $3.8 billion. Instead of getting the cash the old-fashioned way through tolls, Indiana now gets a lump sum up front. The private company takes the tolls and the responsibility to maintain the road. Could these leases be the first in a growing trend? If the project is successful, we may well see more states leasing infrastructure to foreign firms for quick cash.
Since the [Indiana] General Assembly approved the plan in March, national transportation experts have recognized the state as being at the vanguard of a movement toward road privatization. A growing pack of states also are considering privatizing their roads. In one of the bigger deals, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley signed off on a 99-year lease of the Chicago Skyway for $1.8 billion.
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