Bumps ahead for a toll-road push in Mexico

Many citizens, wary of past bailouts and present potholes,
look askance at Calderon's steps toward privatization.

By Marla Dickerson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

LA AUTOPISTA DEL SOL, MEXICO — This was supposed to be Mexico's toll road to the future, a four-lane, privately built ribbon of asphalt connecting Cuernavaca with the Pacific resort city of Acapulco.

But now, just 14 years after opening, the Autopista del Sol, or Sun Highway, is a 163-mile mess. Motorists complain of blown tires and ruined suspensions. A national newspaper last year called the thoroughfare, on which a round trip costs $70, "a calvary of cracks, potholes and risks."

The government has been forced to spend more than $60 million to shore up the crumbling motorway linking Morelos and Guerrero states after its operator walked away. Overall, Mexico assumed $14 billion of debt after bailing out nearly two dozen other such projects in the 1990s.

So it may come as a bit of a surprise that President Felipe Calderon is touting toll roads as a solution to Mexico's infrastructure woes. His administration is moving aggressively to award contracts to private companies to finance, build and maintain highways and charge motorists to use them.

It's a strategy being embraced by cash-strapped governments worldwide. France, Italy and Spain have privatized former state-owned toll road companies. New urban expressways in Australia are operated by private companies under long-term concessions from the government. India is looking to upgrade more than 6,000 miles of existing roads with similar toll-road contracts. Public-private partnerships are helping fuel China's infrastructure boom.

But it's highly controversial in Mexico, where the Autopista del Sol remains a potholed reminder of the potential hazards of privatization.

"Mexico is the poster child for how to do [highway privatization] wrong," said Robert Poole, a transportation expert at the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank. "Now they have a chance to redeem themselves."

Proponents cite a variety of advantages to involving the private sector. Structured correctly, long-term concessions can shift most of the risks of cost-overruns and faulty construction to private operators. For-profit companies have pioneered innovations such as electronic billing and congestion pricing.

But mostly, Mexico's motivation boils down to a lack of money in government coffers.

Mexican officials have budgeted a record $2.7 billion for highways this year. But experts say that is only about half of what the nation should be spending annually to upgrade and expand its 213,000-mile system.

The infrastructure deficit is hurting the nation's competitiveness. Mexico trails most of its Latin American peers in laying asphalt. China, which recently supplanted Mexico as the United States' second-largest trading partner, is spending big on superhighways and other infrastructure to speed people and commerce.

The Calderon administration is aiming to close the gap with three types of private-sector investment. It's planning to convert as many as 16 public freeways into toll roads that are to be managed by private firms. It also wants to turn over some existing government-run toll roads to private operators. And it's looking to construct as many as 24 privately managed toll roads.

"With private resources we can do more: elevate the quality of the services offered to users, generate more [construction] jobs and … obtain more resources to construct new highways," said Luis Tellez, Mexico's secretary of Communications and Transportation, in a recent presentation to legislators.

That upbeat assessment belies Mexico's disastrous experience. Calderon's political opponents have criticized the plan and are demanding transparency and vigilance, which were lacking in the past. They note that some of the same companies that saddled the government with billions of dollars of debt in the 1990s are looking to score new highway projects.

"We are against these concessions because it has been proved throughout the history of Mexico they only represent corruption and fraud," said Sen. Ricardo Monreal of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party.

Proponents counter that there is nothing inherently wrong with privatization — just with the manner in which Mexico went about it.

Poole, who has studied the Mexican debacle, said the nation's biggest mistake was the short duration of concessions granted in the 1980s and 1990s — some as little as 10 years. The tight time frame encouraged builders to cut corners knowing they weren't responsible for long-term upkeep. And it forced them to charge high tolls to recoup their investment quickly.

Unwilling to pay the high fees, drivers shunned the pay roads, and revenue didn't meet projections. But the death blow was Mexico's 1994 currency devaluation. Interest rates soared, making it impossible for private operators to pay their bankers. The government in 1997 assumed their liabilities as part of a massive bailout.

Federal officials say the rescue was necessary to prevent financial and transport chaos, and that all costs have been paid out of motorist tolls rather than general tax revenue. They also say they have learned from past mistakes. The new concessions would last as long as 30 years, and officials say the government would ensure strict quality control.

Some Mexicans are dubious.

A crew of laborers shoring up the shoulder of the Autopista del Sol on a recent broiling afternoon hooted at the prospect of another round of privatization. They cited a laundry list of the motorway's shortcomings: unstable soil, poor drainage, cheap building materials, shoddy workmanship and the threat of rockslides from the surrounding hills.

"This highway wasn't well constructed," workman Jesus Hernandez Almanza said. "I've been told this is the most expensive highway in the world. But I don't see it in the quality."

Motorists are skeptical too.

Stretching his legs at a rest stop on the Autopista del Sol on his way to a weekend in Acapulco, Mexico City accountant Miguel Gonzalez said he just wanted toll roads that were safe, fast and affordable. But he doesn't trust the government to provide them, or the Mexican companies that failed the last time around, or the foreign firms that are eager to get a piece of Mexico's highway industry.

"Somebody else is going to win and we're going to lose," he said, speaking of citizens.

Coming up with a formula that benefits everyone is critical for Mexico's development, said Sergio Sarmiento, a political analyst and columnist for the national daily Reforma.

"For some politicians, [privatization] is taboo," Sarmiento said. "But many legislators in Mexico know that we need to build the roads and they know the government doesn't have the money…. It's absolutely indispensable that this work."