Some politicians believe that the best way to fix our highways is to sell them. In an apparent admission that government cannot maintain our roads and bridges, they are joining with Wall Street investors to advocate privatization plans across the country.

The arrangements are innocuously referred to as "public-private partnerships," a new buzzword for selling or leasing highways built with tax dollars to profit-seeking investors.

Top government officials are hailing the idea as an innovative way to raise billions of dollars while transferring burdensome maintenance and operations to private firms who say they can do it better.

New York area highways may now be up for grabs. New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs executive, is reportedly considering transferring the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State and Atlantic City parkways to private investors. Closer to home, outgoing Gov. George Pataki floated a similar proposal.

But is the idea of selling public assets innovative or merely a quick fix designed to yield a one-time budget boost? And isn't maintaining highways a fundamental government obligation? (To weigh in on this issue, click here to take the " Should Our Highways Be Privatized?" poll.)

So far, these road-to-riches proposals have not lived up to expectations. In the first transfer of an existing United States highway, it seems as though everyone won except motorists. The deal placed management of the Chicago Skyway toll bridge system in the hands of a foreign consortium, yielding $1.8 billion for the City of Chicago and higher tolls for area motorists. The funds city officials derived from the deal were used for general budget purposes and not one cent of the proceeds was earmarked for transportation improvements.

Furthermore, tolls will escalate on a routine basis until the deal ends in 2104. Yes, you read that right-Chicago officials signed a 99-year lease. So the descendants of today's drivers will be paying higher and higher tolls to finance the deal long after Chicago officials have spent the last dime of that $1.8 billion.

The private construction of new highways is also loaded with pitfalls. In Southern California, private investors opened a 10-mile all-electronic toll road in the median of State Route 91, and in so doing were granted something akin to a highway monopoly. When local authorities needed to improve surrounding highways they controlled, the investors - averse to any competition - vetoed the projects by invoking a clause in their contract barring improvements detrimental to their profits. Local officials eventually bought out the private firm for $207 million.

These deals raise other questions: Will the abdication of highway responsibilities by government authorities subvert "sunshine" laws designed to make road and bridge authorities' meetings, decisions and records more transparent to the public? Will nameless foreign investors in private roads, unlike public officials, answer to anyone but their stockholders?

Since the days of the Greeks and Romans, highways were among the few things you could count on government to provide. Thus, motorists should scrutinize any deal that permits elected officials to delegate such a fundamental responsibility, particularly when the deal will continue long after the dealmakers have left office.

 

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AAA New York serves motorists on Long Island, in the five boroughs of New York City, and in Westchester, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster, Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Chenango, Delaware, Otsego, Schoharie and Herkimer counties, and parts of Lewis, Madison and Oneida counties.