Public-Private Partnerships in Infrastructure
Publication: Leadership and Management in Engineering
Volume 8, Issue 4
Abstract
America’s aging infrastructure is in dire need of upgrading, and with federal and state funding stretched to the breaking point, the private sector has stepped into the breach. Public-private partnerships are creating new infrastructure projects to move traffic more efficiently and help relieve the traffic congestion that is choking many of our major metropolitan areas. The trucking industry and railroad associations are sponsoring innovative initiatives to increase the flow of commercial traffic and become more energy efficient in the process. These public-private partnerships allow dedicated public officials to tap the innovations and capital sources for which the private sector is famous. Coupled with the growing concern over global warming and America’s expanding carbon footprint, refocusing on alternative people-moving options and more energy efficient freight operations, local, state, and the federal governments have a new impetus to embrace public-private partnerships.
For years professional and industry organizations have recognized that America’s infrastructure is in need of a large cash infusion to bring its’ roads and bridges back to acceptable quality. But the cash required by government agencies to improve the quality of travel along those highways has been seriously lacking for decades.
When ASCE prepared the 2005 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, they gave the quality of roads in this country a D grade and the quality of bridges a C. Reports by many other non-government agencies also painted a bleak picture.
Government funding via the Federal Highway Trust Fund (FHT) has proved inadequate in the past and the gasoline tax—last raised to $.184 in 1993—is worth half as much in today’s dollars. In the second half of 2007, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) predicted that the Highway Trust Fund would run out of money in early 2008 and by 2009 would have a $3.8 billion deficit. Our fifty state governments are not in much better financial shape and, although the Federal Highway Administration (FHwA) programs provide some short-term assistance, the long term has been given short shrift.
The 110th Congress is going into an election year and the politicians and the presidential candidates will make many promises, some they can keep, many they can’t. With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continuing to drain America’s coffers and the funding of sacrosanct social entitlement programs and bloated defense budgets being what they are, where does that leave money for our failing infrastructure?
The private sector has collaborated with the public sector to create partnerships which combine the best talents and resources of both sources and provide a viable solution to many of these infrastructure short-fall and growth problems. And in many instances across the country, these public-private partnerships have done just that.
Let’s first take a look at the beginnings of our national highway system and where it is today.
The Early Federal Highway Program
The Federal-Aid Road Act of 1918 recognized the need for a federal highway engineering organization and ten districts were established, each one charged with responsibility for the construction of rural roads in cooperation with the federal government. The Agriculture Appropriation Act of 1919 changed the name of this agency to the Bureau of Public Roads, a name that remained until July 1939, when, in the depth of the Depression, it became the Public Roads Administration of the Federal Works Administration (FWA). Thousands were employed by this new agency to work on road maintenance and highway and bridge beautification projects. During World War II, FWA employees were put to work on defense projects such as the Alcan Highway and the Inter-American Highway. The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) was established in 1967.
The first coast-to-coast highway, the Lincoln Highway, was completed in 1915 and this practice of “naming” highways became confusing as our road system rapidly expanded. In 1925, the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials began to plan a better federal highway identification system to replace highway names; major east-west roadways would be numbered in multiples of ten and north-south highways would be designated with odd numbers. The old Lincoln Highway was subsequently broken up into various segments: U.S. 1, U.S. 30, U.S. 40, U.S 50, and U.S. 530.
The Highway System Today
There are more than of roads in the United States; the median age of passenger cars in 2005 was ; and the average age of full-size transit buses in 2004 was just over seven .
The USDOT reported in 2007 that:
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Motor vehicle accidents cost the country $230 billion per year in medical costs, lost productivity, insurance, and legal fees, more than $819 per citizen.
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For each $1 billion of federal spending on highway construction projects, 47,500 jobs are generated on an annual basis.
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Driving on poorly maintained roads costs motorists $67 billion per year in repairs and operating costs, $333 per motorist.
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For every dollar invested in the U.S. highway systems, $5.40 in economic benefits are generated by virtue of reduced delays, improved safety, and lower vehicle operating costs.
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$6.3 trillion of commodities delivered each year from sites within the United States are transported by trucks.
Our Infrastructure Shortfalls
In 2007, the Urban Land Institute conducted a survey of U.S. transport officials and came up with the following comments:
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Eighty-three percent were of the opinion that our present infrastructure was incapable of meeting the country’s needs over the next ten years.
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Fifty percent stated that our transportation infrastructure does not even meet our current needs; only 44 percent indicated that most needs are met.
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Sixty-two percent responded that our roads, bridges, and highways require much improvement; only 35 percent felt that moderate improvement was all that was required.
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Fifty percent indicated that transit and rail facilities require moderate improvements; only 38 percent stated that much improvement was needed.
The Potential for Trust Fund Revenue Decline
The Transportation Research Board (TRB) in their 2006 “Special Report 285” emphasized funding shortfalls by looking at future technological advances and motor vehicle trends. Fuel taxes generate the major portion of highway user fees; as of fiscal year (FY) 2000, motor fuel provided 86.6 percent of total FHT net receipts, truck and trailer taxes 9.5 percent, heavy vehicle use taxes 2.6 percent, and tire sales 1.3 percent. Any change in the amount of fuel consumed will have a major impact on revenue collected and the TRB report shows fuel consumption being attacked on several fronts:
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There is an accelerating concern about global warming and the need to reduce harmful vehicular and industrial emissions. This is placing more emphasis on conservation and a movement advocating more use of public as opposed to private transportation.
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Promising developments in car and truck engine technology could produce commercially viable hybrid engines and fuel cell power resulting in 25 percent improvements in average fleet fuel consumption beyond 2025. And new Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards enacted in 2007 will increase mileage requirements for cars and light trucks to thirty-five miles per gallon by the year 2020.
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The annual turnover rate (trade-in) of vehicles is about 6 percent, but spikes in fuel prices, as evidenced during the energy crisis of the 1970s, tend to accelerate this rate as owners trade in less efficient vehicles and replace them with more fuel efficient cars. In 2006 and 2007 the slumping sales of sport utility vehicles was largely attributed to those rising fuel prices.
The FHT is the funding source for the federal-aid highway program and revenues for the trust fund are obtained from various federally imposed excise taxes.
Federal Highway User Taxes accrue from not only the sale of gasoline, gasohol, liquefied petroleum, and natural gas and diesel fuel, but also from the sale of tires, truck and trailer sales, and heavy truck use via an additional tax on trucks with 55,000 to 75,000 gross vehicle weights. There is another tax for trucks exceeding 75,000 gross vehicle weight. But as the past graphically indicates, fees generated in this manner are insufficient to build new highways, tunnels, and bridges, and maintain existing ones.
The Federal-Aid Highway Toll Program
When the federal-aid highway program was initiated in 1916, federal-aid funds were not to be used to create tolled roads, but this changed in 1927 when Congress passed legislation permitting this source of funds to be used for bridges and bridge approaches. Other legislation provided more flexibility for the use of federal-aid funds for toll roads, and the passage of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 allowed for even more use of these funds for that purpose.
The initial concept of the interstate highway system was to provide, for the most part, toll-free roads, but in 1956 Congress enacted laws to include some tolled facilities in the system, mostly those major roads planned before the interstate funding increased significantly after 1956. As a toll road by-product, this revenue allowed states to develop other non-toll components of the system. The FHwA states that, to date, about of toll facilities exist in the interstate highway system.
Today, federal-aid highway funding through various programs, includes some toll road allocations:
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initial construction (except on the interstate system) of toll highways, bridges, and tunnels including approaches to those facilities
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reconstructing, resurfacing, restoring, and rehabilitation work on existing toll facilities
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reconstruction or replacement of toll-free bridges or tunnels and conversion to toll facilities
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reconstruction of a toll-free highway (except on the interstate systems) and conversion to a toll facility
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preliminary studies to determine the feasibility of toll construction activities
There are fifty-four active FHwA toll facility agreements that were enacted between 1956 and 2003, the oldest being the Mackinac Straits Bridge, I-75 in Michigan, which links the Upper and Lower Peninsula of Michigan. The latest, according to 2007 FHwA records, is the Central Texas Turnpike. Florida has the most with fourteen; followed by California with five; and New Jersey, New York, and Texas with three each.
These agreements require that all toll revenues are used for any of the following purposes: debt service; reasonable return on investment; and operation and maintenance, which can include reconstructing, resurfacing, restoring and rehabilitation work.
The Federal Alphabet Soup of Highway Financing Options
Enacted in August 2005, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) guarantees $244.1 billion in funding for highways, highway safety, and public transportation. This bill provides financial assistance to improve safety and insures each state a return on its share of contributions to the Highway Trust Fund. This act also makes it easier for the private sector to participate in highway infrastructure projects because it gives states more flexibility to use road pricing to manage highway congestion. It also funded the Highways for LIFE pilot program to encourage innovative technologies to speed up roadway construction.
The Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 1998 provides federal credit assistance to large-scale projects that are regional; nationally important; or that might otherwise be delayed or not built at all because of risk, complexity, or cost. Credit assistance in the form of direct or secured loans, loan guarantees, and standby letters of credit are offered.
The Grant Anticipation Revenue Vehicle (GARVEE) is a debt financing instrument where debt service and related financing costs can be reimbursed by federal-aid highway funds. GARVEEs can be issued by a state or a political subdivision of a state. GARVEE candidates do not have access to other revenue streams such as local taxes or tolls.
The federal-aid highway program requires recipients of federal assistance to contribute toward the total cost of any project, requiring a 10 percent match on certain interstate highway projects and a 20 percent state match for most other projects. The flexible match program allows the non-federal match contribution to be in cash, land, materials, or services. Land, materials, and service contributions must past the scrutiny of representing fair market value.
Section 129 of Title 23, U.S. Code allows states to loan some of its federal funds to pay for projects with dedicated revenue streams.
The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act allowed states to apply the value of certain highway expenditures funded with toll revenues toward the required state match of current federal-aid projects. SAFETEA-LU revised Title 23 of the U.S. Code and now allows toll credits earned by the states to be applied toward non-federal matching shares on any federal-aid highway program.
These programs are all well and good and they provide supplemental funding means, but what will be the source of additional funding to augment those funds to not only repair and maintain existing facilities, but to update our highways and bridges to meet growing needs? That is a question Congress needs to address and usually it takes a catastrophe to make lawmakers sit up and take notice.
State Funding of Transportation Projects
The state funding of transportation projects relies on both federal aid and dedicated state taxes and other revenue sources to support the operation and maintenance of existing highways. Funding for future projects, administration, and retirement of debt service are also state Department of Transportation (DOT) responsibilities. The state of Maryland’s transportation system “Where the Money Comes From” report (Table 1) may be typical of sources for these purposes.Table 1. Maryland Transportation Trust Fund
| Source of funds | Revenue |
|---|---|
| Federal aid | 20% |
| Motor fuel taxes | 21% |
| Vehicle titling taxes | 21% |
| Registration and MVA fees | 15% |
| Corporate income taxes | 6% |
| Operating | 10% |
| Bonds | 5% |
| Other | 2% |
Source: Maryland Department of Transportation (2006).
And like other states, Maryland is looking at ways to increase funding for their Transportation Trust Fund. Maryland’s gas tax, currently at , has not risen since 1992, and the previous rate of 18.5 cents was established in 1987. Maryland’s Governor Martin O’Malley is proposing several measures in the 2008 legislature to close the $40 billion gap in transportation funding: raise the tax as much as $.12 per gallon, index the gas tax to a construction price index, add a state sales tax on to the price of a gallon of fuel, raise vehicle registration and vehicle title fees, and tap money from the state’s corporate tax collection. But this may be an uphill battle since the words “tax increase” are bound to create a political uproar.
Like everything else, on both a state and federal level, if each of these transportation funding sources had been increased incrementally over the years, the transportation coffers of both state and federal agencies may have had sufficient funding for maintenance, repair, and rehabilitation projects and the “fix,” when it came, would not have been so drastic and painful. But that’s politics.
Other governors are looking to do what Mayor Daley of Chicago and Indiana’s Governor Daniels did: lease a highway or two and receive a lump-sum payment from the private concessionaire.
The Chicago Skyway
The Skyway Concession Company LLC (composed of Spanish contractor/developer Cintra and Australia’s Macquarie investment firm) signed a ninety-nine-year toll road concession agreement with the city of Chicago to operate and maintain the Chicago Skyway Expressway, which links the Dan Ryan Expressway (U.S. 94) to the Indiana Toll Plaza at Indianapolis Boulevard. They will collect the tolls from these operations.
In return, the city of Chicago received $1.83 billion. This cash infusion will, according to the mayor be used to (1) set up a “rainy day” fund generating $25 million in income; (2) establish a midterm fund of $375 million to be invested and drawn down each year and used for budgetary relief, forestalling the need to raise taxes; and (3) set up a $100 million fund to be dispersed over a five-year period to help low-income residents obtain affordable housing.
The agreement calls for the Skyway Concession Company LLC to upgrade 19 bridges along the route, resurface four miles of roadway, and reconfigure toll plaza lanes to improve traffic. The agreement includes refurbishing and replacing overpass decks at several locations, rehabing a viaduct, and painting and upgrading various structures along the way. A toll schedule stretching out to January 2017 was negotiated with the city and a very specific and detailed maintenance agreement was appended to the original agreement.
The Indiana Toll Road
The Cintra/Macquarie team, looking to enhance their Chicago Skyway concession, bid $3.85 billion (Cintra 2006) for a seventy-five-year Indiana toll road concession agreement. Their bid was the highest of four received by the state and a delighted Indiana Governor Daniels, who said that they had put a $2.0 billion “reserve’ price on the deal. Cintra plans to spend $700 million on toll road improvements over the years.
Governor Mitch Daniels said, “One year ago, Indiana faced twin deficits; a fiscal deficit stemming from the years of government infrastructure deficit and a $3 billion shortfall between the cost of needed transportation projects. We had more that $2 of needs and plans for every $1 of funds on a business-as-usual basis” (Tollroadsnews 2006).
This was a win for the state of Indiana and it provided Cintra/Macquarie with the synergy effects of operating the Chicago Skyway along with its’ connection to the Indiana Turnpike.
Other States Follow Suit, or at Least Try to
Pennsylvania’s Governor Ed Rendell announced in February 2007 his state’s intention to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Preliminary estimates indicate that such a lease could return an annual stream of $965 million. Of course there were critics, including those that said that turnpike tolls would merely drive motorists to toll-free highways adding to more congestion.
The turnpike deal in Pennsylvania turned into a political quagmire when the Turnpike Commission, together with strong allies, began a campaign that finally scuttled the governor’s plan and instead, introduced a plan to turn I-80 into a toll road with the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission as the leasor. When the commission applied to the FHwA for an expression of interest, there was a backlash as community and business groups complained loudly about the extra costs to travel I-80. A state senator joined in the foray by writing a letter to Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters on December 4, 2007, requesting that they turn down the application submitted by the Turnpike Commission because it violated several principles: there were no public hearings, numerous state legislators spoke out against the measure when introduced, and revenues would be used for purposes other than I-80, a violation of The Interstate System Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Pilot Program.
Stranger still, while all of this was going on, in September 2007 the Pennsylvania State Police, after receiving a call about some “strange” people roaming about on the Turnpike, picked up three Spanish citizens with cameras and laptop computers. They were detained at a State Police barracks because their work permits did not show up on the U.S. government database. They were employees of Cintra, the Spanish concessionaire, and they were there gathering “information.” Tollroadsnews (2007) quoted Jose Lopez, president of Cintra North America as saying that his company had more than one hundred people surveying the Turnpike. So the plot thickens.
With the FHT projected to be $3.8 billion in the “red” by the year 2009 and future sufficient funding sources dependent upon the give-and-take of the political process, we will need to look elsewhere and public-partnerships, at least for the moment, appear attractive.
Will the PPP Be Public-Private Partnerships or Politics-Power-Pork?
Public-private partnerships (PPPs), for the design, construction, financing, operation, and maintenance of new or existing infrastructure projects present a viable solution to some of these road, bridge, and tunnel problems. But logic doesn’t always enter into the equation when political agendas are at stake. Too often PPPs are viewed by some politicians as not in the public interest because they don’t fully understand the process or don’t want to understand the process.
Some politicians decry selling our assets to foreign companies, but it is rather clear that these PPP highway and bridge concession agreements that are awarded to such groups as Spain’s Cintra, or Australia’s Macquaire and Transurban, do not transfer asset title from a public agency to the consortium.
Further misconceptions were displayed in Congress when Congressman James Oberstar (D-MN) and Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) publicly stated in 2007 that PPPs were not in the long-term public interest. Tell that to Chicago’s mayor or Indiana’s governor!
New Jersey’S Quandary
Other politicians see these leasing arrangements as a sell-out to foreign interests. New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, facing a $58 billion shortfall in the state’s retiree health coverage, discussed the possible lease of the New Jersey Turnpike to raise money, and his opponents talked about how such a move would allow the Turnpike to “fall” into foreign hands. In early 2008, Governor Corzine unveiled a program to increase the tolls on the Jersey Turnpike by as much as 800 percent by the year 2022. Truckers who travel the length of the turnpike would pay $186 as opposed to the $23 they currently pay. Corzine hoped such an increase would pay down the state’s $22 billion debt and provide some funding for transportation projects. This proposal created a firestorm of complaints from companies who use the turnpike daily and claim that their increased costs would either put them out of business and most certainly be passed on to their customers.
The Regional Planning Association (RPA), an organization devoted to addressing the transportation needs of the tristate area (New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut) issued a report on 2005 stating that “By June 2006, New Jersey will have exhausted nearly all of the revenue sources it currently uses to pay the capital costs of building and maintaining its roads and mass transit systems.” The state’s Transportation Trust Fund pledged all of its 2006 revenue to repay bonds they were previously issued and they now face an $805 million debt service fee each year until 2021.
New bond issues were created to finance the state’s transportation systems until 2011. New refunding bond maturities, according to some sources, will be shifted to FY 2020-24 to reduce aggregate debt service each year to about $705 million.
Would a concessionaire offer a sufficient upfront payment to lease the New Jersey Turnpike, which would provide significant state debt relief while setting a toll schedule no more than the one proposed by Governor Corzine?
Where Are the U.S. Concessionaires?
What politicians ought to be concerned about is why these foreign developers (Australia’s Macquaire and the Transurban Group, Spain’s toll road operators Cintra and ACS/Iridium, Portugal’s BRISA, Italy’s Autostrade, and France’s Bouygues) have come to the United States to fill these infrastructure needs. Why are American lenders, developers, and contractors not in the forefront of this movement? The answer appears to be that these foreigners have gained experience in similar projects in Europe, Asia, and South America. Perhaps we need to give our lenders, designers, and contractors more incentive to gain this experience domestically so they too, can become world class PPP participants.
Congress got up-in-arms when Dubai Ports wanted to manage some East Coast and West Coast marine port facilities and they constantly talk about outsourcing American jobs to foreign countries. But where was the uproar during the sub-prime mortgage meltdown in 2007-08 when several Asian and Midwest investors bought into some of America’s iconic banks and investment houses?
Is Fluor Corporation the Only One?
At least one home-grown company is entering the fray. Fluor Corporation’s transportation and infrastructure divisions have been active in these concession agreements for several years, both as a contractor and as partner, here and abroad:
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Pocahontas Parkway in Virginia: financed, designed, built with Australia’s Transurban, includes a road and a clear span bridge.
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E-470 toll road in Colorado: Fluor financed, designed, and built this $323 million toll road.
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I-495 and I-95/I-395 in northern Virginia: a high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes project based upon an unsolicited proposal that currently is under contract with Virginia Department of Transportation.
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A-59 Freeway in Poort van Den Bosch, Netherlands: a $206 million finance, design, build, operate and maintain project; the first Dutch public-private partnership project.
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High-speed line between Amsterdam and the Netherlands: a $1.5 billion design, finance, build, operate, and maintain rail line project.
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National Roads Telecommunications System in the United Kingdom: a $524 million upgrade of a core intelligent transportation system to be completed by 2015.
Where the Money Goes: Earmarks, If Pigs Could Fly
When President Dwight D. Eisenhower envisioned the national highway system fifty years ago, the bill singled out two projects for funding. In August 2006 when the $286.4 billion Transportation Bill was passed, according to Americans for Prosperity, a consumer advocate group, there were 6,371 “special” projects in the appropriation bill running all the way from $200,000 for a deer avoidance system in Weedsport, N.Y., to $3 million for dust control mitigation on rural roads in Arkansas.
That “Bridge to Nowhere,” a $223 million give-away to build a bridge from Ketchikan, population 8,900, on Alaska’s mainland to an airport on the island of Gravina, population fifty, is a good example of pork barrel at its best. The three earmarks inserted for that project totaled $320 million, funds that could have been used for much needed repairs elsewhere in the country. Multiply that by thousands and before you know it, it runs into real money. Although public opinion quickly killed the deal, most of the money still went to Alaska to be used for “other projects.”
There are many other “pork projects” out there. Still in Alaska, there was the $75,000 for a North Pole Transit System. The Hill (2005), an on-line monitor of congressional spending, reported that Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) brought home $68.5 million in pork which included $1.8 million for the Alaska SeaLife Center for eiders (a large sea duck) and sea otter recovery, $790,000 for the Bering Sea Fisherman’s Association, $150,000 for the Alaska Whaling Commission, and $98,000 for the Alaska Sea Otter Commission—no otter pork. And there is the $200,000 for Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the $300,000 Franco-American Heritage Center in Maine.
These earmarks are frequently slipped into bills surreptitiously without any advance notice. Ohio Representative Paul Gillmor, just one month after the start of the congressional session was very vocal in his opposition to earmarks, commenting on a bloated federal spending bill introduced in Congress. On February 1, 2007, he remarked to The Hill’s blog:
So is it any wonder that we have underfunded our nation’s infrastructure and need to correct that situation not tomorrow, not next week, but now.I had been hoping to receive legislation to fund federal programs consistent with the will of my constituents and the needs of the federal government. Unfortunately this bill has more pork in it than a spit-roasted pig. I cannot imagine how a member of Congress will be able to go back to their districts and justify a $45 million tropical rain forest in Iowa. This spending bill cuts DEA [Drug Enforcement Adminsitration] jobs, military construction funds, and foreign aid while giving duplicative dollars to the Department of Energy and renewing earmarks which we had once cut. I am disappointed that we were given just one hour to debate a 135-page, $463.5-billion resolution and offered no opportunity for amendment. Without debate or amendment, I cannot tell whether all of these projects are worthy, but on first glance, I can tell that many of them are not. This is not consistent with the will of the American people and is not how our democratic process is expected to work.
The New York Times, on January 22, 2008, reported that there were 3,041 earmarks for transportation in FY 2005, valued at $3.56 billion, but in FY 2008 that number was reduced to 2,046 worth $1.78 billion, so it seems like some headway is being made in that direction (Pear 2008).
Why Does It Take Longer to Get to Work?
Road congestion has taken a front-and-center position in our current evaluation of America’s highway ills. Although most of the commuting public may not be aware of the poor quality of our infrastructure, they are acutely aware, on a daily basis, of the increased time it takes year after year to get to work in the morning and return home at night. And their vocal complaints on local talk radio and interviews in local newspapers quickly get the attention of their elected leaders. This is also evidence of the fact that when citizens are aroused, politicians do respond. Perhaps a more vibrant public relations campaign aimed directly at the public to make them more aware of our crumbling infrastructure would gain traction.
A study conducted by the Texas Transportation Institute entitled “2007 Urban Mobility Report” highlights the congestion problem from 1982 to 2005, in terms of delays and related costs (Lomax and Schrank 2007). This study ranks the impact congestion has on very large, large, medium, and small cities, the average annual delay experienced by each traveler, and the gallons of fuel wasted per traveler (Table 2).Table 2. Key Mobility Measures
| City | Annual delay pertraveler | Wasted fuel pertraveler (gal.) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hours | Rank | ||
| Very large urban areas | |||
| Los Angeles, Long Beach, Santa Ana, CA | 72 | 1 | 57 |
| SanFrancisco, Oakland, CA | 60 | 2 | 47 |
| Washington, DC, VA, MD | 60 | 2 | 43 |
| Atlanta, GA | 60 | 2 | 44 |
| Dallas-Ft. Worth, Arlington, TX | 58 | 5 | 40 |
| Large urban areas | |||
| Denver-Aurora, CO | 50 | 11 | 33 |
| Portland, OR | 38 | 33 | 27 |
| Columbus, OH | 36 | 33 | 24 |
| Memphis, TN | 42 | 30 | 16 |
| Pittsburgh, PA | 67 | 16 | 9 |
| Buffalo, NY | 77 | 11 | 7 |
| Medium urban areas | |||
| Charlotte, NC | 45 | 20 | 31 |
| Omaha, NE | 25 | 48 | 15 |
| Richmond, VA | 20 | 57 | 13 |
| Hartford, CT | 19 | 59 | 14 |
| Small urban areas | |||
| Charleston, SC | 31 | 40 | 19 |
| Boulder, CO | 16 | 67 | 9 |
| Spokane, WA | 8 | 84 | 5 |
Ways to combat existing congestion and slow down further increases include: high occupancy vehicle lanes, encouraging the use of public transportation, and the HOT lane approach. These HOT lanes offer riders a designated lane with a toll rate that varies from highest during the morning and evening commute to less expensive at off-peak travel times; other lanes remain toll free.
Truck-only-lanes are receiving a great deal of attention nowadays and for a variety of reasons. Congestion on the highways causes delays in shipments, extra fuel and other operating costs, and adds to air pollution and concerns about safety. Truck-only lanes is a relatively new concept that envisions truck lanes in the existing median strip of a highway or added lanes, with beefed-up base and paving structures to absorb heavier loads. If trucks are able to travel at optimum speed with increased loads, it will drive down the cost of motor freight transport, reduce air pollution, and increase highway safety.
When we consider that each day we move of freight with a value of $36 billion by truck and this volume will double by the year 2035, we can see the urgency in keeping our economy and our environment healthy by turning more attention to our ability to transport goods and services more efficiently.
Secretary Norman Mineta, in 2006, questioned why this traffic congestion has not received the attention it needs. He said, “If power blackouts drained billion of dollars from the economy each year, it would be considered a crisis of unacceptable proportion. Yet many accept the fact that American’s squander and gallons of fuel every year sitting in traffic jams and waste $9.4 billion as a result” (USDOT 2006).
Congestion pricing works in cities as well, but with a slightly different approach. London, England, charged a fee for automobiles coming into a certain section of center city, and although there was initial resistance to this program, later Londoners are praising it. It has unclogged the streets and traffic flows smoother and faster; by reducing tail pipe emissions the quality of air has greatly improved. In this country, New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg was pressing hard to bring some form of congestion pricing to Manhattan but faced opposition in the state legislature that killed his prospects. He continues to believe that what worked in London can work in New York City.
There are many other innovative approaches being proposed by both public and private parties that look to relieve congestion on the highways and improve the quality of life. The Minnesota Department of Transportation has been using highway shoulders for bus travel for the last fourteen years. By widening shoulders ten feet (three meters) and increasing the highway base course by seven inches (eighteen centimeters), they become wide enough and substantial enough to support slow-moving (thirty-five miles per hour) transit buses.
Which Brings Us Back to Public- Private Partnership Projects
In some quarters there appears to be confusion over what a PPP project is and what it is not. They are not privatization projects, a term that connotes the transfer of asset title. Highway and bridge revenue-generating PPP projects are concession or leasing arrangements where title to the asset remains with the government authority.
Although this distinction appears slight, several political figures have knowingly or unknowingly used this “sale of an asset to a foreign company” as a way to discourage any concession type agreements in their domain. These “leases” all have a termination date, some as long as , after which the project reverts back to its public owner. These public-private partnerships can take several forms:
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Build-Operate-Transfer: A private consortium builds a project to meet a government agency’s requirement and provides complete design or augments the owner’s design development. The consortium finances, constructs, operates, and maintains the facility during a specified concession period. The entity collects revenue from the project during the concession period and turns title over to the government agency at the end of that period for a nominal fee or no fee at all.
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Build-Own-Operate: Similar to build-operate-transfer above except that there is no transfer of ownership; the consortium owns and operates the project.
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Design-Build-Operate-Maintain: A private developer group will provide design/build services to construct a publicly owned facility and assume operational and maintenance responsibility for a specific period of time. Repayment can be via an annual payment, or if revenue producing, via collection of tolls.
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Lease-Develop-Operate: A private entity will lease a facility from a public agency, provide the capital to renovate, expand, or upgrade and operate the facility under a contract with that public agency.
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Buy-Build-Operate: A public agency will sell an asset to a private group that will complete any improvements such as expansion or the rehabilitation necessary to create a profitable venture for the private group to operate.
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Availability Payment Process: A process whereby a public agency makes periodic payments to a private concessionaire in return for delivering a service or product. (The recent Port of Miami project is an availability project and is explained more fully later in the paper.)
Other forms of public-private partnerships such as tax-exempt leases, sale/leaseback agreements, and turnkeys are also employed, all to one end: providing a service or product to a public agency in return for the ability of the private developer to earn a reasonable profit on the venture.
Shadow Tolling and Availability Payment Concepts
Shadow tolling and availability payments don’t exactly fit the typical PPP mold but they are being implemented in America and both state and federal agencies will no doubt watch their progress closely.
Shadow Tolls
Shadow tolling is a concept born in the United Kingdom where the government, in effect, pays the toll instead of the motorist. Payments are based upon assumed traffic volume and the level of service that is expected from the project’s operator. The advantages of a shadow toll system are:
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It minimizes the risk to the concessionaire, making it somewhat easier to obtain financing because the revenue stream is more closely identified.
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It provides more rapid access to financial markets, thereby speeding up the entire concession agreement process.
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When actual revenue streams are difficult to predict, bidders will be more prone to submit proposals knowing there is a floor under their anticipated investment.
This type of concession is often applied to projects involving highway upgrades or extensive repairs, because work on an existing roadway will impact the normal flow of traffic whenever a portion of that roadway is under construction and lane closings are inevitable. In 1995, FHwA engaged URS Griener to study the shadow toll concept and determined that this process may be appropriate in the following three instances:
1.
Proposals in a competitive bidding situation where traffic and revenue levels may skew those proposals unless some benchmark for traffic and revenue is provided by the government agency.
2.
Life-cycle costs depend upon traffic levels and annual maintenance and operations components strongly reflect projected traffic levels.
3.
Where there are significant “political/institutional concerns,” such as political sentiment that a windfall profit might accrue to the developer because actual traffic may significantly exceed expectations.
The FHwA innovative finance study regarding shadow tolls as stated in Chapter 5 of that report indicates that shadow tolls can be selectively employed in the United States when these conditions exist (URS Griener 1995):
•
Shadow tolls may apply when real tolls are unacceptable and the project structure requires some or all traffic risk to be borne by the developer or design-finance-build-operate entity.
•
Shadow toll project debt can be tax-exempt and cover some or all of the life-cycle project costs.
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Shadow tolls can be a mechanism to compensate existing toll agencies for institutional socially or environmentally oriented operational and/or toll modifications.
•
The availability of shadow toll project debt and its’ interest rate is largely reflective of the creditworthiness of the underlying funding sources and is not affected by traffic elasticity.
There are about ten shadow toll projects in Great Britain, seven in Portugal, and the first in the United States is being built in Texas.
Texas Department of Transportation and the El Paso Inner Loop Shadow Toll Project
The El Paso, Texas, area is the home of the U.S. Army’s Fort Bliss and an additional 21,000 soldiers and some 30,000 family members are expected to arrive at this base within the next because of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission program. The defense contractor, Boeing, has a contract to work on a future combat systems program at Fort Bliss and this will add about 300 contractors at that base.
The Texas Transportation Commission voted to build a seven-mile inner loop connecting Loop 375 on the east side of El Paso to U.S. 54 at Fred Wilson Drive so as to speed commercial trade into the city and provide additional access to the El Paso International Airport. This new stretch of road would also open up the east side to development near the Fort Bliss and Biggs Army Airfield, so there were lots of economic reasons to proceed with this project.
There was opposition to a toll road plan; the El Paso Times reported that State Representative Joe Picket would support only non-toll roads. He said, “This doesn’t help in our standing with the Base Realignment and Closure Commission to build a new road and then say, ‘Oh by the way, we’re going to toll the new troops coming in’” (Grissom 2006).
J. D. Abrams, a heavy and highway construction firm, has deep roots in Texas. Established in 1966 in El Paso, they have branch offices in Austin, Dallas, and Houston, and over the years have built flood control dams, airport runways, military housing infrastructure, and lots of bridges and highways, not only in Texas, but in Florida and Mississippi. They saw a business opportunity and submitted an unsolicited proposal to the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to design, finance, build, and maintain a shadow tolled expressway to be known as the El Paso Inner Loop.
J. D. Abrams would acquire all required rights-of-way, accommodate any existing utilities, design and construct the Inner Loop to TxDOT’s standards and practices and, in return, TxDOT would reimburse Abrams via a pass-through toll agreement per Section 222 of the Texas Transportation Code. The term of this “lease” would not exceed . J. D. Abrams had based their proposal on a traffic and revenue study prepared when they hired URS and Kimley Horn.
Table 3 shows the timeline that occurred after their initial unsolicited proposal submission, according to Mr. Bill Burnett, J. D. Abrams vice president of project development and director of strategic initiative. During a telephone conversation I had with Bill, he spelled out the events that took place after TxDOT looked favorably upon their initial proposal (Bill Burnett, personal communication, August 3, 2007).Table 3. Timeline Following Initial Proposal by J. D. Abrams
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| February 2006 | TxDOT requested competing proposals and received one from Zachry Construction. |
| April 2006 | Both proposals were sent to TxDOT for review. |
| July 2006 | TxDOT requested additional information to make an apples-to-apples comparison of the two proposals. |
| August 2006 | These revised proposals were submitted to TxDOT. |
| September 2006 | TxDOT requested some additional information from J. D. Abrams. |
| November 2006 | J.D. Abrams submitted their financial plan to TxDOT. |
| December 2006 | TxDOT declared the J.D. Abrams proposal “Best Value.” |
| January 2007 | Negotiations began to hammer out a final agreement. |
| February 2007 | Both parties agreed to a maximum payment of $350 million to be paid out in annual payments of $35 million, not to exceed . The cost per vehicle mile rate was part of the negotiation process. Three classes of vehicles, one for cars, one for light trucks, and one for heavy trucks were presented by J. D. Abrams, but this was negotiated to include only two classes, cars and trucks. |
| July 2007 | TxDOT obtained their final environmental clearance. |
| August 2007 | J.D. Abrams receives a contract from TxDOT on August 30. |
J. D. Abrams will receive a $55 million direct payment to cover some project management and design expenses, right-of-way acquisitions, and utility accommodations. The pass-through payments of $312,450,000 are somewhat less than the maximum agreed upon in February but the total value of their contract including that direct payment of $55 million is $367,450,000.
Like many infrastructure projects that would have languished due to partial fiscal year funding or no funding at all, this influx of private money ends up providing employment opportunities and many local economic benefits. URS will assume the role of lead designer and they will be supplemented by the local engineering firm KBR. Moreno Cardenas; Parkill Smith & Cooper, a local surveyor; and Archana, a local geotechnical company will also join the J. D. Abrams team.
The initiative displayed by this sophisticated contractor resulted in the speedy negotiation of a much needed highway improvement and J. D. Abrams, once again taking the lead, promised to deliver some sections of the Inner Loop by September 2008 and other sections by April 2009. This “shadow toll” PPP approach is very much like an availability payment agreement that was reached in a recent Florida concession project.
Availability Payments
Availability payment is another method of transferring risk from the public sector to the private sector, at a price. These public-private partnership contracts basically involve payments from a government agency to a private concession consortium in return for providing a service. This project delivery system could also be termed “Value for Money.” Availability payment programs are appropriate for several types of infrastructure projects:
•
Projects that don’t generate a revenue stream or where a government agency wishes to control full rate-setting authority.
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Where revenue or traffic volume is difficult to predict or manage.
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Where quality and timeliness of service is important.
The Port of Miami Project
The Port of Miami Tunnel, a $1 billion PPP project, is based upon an availability payment concept. In April 2006, in response to a request for proposal (RFP) from the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) three teams submitted proposals to build a and related access facilities at the Port of Miami for more than $1 billion. The RFP stated:
As far as compensation offered, the RFP continued:The Department seeks to enter into a public-private partnership (“Concession”) with a Concessionaire who will be required to design, build, and finance the Port of Miami Tunnel and Access Improvement Project (“The Project”), and then to operate and maintain the below-grade portions of the project (“Tunnel”) and potentially other portions (“Collectively with the Tunnel, the O&M Segments”)
(The O&M Segments were defined as “the portions of the project, including as a minimum, all below grade portions, that will be operated and maintained by the concessionaire pursuant to the terms of the concession agreement.”)Generally FDOT expects to compensate the Concessionaire by means of limited milestone-based payments during the design and construction of the Project and by making Availability Payments during the concession term to theconcessionaire based on the availability of the O&M Segments to the public.
The concessionaire would be provided with $100 million in progress payments after meeting certain milestones and an additional $350 million upon completion. The term of the concession agreement is thirty-five years and the concessionaire will begin receiving annual payments in 2013.
The proposers were to include in their proposal the amount of their maximum availability payments (MAP) and the length of construction (Table 4).Table 4. Three Proposals to Build a Tunnel and Access Facilities in the Port of Miami, April 2006
| Team | Members | Bid |
|---|---|---|
| Consortium Miami Tunnel | • Bouygues Travaux Publics S.A.• Babcock & BrownInfrastructure Group• Transfield Services of Australia• ABN Amro Bank NV | $33.2 million MAP construction |
| Miami Mobility Group | • Dragados USA, Inc.• Dragados Concesiones deInfrastructures S.A.• Odebrecht Construction Inc.• Odebrecht Investimentos emInfrastructural LTDA• Parsons Transportation Group• DMJM Harris, Inc. | $39.7 MAP construction |
| FCC Construccion S.A. | • FCC Construction S.A.• Morgan Stanley• Hatch Mott Macdonald• dwards & Kelcey | $63.2 million MAP construction |
availability payments.
FDOT planners had anticipated that they would have to provide MAPs of $68 million and therefore were pleased with the bid results, each one of which was below their figure.
It is interesting to note that Group 1 had no U.S. members; Group 2 included Parsons and DMJM (a part of the AECOM family); and Group 3 included banker Morgan Stanley, the New Jersey engineering firm Hatch Mott Macdonald, and Edwards & Kelcey, a part of the Jacobs Engineering group.
The Bouygues group, Consortium Miami Access Tunnel, was selected as “Best Value” and a contract award that seemed eminent experienced some serious roadblocks along the way. To complete the deal, the Miami city commissioners were to authorize a $50 million payment as part of their contribution to this $1 billion project, but they balked at doing so just days before the September deadline to finalize the financial arrangements with the concessionaire. This deadline had already been extended before and state negotiators were concerned that the project would die. On October 16, 2007, Miami Mayor Manny Diaz asked FDOT to extend their deadline for the city’s share until mid-December. And finally on December 18, 2007, a city-proposed public works package included the $50 million that will allow the project to go forward. As of February 1, 2008, the county had not yet committed the necessary funding for the project to proceed, a reminder that these types of politicized projects frequently stall many times from “Best Value” to contract to Notice to Proceed.
Should the Concessionaire Earn an ROI Commensurate with the Risk?
The toll rate structure is part of the long-term concession agreement that reflects the concessionaire’s ability to obtain a decent return on investment. But critics still complain about the toll rate structure. These critics fail to give credit to experienced local or state officials who diligently and professionally negotiate a reasonable toll rate schedule that includes increases through the concession period. There are also market forces at work: if tolls are too expensive, motorists will seek other roads that may be more congested, but offer no tolls. Public transportation is another option available and has the added effect of being beneficial to the environment. And there is the alternative of car pooling to split the commuting costs. Some states such as Minnesota have added bus lanes and strategically placed car parks to create an attractive alternative to auto travel.
Other toll road detractors say that increased toll road traffic, beyond that projected in the concession pro formas, would provide windfall profits for the concessionaire and therefore, a cap ought to be placed on any excess profits and overages should revert back to the asset owner. That seems to be a reasonable approach but concessionaires respond appropriately. If you cap the ability to make a profit based upon exceeding our projected traffic studies, will you also provide subsidies if we fail to meet the minimum traffic goals upon which we formulated our proposal?
Public agencies, during the course of negotiating the deal, can include profit-sharing clauses that kick in after revenue exceeds specific levels and some states have already done so.
The other more difficult concern to address, often is, why can’t the state, or a state agency, provide the same services as this for-profit organization? After all, many of these concession agreements anticipate earning a return on investment of 18 to 20 percent. A look at what is happening in Texas might provide some insight into that question.
The Harris County Toll Road Authority
The Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA) is one of the government agencies charged with developing, building, operating, and maintaining tolls roads within a defined geographic areas in the state of Texas.
In 1983 when Harris County voters, by a margin of seven to three, approved $900 million in bonds be issued to create two toll roads, HCTRA was established. Harris County, Texas, with a population of about 3.7 million, is the state’s most populous county and it encompasses the Houston-Sugarland-Baytown metropolitan areas with Houston as the county seat.
The HCTRA became a division of the county’s Public Infrastructure Department; the Operations Division oversees all aspects of toll operations within its domain including revenue collection and human resources; the Engineering Division manages toll road design, engineering, construction management, and right-of-way acquisition; and the Services Division handles EZ Tag operations. Currently under HCTRA control are Westpark, Sam Houston West and Southeast, Ship Channel Bridge, US-59 to I-45, and the Hardy toll roads.
The interchange at I-10 and the Sam Houston Tollway was one of eight projects recognized by ASCE as an outstanding civil engineering project. The International Bridge, Tunnel, and Turnpike Association recognized the Sam Houston and Hardy toll roads as among America’s safest toll roads. HCTRA is recognized as a sophisticated, savvy organization.
HCTRA developed and operated these toll roads successfully and for the year ending February 28, 2006, their net worth structure looked like this:
•
Total assets: $2.4 billion;
•
Total liabilities: $2.127 billion; and
•
Total net assets: $273,508,284.
When the state of Texas authorized six toll projects in Senate Bill 792, which included HCTRA’s area of responsibility, I spoke to Mr. Peter Key, deputy director of HCTRA to inquiry about whether any of these six projects would be concession agreements.
Mr. Key said that these types of decisions must be made with the interest of the public in mind, and it is recognized that concessionaires have to return a profit. And he posed the question, “Why can’t a public agency operate as cost effectively as a private one since they don’t have to return a profit?” He continued, “If the local agency can operate efficiently so that they can retain those ‘profits’ and return them back to the public, why consider concessions?” He went on to say that the founders of HCTRA had the foresight to create and operate an efficient organization and insure that funding would be available for future projects (Peter Key, personal communication, August 16, 2007).
North Texas Tollway Authority
The North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) is a political subdivision of the state of Texas under Chapter 366 of the Transportation Code. Their charge is to “acquire, construct, maintain, repair, and operate turnpike projects.” They are authorized to raise capital for these projects by issuing turnpike revenue bonds and the tolls they collect can be used to maintain and service the debt for those projects. NTTA currently controls the Dallas North Tollway Systems, which includes the President Bush Turnpike, the Addison Airport Toll Tunnel, the Lewisville Lake Toll Bridge, and the Mountain Creek Lake Bridge. NTTA’s record is good, they retired the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike bonds seventeen years ahead of schedule and they were at the forefront of the toll road technology by introducing open toll roading in Texas. Their “Financial Results and Analysis 2006 Highlights” from NTTA’s 2006 Annual Report reveals the strong state of their revenue stream and control of debt service as well as administration and operations expenses (NTTA 2007).
In early 2007 NTTA received some negative notoriety involving a TxDOT RFP for a concession agreement for State Highway 121 (SH-121). In February 2007, TxDOT accepted the proposal of Cintra/JP Morgan to pay the state $2.1 billion for the concession to complete about twenty-three miles (thirty-seven kilometers) of twelve-lane highway in the North Dallas area. Cintra/JP Morgan was to be granted a fifty-year concession to collect tolls generated by this new construction. At the time, Cintra/JP Morgan was officially declared “Best Value.” But NTTA had other plans.
On March 26, 2007, the Regional Transportation Council (RTC) of the North Central Texas Council of Governments offered NTTA an opportunity to submit a counter “binding commitment” to construct, operate, and maintain existing and proposed portions of SH-121, basically abrogating the prior competitive bid process.
On May 18, 2007, NTTA submitted a public sector proposal to the Dallas RTC, which in turn contacted PricewaterhouseCoopers to assess the financial value of the Cintra proposal and the NTTA proposal. On June 28, the Texas Transportation Commission instructed NTTA to prepare a project agreement within sixty days and on July 25, a resolution approving the execution and delivery of a project agreement with the Texas Department of Transportation pertaining to the SH-121 toll project was submitted for approval.
Not only were protests aired locally, but the FHwA also had something to say about that decision. Richard Capka, a federal highway administrator, sent a letter to TxDOT on August 16 stating that their procurement of the SH-121 project “violates federal law.” Mr. Capka’s letter stated:
Allowing a bid submission after closure of a project’s selection is an egregious violation of the basic requirements of a fair and competitive process. Here the final bid submitted by Cintra, along with many other proprietary details of Cintra’s submission had been disclosed and were publicly available at the time NTTA submitted its proposal.
Since federal regulations do not permit federal-aid funds to be dispersed where there is a violation of federal law, the FHwA could impose a variety of sanctions, such as withdrawal of the special exceptions program (SEP-15) and withdrawal of Private Activity Bond support as well as loans authorized by the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 1998.
On August 21, 2007, TxDOT responded to Mr. Capka’s letter announcing ways that TxDOT can come into compliance with the conditions set forth in his August 16 letter by:
1. Canceling the procurement for the award of a comprehensive development agreement for the project, as allowed under 43 TAC para 27.3(b) and Section 8.0 of the Instructions to Proposers; and2. Canceling Minute Order 110968, by which the commission approved the Regional Transportation Council recommendation that the North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) undertake the development, design, construction, financing, operation and maintenance of the SH-121 toll project, and taking other actions necessary to finalize a SH-121 project agreement with the NTTA.
This situation, closely watched, can provide the answer to one question and raise another. The first question is, Can a public agency compete effectively with a private consortium without having intimate knowledge of their proposal? The second question may be as significant, Can a private consortium trust a government agency to deal fairly and squarely in a competitive bidding situation, especially one as complex as a road concession agreement? The assembly of the bid may have cost Cintra millions of dollars and should they have been reimbursed for these costs?
Will other proposed concessionaires take notice and require reimbursement for proposal costs if their submission meets the accepted standards in the competitive bid marketplace, but are rejected by that authority? Will these bidders put some poison pills in their proposals that may not be in the public interest?
The answer to the second question was rather simple. TxDOT subsequently issued a request for qualification on a new project, the North Tarrant Expressway toll concession, and received seven responses, short listing four in July 2007. Michael Behrens, TxDOT’s executive director was quoted in Tollroadnews (2007) as stating “This is a clear signal that the private sector continues to be ready, willing, and able to invest in transportation in Texas. More proposals mean better competition, which will drive down costs and benefit all Texans.” This somehow doesn’t seem to equate with that SH-121 “competition” process.
Where Do We Go from Here?
Powerful anti-tax rhetoric permeates every level of government even as our national debt continues to rise. Without fiscal responsibility and the acceptance of a pay-as-you-go premise, or promise, will we be revisiting other innovative ways to involve private investors in our crumbling infrastructure?
As the economy tanked in 2007-08 and talk of a recession entered the lexicon of economists and politicians. We hear promises of some short-term cures and the next president will be faced with a whole host of foreign and domestic problems.
The state of our infrastructure ought to be at the top of the list. Want to inject some stimulus into the economy Mr/Mrs President? Well how about this:
•
For every $1 billion of federal spending on highway construction projects 47,500 jobs are generated on an annual basis.
•
USDOT says that for every dollar invested in the U.S. highway systems, $5.40 in economic benefits are generated by virtue of reduce delays, improved safety, and lower vehicle operating costs.
•
In 2007, USDOT stated that motor vehicle crashes cost this country $230 billion each year in medical costs, lost productivity, insurance and legal fees, that’s more than $819 per citizen!
•
$6.3 trillion of commodities are delivered each year from sites within the United States by truck and it is essential that our highways remain uncluttered and in good repair.
So you elected officials in Washington, keep up the good work. Keep pecking away at those earmarks. Don’t be afraid of the “T” for tax word. And if you really want to give the economy a long-term shot in the arm, provide more funding for our infrastructure.
References
“2005 Report card for America’s infrastructure.” (2005). ASCE, ⟨http://www.asce.org/reportcard/2005/page.cfm?id=203⟩ (Mar 9, 2005).
“2006–2011 consolidated transportation program.” (2006). Maryland Department of Transportation, Office of Planning, ⟨www.marylandtransportation.com⟩.
“Cintra-Macquarie bid of $3.85b for Indiana TR accepted.” (2006). Tollroadsnews, ⟨http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/1420⟩ (Jan 23, 2006).
“Cintra survey men arrested, later released on Penn Pike.” (2007). Tollroadsnews, ⟨http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/3154⟩ (Sept. 27, 2007).
“Four shortlisted for North Tarrant Express concession in Dallas Ft. Worth area.” (2007). Tollroadnews, ⟨http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/3045⟩ (July 28, 2007).
Grissom, B. (2006). “New road will link bliss, biggs to east Side.” El Paso Times, Jan. 26, local news.
Lomax, T., and Schrank, D. (2007). “2007 urban mobility report.” Texas Transportation Institute, College Station, Tex.
North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA). (2007) “Comprehensive annual financial report for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2006.” North Texas Tollway Authority, Plano, Tex.
Pear, R. (2008). “Earmarks likely to continue, but with details.” The New York Times, Jan. 22, Washington Section.
“Stevens is pork king again, says CAWG.” (2005). The Hill, ⟨http://thehill.com/under-the-dome/deep-mouth-still-in-deep-cover-2005-06-30.html⟩ (June 30, 2005).
URS Greiner. (1995). “The applicability of shadow toll concept in the U.S.” Federal Highway Administration, P.O. No. DTFH61-95-P-00499.
U.S. Department of Transportation, Office of Public Affairs. (USDOE). (2006). “National strategy to reduce congestion on America’s transportation network.” ⟨http://www.dot.gov/affairs/minetasp051606.htm⟩ (May 26, 2006).
Biographies
Sidney M. Levy is a Baltimore, Maryland-based consultant, representing owners in the design and construction process. His prior forty years experience in the general contracting industry focused on commercial, institutional, and health care projects. Mr. Levy is author of twenty-four books and has lectured in the U.S., Mexico, Japan, and Korea. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].
Information & Authors
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Published In
Leadership and Management in Engineering
Volume 8 • Issue 4 • October 2008
Pages: 217 - 230
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© 2008 ASCE.
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Published online: Oct 1, 2008
Published in print: Oct 2008
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