I-95 coalition urges doubling highway spending

To reduce congestion and greenhouse gases, Eastern states should plan to double highway spending and drastically increase the use of mass transit and rail, an interstate coalition said yesterday.

The cost - an estimated $71 billion a year - would require money from private companies, because the 16 states don't have enough money, said George Schoener, executive director of the I-95 Corridor Coalition, an organization of transportation and police officials from the states through which the interstate runs.

Schoener was one of four advocates of "public-private partnerships" to testify yesterday before a Pennsylvania legislative panel considering bills to authorize such arrangements to help pay for roads, bridges, airports and other infrastructure.

States are scrambling to find ways to pay for their infrastructure at the same time the main source of highway funding - the gas tax - is drying up as people drive fewer miles and more efficient cars.

Increasingly, states are considering turning over the job of building and operating roads and bridges to private companies.

Gov. Rendell wants to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike for $12.8 billion to a Spanish toll-road operator and a U.S. investment firm for 75 years.

Legislators such as State Rep. Richard Geist (R., Blair) see opportunities to have private companies build and operate express toll lanes on the Schuylkill Expressway and I-95, as well as take on other major construction projects.

A bill sponsored by Geist is one of several under consideration by the House Transportation Committee that would authorize Pennsylvania to enter into such arrangmements.

Committee chairman Joseph Markosek (D., Allegheny) said he hoped to get a bill approved by the legislature before the truncated election-year session ends.

The federal government, which has been a chief provider of highway and transportation money, is pushing states to find other sources. The federal highway trust fund will run out of money this month unless Congress acts to shore it up.

"We at the [federal Department of Transportation] believe that it is time to take advantage of the private sector's flexibility, innovation, creativity, expertise, and access to capital while maintaining public oversight, accountability to taxpayers, and long-term strategic planning," the chief counsel of the Federal Highway Administration told the committee, which met at SEPTA headquarters in Center City.

Art Smith, chairman of the National Council for Public-Private Partnerships, cited the 99-year lease of the Chicago Skyway as a good example of the benefits of leasing roads to private companies. Chicago got $1.83 billion from a Spanish-Australian venture, which took over operation of the road in 2005.

Critics have complained that the Chicago deal, like a similar lease of the Indiana Toll Road and the proposed lease of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, gives foreign companies control of vital U.S. assets.

Smith dismissed such concerns, saying, "When you have a foreign partner willing to come to invest in Pennsylvania, that is a good thing."

James Whitty, an Oregon transportation official, outlined a plan being developed in his state to replace the gas tax with a high-tech "vehicle miles traveled" tax that would charge drivers 1.2 cents per mile based on readings of a GPS transponder in each car.