December 11, 2014      4:58 PM
Incoming Texas leadership breaks from national trend on public private partnerships for transportation
Abbott, unlike Perry, opposes the use of private investment to resolve the state’s congestion problems
WASHINGTON DC - Public-private partnerships for
transportation may be gaining traction on the national stage, just as Texas’
elected officials have chosen to shun the use of toll roads and managed lanes
to defray the cost of transportation.
Gov.-elect Greg
Abbott, unlike his predecessor, opposes the use of private investment to
resolve the state’s congestion problems. The Republican Party of Texas
made it clear in
its platform last summer that toll roads should be tightly constrained:
Taxpayer money should never be used to subsidize private toll projects. Tolls
should come off roads once construction costs are paid, the party believes.
Further, the Texas GOP says state should never surrender control of a toll
project to foreign interests, a swipe at Spanish company Cintra,
which has partnered on a number of projects.
But if there’s a topic on which Republicans and Democrats agree, its private-public
partnerships. The current administration
is as gung ho to find outside funding as was the Pres. George W. Bush
administration, which introduced the P3 concept.
“It’s important at every level of government to use as many
strategies and tools as we can moving forward,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told a gathering of state
lawmakers at lunch at the National Conference of State Legislatures
2014 Forum. “The more we can add additional tools the toolbox, the better.”
Eight years ago, the Republican philosophy in Texas was the
private sector could do anything the public government could do, and do it more
efficiently. Privatization was a key strategy for both reshaping social
services and funding transportation.
By Kimberly Reeves
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