CSI in the News - CSI Today

March 1, 2011Governments Consider ControversialBuilding DealsBy THE ASSOCIATED PRESSFiled at 3:51 p.m. ESTNEW YORK (AP) — New York City and New Jersey need a new bridge, but money is tight. Soofficials are doing something they've never done before: They're getting a private company tobuild one, then buying it a little at a time.Such public-private partnerships are becoming more attractive as cash-strappedgovernments search for ways to overhaul aging roads and bridges. But they are also fueling adebate over the role of government in providing roads, bridges and other majortransportation projects.Proponents say the deals can help take the place of the nation's dwindling highway trustfund. Skeptics insist they drive up costs, and that deals allowing companies to charge tollsare chipping away at the American tradition of free roads built by and for the people."There is a movement away from the idea that everybody is entitled to use any road withoutfee," said Jonathan Peters, a professor of finance at the College of Staten Island.In many projects, private companies make money by collecting tolls. In others, like NewYork's Goethals Bridge, the government will pay companies back over decades using a mix oftoll money and other revenue. Motorists already pay $8 per car to cross the existing bridgeinto New York City.Public-private partnerships are being considered for dozens of new projects: a new bridge inDetroit, an approach to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, a road to the Jackson,Miss., airport, a traffic loop around Baton Rouge, La., and railroad projects in Virginia, WestVirginia and Ohio. The governors of Virginia and Connecticut have both pointed to suchpartnerships as a way to meet their states' transportation needs."The problem is that if the public agency could come up with the capital to do the projectthemselves, even if they had to pay it back over time, the public could probably get a betterPage 23 of 179