Investors and Voters Are Willing To Pay To Pave U.S. Highways

This article outlines the development of public-private partnerships (PPP) and toll roads to fund new Interstate projects in the United States, most of which have traditionally been free and entirely funded by the public. The author also describes the impending inflation that will reduce the 18.3 cent/gallon gasoline tax's spending power to 13.5 cents. PPPs are designed to assuage this rising cost of transportation infrastructure. This article describes how, in addition to domestic private investors, foreign investors are also helping to build domestic roadways. The article uses a number of case-examples to explain the increasingly useful phenomena including Virginia's $1 billion, 50-year proposal to operate the Dulles Toll Road, Chicago's privatization of the Skyway toll bridge to Spanish firm Macquarie and Cintra, and California's recently proposed $107 billion plan, among others. The authors also describe the preservation of the design-build technique in which the engineers work closely with the contractor, or the engineer and the contractor are all within the same firm.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/08919526
• Authors:
  • Cho, Aileen
  • Powers, Michael E
  • Hampton, Tudor
• Publication Date: 2006-1-16

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Maps; Photos;
• Pagination: pp 24-28
• Serial:
  • ENR
  • Volume: 256
  • Issue Number: 2
  • Publisher: McGraw-Hill, Incorporated
  • ISSN: 0891-9526

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Design build; Finance; Government funding; Interstate highways; Investments; Public private partnerships; Toll roads
• Geographic Terms: Texas; Virginia
• Subject Areas: Finance; Highways; I10: Economics and Administration;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01018615
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: UC Berkeley Transportation Library
• Files: BTRIS, TRIS
• Created Date: Feb 2 2006 9:33AM