When President Trump pledged during the campaign to spend $1 trillion to restore America’s crumbling bridges and roads, supporters across the country cheered.
Then came Mr. Trump’s budget proposal, which would slash the Department of Transportation’s spending by 13 percent, end subsidies for Amtrak’s long-distance trains and eliminate the Obama administration’s “Tiger” grant program, which has helped fund mass transit systems across the country.
But Ms. Chao, who was labor secretary under President George W. Bush, also sounded the alarm over “saddling future generations with massive debt.” Instead of depleting government coffers, she said, Mr. Trump hoped to “unleash the potential for private investment” through partnerships with the private sector.
She has also suggested that funds for infrastructure improvements might come from more tolls on the country’s roads.
“Investors say there is ample capital available, waiting to invest in infrastructure projects,” she said. “So the problem is not money.”
In late 2015, the operator of the Indiana Toll Road — a roadway that runs from Chicago to the Ohio border, and is owned by affiliates of the Australian investment bank Macquarie Group and Ferrovial in Spain — filed for bankruptcy after rosy forecasts for rising traffic and toll revenue failed to be realized.
That came just eight years after the companies paid $3.8 billion for a 75-year lease for the toll road. Operators of toll roads in Alabama, Michigan and Virginia have also faced bankruptcy in recent years.
Donald Cohen, the executive director of In The Public Interest, a watchdog that focuses on privatization and contracting, said that toll roads and parking meters had attracted investors, since they looked like infrastructure projects with well-defined business models and predictable revenue.
“There were some rosy projections, but things didn’t go well,” Mr. Cohen said. “And there can be a real diversion between what’s good for private investors and public interest.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/...n-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
Then came Mr. Trump’s budget proposal, which would slash the Department of Transportation’s spending by 13 percent, end subsidies for Amtrak’s long-distance trains and eliminate the Obama administration’s “Tiger” grant program, which has helped fund mass transit systems across the country.
But Ms. Chao, who was labor secretary under President George W. Bush, also sounded the alarm over “saddling future generations with massive debt.” Instead of depleting government coffers, she said, Mr. Trump hoped to “unleash the potential for private investment” through partnerships with the private sector.
She has also suggested that funds for infrastructure improvements might come from more tolls on the country’s roads.
“Investors say there is ample capital available, waiting to invest in infrastructure projects,” she said. “So the problem is not money.”
In late 2015, the operator of the Indiana Toll Road — a roadway that runs from Chicago to the Ohio border, and is owned by affiliates of the Australian investment bank Macquarie Group and Ferrovial in Spain — filed for bankruptcy after rosy forecasts for rising traffic and toll revenue failed to be realized.
That came just eight years after the companies paid $3.8 billion for a 75-year lease for the toll road. Operators of toll roads in Alabama, Michigan and Virginia have also faced bankruptcy in recent years.
Donald Cohen, the executive director of In The Public Interest, a watchdog that focuses on privatization and contracting, said that toll roads and parking meters had attracted investors, since they looked like infrastructure projects with well-defined business models and predictable revenue.
“There were some rosy projections, but things didn’t go well,” Mr. Cohen said. “And there can be a real diversion between what’s good for private investors and public interest.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/...n-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0