Overview

America’s roadways must be operated for the long-term public interest. Elected officials in Indiana and Chicago recently sold off public roads to private toll-road companies. Tempted by short-term cash, these governments relinquished public control over the management and planning of transportation networks and failed to receive fair value for these assets. The private investors in these deals are expected to reap enormous profits from the rising tolls that they will collect for themselves over coming generations, while the public will lose the long-term toll revenues and its control over transportation planning.

These deals have encouraged a stampede of investment finance companies seeking similarly sweet deals from tolls on other public roads across the United States. As states consider these privatization or “monetization” deals, U.S. PIRG, the federation of state PIRGs, is pressing public officials to uphold six basic principles to protect the public interest:

1. Retain public control over transportation planning and management.

2. Ensure that the public receives fair long-term value for assets. Just because a state or locality faces dire fiscal straits, they shouldn’t sell public assets at a discount.

3. No deals longer than 30 years because lawmakers can not reasonably anticipate our transportation needs or assess the value of toll roads beyond a few decades.

4. Require state-of-the-art safety and maintenance standards that will increase over time.

5. Complete transparency and accountability must be maintained so the public knows the complete terms of specific proposed deals and lawmakers must vote on them.

6. No budget gimmicks. If governments do sign these deals, the money must be used to address other long-term transportation needs.

U.S. PIRG will continue to rally public pressure, mobilize coalitions of stake holders, and educate public officials to protect against bad privatization deals.