Spanish firm offers $12.8 billion to lease Pa. Turnpike
 

What do you Penn people think about this?
http://www.infowars.com/?p=2257

Fantastic..

We pay for the Turnpike with our tax dollars.. Then the government leases it out to a company owned by the king if Spain lol.

Now.. Will we ever see a dime from the 12.8bill.. Fuck no.. Should we? Damn right.. They are profiting from our tax dollars..

Times are good ey

And being a toll road you can feel good that money you pay is going to Spain.

did you read? the 1.1 billion per year received will be used for other PA road projects.
obviously the 12.8 billion isnt paid upfront, its spread over several years... what looks like 10 years

Forget what country owns the toll roads in Indiana, but I think if you ask the average Hoosier they would not agree that it was a good idea.

I can't even believe I have to pay to drive on them. At least when I hit a toll road in CA it is a nice road.

And worse, the PA Turnpike (I drive it all the time) is not that well maintained now.

* Rough road surface in many sections compared to what one would expect for a toll road.

* Perputual construction - very little seems to gets done ... ie. Exit 326 (formerly #24) Valley Forge interchange has been under contruction for years!

* Disabled cars sit on the side for days, to sometimes ever over a week.

Anyways, toll roads should be outlawed, not encouraged - the U.S. system is going backwards to become what it was about a century ago of numerous toll roads.

Rambling on...

Bottom line is that folks will be paying MUCH MORE to drive the PA Turnpike if it's ever "leased out"...

While it's true a private company might find some savings, there's no way they'll find enough to cover both operation expenses and generate a profit ... thus massive toll increases are inevitable.

Ron

"Under Rendell's plan, the Abertis/Citi consortium would lease the turnpike for 75 years"

jesus 75 years:Oh crap

Why do they need to lease it to run a toll road? Is it really that hard to manage a toll road themselves?

Hey what else can we sell off! Our courts or maybe our national parks?!

if you live there, try and protest! its a total rip off of the taxpayers. They sold one off here in Ontario, nothing but price increases ever since and if you dont pay the toll, the gov will suspend your license. So they are even doing collections for them:mad:

Oh, but it gets even worse - often when a toll road is "sold off" (long-term lease), often there are provisions in the contract stipulate a non-compete zone of many miles on either side of the toll road...

Often roads with parallel routes within X miles of the toll road are not permitted to be improved beyond a certain level - can't be converted to limited access highways, etc.

Oh, and if there already are existing limited access highways nearby, typically extra restrictions (even outright bans) are added for trucks, speed limits lowered, cross-traffic introduced, etc.

Ron