Foreign companies are financing road construction here in the United States then collecting the tolls placed on them for their trouble. A classic example is the LBJ in north Dallas.
The rebuilt freeway will be the first in the city to offer both paid and free lanes. It’s being built and largely financed by a team of investors led by Spanish toll road firm Cintra.
Private investors will control the project for 52 years, maintain all of its lanes and collect tolls on the optional paid lanes that will be several times higher than those charged by the North Texas Tollway Authority.
Not only are foreign investors rebuilding and operating roads, foreign companies are getting the contracts to work on them… and of course, foreign workers are brought in; we’re subsidizing jobs in China!
The Chinese workers are what? Sounds like a wake-up call to me…
WTF? If I find a toll road that is run by a foreign company I will drive out of my way to afford it. This is insane.
That should be avoid and not afford.
What the fuck happened to all that fucking stimulus money????
Hmmmmm????
It’s bullshit! And do you buy the “we don’t have enough welders” line? I don’t.
We do have plenty of welders. What we don’t have are plenty of non-union welders willing or free to work for less than $200k a year in combined salary and benefits, let-alone a uniform right-to-work market that doesn’t mandate such a steeply-expensive organized workforce. I’m guessing a workforce of temporary-visa-holding foreign nationals can’t be compelled to unionize… We have Big Union Labor and a tax-and-spend, entitlement-minded government to thank for this mess.
Couldn’t agree more, BR!
Thanks again for the perspective from inside, as it were.
I know welders in Oklahoma who are looking for jobs. Total BS.
Exactly!
does the word Union ring any bells? the stimulus went to union only roads so most of the money went into pockets and back into campaign funds – since the roads were being built by the government there is no control or oversight of the founds just like the 400+ districts that did not exist that received stimulus money – there were a lot of signs post but not much else – these are non-union roads built with private money so they will be able to make a profit unlike our government run express lanes I am forced to drive 9 miles at $2 to $8.50 each way to get to & from work that they claim is loosing money
That’s probably a foreign company you’re paying tolls to, as well…
Like you said, the unions got the money; neat little laundering trick there… now they’re pissed because they’re losing jobs to the chinese? Is that irony or just disgusting?
insert puke emote here…. I begin to feel my country is lost.
I know what you mean! This isn’t anything we can vote on; they just hire the company they want, regardless.
That’s what happens when US businesses can’t afford to DO business here (a lot of that is due to unions, but not all). FWIW, my husband does work for one of those foreign-owned toll companies…but they are employing Americans in America. They are looking at buying one in the Northeast…and dealing with the Unions there is crazy!
You’re right; US businesses have one of the highest tax rates in the world; it’s pathetic.
But I’m very happy to hear that they’re putting Americans to work instead of bringing in their own people! Works for me!
Our brilliant economy has created the problem, and not surprisingly, as the national economy has gotten worse our business has gotten better. Of course I can’t give specifics, but our company is looking into several “opportunities” around the country – several of which are existing toll facilities that are so poorly mis-managed that they are financial sinkholes for the local governments and/or municipalities that are running them. In reality, such facilities have been bankrupted by fiscally-impossible political limitations – namely mandated unionized public employees and failed government tax subsidies. What happens when local governments can no longer afford to maintain what *should* be a ‘profitable’ or at least self-sustaining toll-based infrastructure? They either put the property up for sale or lease, or contract third-party firms to renovate and manage the property – for hire.
That’s right, when a failed tolling facility is falling apart and investors have to rescue it, said investors will do exactly that – invest in a business venture. They aren’t interested in charitable donations of capital. So yes, the toll bump will necessarily have to cover the cost of renovating the infrastructure AND socking away a tidy profit on a shareholder’s timetable. This means a formerly ‘subsidized’ paltry toll WILL go up – sometimes astronomically, but usually over a period of time to allow for locals to acclimate. One such facility we manage started at $1 nearly 10 years ago. The toll there is $3.50 today for non-resident commuters. Verified local residents pay half that, with prepaid programs that can drive the price even lower.
Residents and visitors alike cuss us out all the time over the rates, but they’re free to drive the 7 or so miles each way to avoid our privately owned bridge – we don’t force anybody to travel it. We also don’t charge “extra” for the 16 miles of built and maintained road leading up to the bridge avoidance turnoff. If they never use the bridge, they travel the same distance as before the bridge was built. It perplexes me how not “giving away” our investment / services infuriates people. It is, after all, a purely capitalistic enterprise. My employers provide the investment capital, and so can easily walk away from ANY mandated caps and restrictions that they see as too great a risk for enterprise. Our sandbox – our rules.
Of course we burden all the risk, too: if nobody travels our roads and bridges after all the money we sink into them to build/renovate/maintain, we lose. We have seen many a boycott. Interestingly enough, they usually are VERY short-lived – especially when the price of gasoline spikes.
I am fortunate to be on the technology end, where we are developing new products and methods to collect tolls with a minimum of interaction or disruption in your motoring. (That’s a polite way to say we’re working on automation to eliminate warm-body attendants.) But beware – the new “trend” is for cash-starved local governments to monetize already existing roads as a means of local revenue generation (i.e., “use tax.”) It comes with a minimum of infrastructure investment – just cameras, RFID or other active scanning technology that watch you as you move about a’la “Big Brother,” optionally even electronically debiting your accounts for the fees due. I can almost guarantee, it’s coming soon to a municipality near you…
we do have the same rights as the big boss man – all we have to do is exercise them – that means Vote, play squeaky wheel just like they do – We have more spokes so we should be able to take control back, VET the people that want to work for us and tell them what we want them to do – this letting them tell us what they are going to do weather we like it or not is BS – We gave up control to them, so lets get together and take back what was ours to begin with, I think we have let them play with it long enough – Just how long would you let someone use your house while you were stuck in a tent in the yard? and you needed to use the John real bad?
Graphic illustration but right on.
I have to add – from a “moral” perspective, the private toll facility is IMHO a fairer system of infrastructure development for some cases. Government-funded roads tax EVERYONE to provide specific infrastructure that only a select few may use. In our example, taxing residents in the poorer north end of the county who may seldom or never use the island bridge seems an offensive hands-in-your-pocket means of providing a convenience for largely wealthy ‘beach house’ island residents. Considering some of our most vociferous detractors are multi-million-dollar beach house owners touting their “connections” and driving Lexuses (Lexii?) and Mercedes AMGs, I have to chuckle.
Bitterroot – thanks for the perspective, I love it!
Down here in south Florida more roads are monetized all the time, most have done away with live toll collectors and the cameras! Mamma Mia, the cameras, they are everywhere!
Hey, I’m just glad the foreign investors are hiring American labor!