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If
you think about it carefully, it matters not one
whit who holds the title to the Turnpike or the
Parkway or any other road. What really matters is:
does the roadway function efficiently for those who
use it and, second, are tolls roughly reflective of
the costs of operating, maintaining and, when
necessary, expanding the roadway. For the last fifty
years, the authorities in charge of these tolled,
limited access highways have been decent stewards of
this public trust, not perfect but decent
nonetheless. Have there been successive waves of
“cousins” employed? Sure. Have there been some under
the table payments now and then? Sure. These will
never disappear regardless of who holds the title to
the roadway.
So
what’s wrong with changing the technical ownership
of our toll roads? There’s one possibility, a strong
one, that there could be some serious mischief in
any arrangement that results in
Trenton
getting its hands on a big pot of money. It will be
spent on bread and circuses despite all the promises
that even honest politicians offer the public. A
fund of $10 billion – or whatever – is just too much
of a temptation, if not for the current Governor and
Legislature then for future ones who may be much
less scrupulous.
This mischief will occur even if there is never a
single $10 billion pot. The public learned about
securitization shortly after New Jersey began
getting hundreds of millions annually in tobacco
settlement payments. Poof, gone – gone to fund
something no one even remembers now. So don’t make
the mistake that we can insure anything by taking
payments rather than lump sums. Trenton is much too
financially sophisticated nowadays.
Can’t we rely on our legislators, counties and
municipalities to prevent this? Not at all.
New Jersey’s suburban interests have been bought off and neutralized
pretty cheaply in the past, so a few million here
and a billion there will buy off all opposition at
this level. Well, can’t we rely on the public to see
what’s going on and put a definite stop to it? Not
at all either. The public can be bought off even
more cheaply; they don’t even need a real payment, a
simple promise of some relief will do. This is
exactly what happened with our much vaunted, highly
debated property tax relief.
As
for running the toll roads more efficiently under
new management: let’s face the fact that this is New
Jersey, a strong union state, and we will not let
any new owner fire all the Turnpike employees as
Ronald Regan canned the union air traffic
controllers. These guys and gals are going to be
around for a very long time. Technology may replace
them, but no organization is going to put them out
on a
New Jersey street. How will any new organization run the roadways more
efficiently unless we allow union busting, and we
won’t.
What will happen is that
Trenton
will agree to toll increases high enough to generate
whatever the cost of the rearrangements will be,
including huge fees for friendly bond counsel and
even friendlier bond marketers. In the end it will
be a transfer from toll payers to
Trenton, under the guise of efficiency and forward thinking. The
transfer will fund the honey pot and everything else
Trenton wants. Soon, all the toll payers will forget
about it. That’s the genius of the plan.
The problem can’t be surmounted given all the
political and financial interest that swim like
sharks in the money pool that will inevitably come
about, at least not with the solutions currently on
the table.
So, how to make some improvements in the
organizational structure of the toll roads, get rid
of a few “cousins,” and keep tolls as low as
possible. Create a public utility, like PSE&G or
Jersey Central Power and Light and apply utility
regulation and allow a regulated profit. Somehow
this works for other important things in our lives
and, while not completely independent and free of
political control, these organizations have over the
years assembled excellent staffs, delivered
excellent services and there’s no honey pot
attached. |
