Opinion: Plans to Privatize Maryland’s Highways with Toll Lanes are Not in the Public Interest – Maryland Matters

By Gary V. Hodge

The author is president of Regional Coverage Advisors, vice chair of the Maryland Transit Alternatives Coalition, and a former Charles County commissioner. He has been engaged in state and regional transportation initiatives and advocacy for 50 years as a planner, public official, advisor, and citizen activist.

Right now Maryland’s interstate highways, I-495 and I-270, nonetheless belong to the general public. Our taxes paid for them, we rely on them, and we anticipate that any modifications to them might be made within the public curiosity by accountable representatives of the residents of Maryland.

However one thing new and disturbing is occurring. When the Board of Public Works permitted non-public toll lanes for I-495 and I-270, they stated ‘sure’ to the concept of surrendering management of our public highways for the following 50 years to a personal conglomerate whose mission — to maximise its personal revenue — could properly come on the public’s expense and long-term pursuits. Solely now, because the state’s present administration is racing in its remaining months to finalize an opaque take care of toll-road large Transurban, are the implications of this radical switch of public belongings turning into clear.

Transurban, the corporate chosen to guide the design, development, financing, operation, and upkeep of the toll lanes, is a robust overseas company primarily based in Australia whose financial mannequin requires steady growth. Transurban’s CEO speaks overtly of plans to construct a steady community of toll-lanes to encircle Washington, DC, then transfer on to denationalise billions extra {dollars}’ price of U.S. transportation belongings. The truth is, it may be stated that Transurban has launched into a hegemonic quest to ascertain a North American toll-road empire, with I-270 and the Capital Beltway its latest acquisitions, and initiatives just like the proposed new Chesapeake Bay Bridge a future goal of alternative.

Whereas Transurban could solely have a concession on the toll-lane belongings, in observe it might management visitors all throughout the freeway community, together with the prevailing free lanes. In non-public toll lane schemes like this, the concessionaire raises tolls very excessive simply previous to rush hour, when the overwhelming majority of drivers can’t or gained’t pay. This jams up the free lanes and makes the toll lanes extra engaging to these prosperous drivers keen to pay. Peak tolls might be as excessive as $50 every means from Shady Grove to the George Washington Memorial Parkway. The Maryland Division of Transportation’s personal documentation reveals that constructing toll lanes would supply little or no profit in shorter journey occasions to drivers within the free lanes in the course of the night rush.

If the Maryland toll lane deal goes as deliberate, Transurban will personal and management the American Legion Bridge/I-495/I-270 toll-lane belongings and might commerce and promote them on the world market. This has already occurred in Virginia, the place Transurban bought half its stake within the toll lanes it constructed on the Northern Virginia facet of the Capital Beltway.

The governor says all the current freeway lanes will stay free. However the current I-270 HOV lanes could be transformed to Excessive Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes for Transurban’s revenue. So utilizing the toll lanes on I-270 could be tantamount to paying to drive on highways that Maryland taxpayers already personal — basically paying twice to make use of the identical infrastructure.

Transurban and Virginia plan to “uncork” the toll lane merge-point bottleneck in Virginia, shifting the bottleneck to Maryland. Bottlenecks are a handy machine for continued growth of toll lanes, as Virginia has demonstrated. Toll lanes on the merge level create congestion and accidents, forcing transportation businesses to approve contracts to increase the toll lanes. That is a part of the long-term technique of toll lane builders to regulate the area’s transportation community and the elevated income stream and potential earnings that go together with it.

The Hogan administration claims the one solution to free-up state funds for different infrastructure initiatives is to mobilize non-public capital by partnering with Transurban in a public-private partnership (P3). However a value-for-money evaluation was not performed to confirm the deserves of this strategy in contrast with the State’s standard financing strategies. The state signed the predevelopment contract with the Transurban-led consortium Speed up Maryland Companions with out satisfactory authorized and monetary overview of the prices, dangers, and implications of the contract and its quite a few compensation and aid occasions. The previous state treasurer requested funding to carry out an professional fiscal evaluation, however the administration denied the request. Because the Purple Line P3 contract vividly illustrated, contract provisions — and flaws in them — can have severe repercussions for the state.

The toll lane undertaking being pushed in Maryland has excessive hidden prices and persistently subordinates public pursuits — together with well being, security, setting, local weather, fairness, and native and regional priorities — to personal pursuits.

In current days severe questions are being raised — in Maryland and Virginia — about Maryland’s obligations and monetary dangers which can be nonetheless hidden within the secret phrases of the Capital Beltway Accord introduced nearly three years in the past by the 2 Governors, and new revelations of the necessity for Maryland to construct 5 flyover ramps in Virginia.

If the I-495 and I-270 toll-lane P3 undertaking is allowed to maneuver ahead, our subsequent governor could discover their potential to face as much as Transurban and make main infrastructure selections within the public curiosity considerably diminished. The predevelopment contract already provides Transurban a de facto monopoly on future toll lane extensions in Maryland if a remaining development contract is permitted. And likewise troubling, Maryland’s public-private partnership regulation doesn’t include the sorts of provisions for defense of the general public curiosity that Virginia’s does.

We will clear the decks and develop a much better transportation technique in collaboration with Maryland’s counties and cities with out sacrificing our potential to regulate publicly funded belongings, within the public curiosity. The state of Maryland lately reported the biggest finances surplus in its historical past, and the brand new $1.2 trillion nationwide infrastructure program will ship billions extra to our state for freeway, bridge, and transit enhancements.

Transportation funding selections are among the most consequential the state makes. We have to construct the trendy transportation system our folks will want sooner or later, not double-down on highway-building because the default setting for our capital funding program, or make a half-century take care of toll-road profiteers that denies the following technology of Marylanders the liberty to design a brand new mobility technique that lays the inspiration for our twenty first century financial system.

The approaching months will decide whether or not the general public good or non-public revenue will dominate Maryland’s transportation coverage for many years to come back.

Votes are already being solid on this yr’s major election. With a dozen candidates working for governor, just a few hundred votes may resolve the end result. And whoever is elected governor on November 8 could also be ready to resolve the destiny of this misguided undertaking after taking the oath of workplace in January. Now could be the time to review the candidates’ positions on this vital concern, and select properly. Each vote counts.