Public -Private Highway Partnerships and Trucking

The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that was on balance critical of public-private highway partnerships, as reported on the Truckline website. Truckline is a website operated by the American Trucking Associations.

The report, which is 96 pages long, was prepared by the GAO at the request of Congress in response to the increasing pressure on Federal and State governments to partner with private entities to fund highway construction and maintenance.

The report concluded that, while their are advantages to public-private partnerships, such as the ability to build and maintain roads without additional public funding, there are serious disadvantages as well. These disadvantages run the risk of working against the public interest, including the interests of the trucking industry.

The GAO points out that there is no "free" money in public-private partnerships, and that the potential problems with these partnerships include tolls that would increase at a rate higher then they would on a public road (which may have no toll at all); that the profit motive of a private entity that would build and maintain a highway would result in tolls that exceed the costs of the facility; and the concern that a private entity that controlled too many highways in a given area could exert "market power" (in other words, could charge whatever they wanted because the motoring public would have no real alternative) in setting tolls. The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Transportation "develop objective criteria for identifying national public interests in highway public-private partnerships." I think that means that the GAO wants the government to play its roll in protecting the public interest on our Nation's highways.

We are living in a time of decreased faith in government. It is tempting to conclude that talk of "public private partnerships," whether they be in the military, public safety, highway construction, or education, is more about benefiting private business than the public at large. This GAO report calls out some of the potential risks and pitfalls of such an arrangement. Our highways are for public benefit, and that benefit should be protected by the government. Let us hope that government's faith in the public has not decreased as well.