Local tolls foreign profits

Local tolls, foreign profits?
Overseas firms could collect future area toll $$$

by Deborah Nelson
March 11, 2007

Recently-proposed solutions to Highway 98 traffic woes include private-profit tollways, a six-lane roadway through Gulf Breeze, and a ‘Beltway,’ spanning Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties…but no north-south hurricane evacuation route through Santa Rosa County.

The Northwest Florida Transportation Corridor Authority, created by Legislators in 2005 to address Hwy. 98 traffic issues, presented the ideas last month.

The group had until July 2007 to come up with a regional future transportation Master Plan, but says the work will be finished by April, in time for this year’s Legislative session.

The Authority is tasked with improving Hwy. 98 mobility, alleviating congestion, finding future evacuation routes and promoting "economic development."

It’s composed of eight members, one from each Gulf county, appointed by former Governor Jeb Bush. Santa Rosa’s representative, Robert Montgomery, is a local realtor.

The group’s purview extends beyond Hwy. 98 itself: it has the power to upgrade existing roads and construct new feeder and connector roads, bypasses, bridges and other facilities that may improve corridor traffic.

It cannot directly obligate tax dollars, but may use Federal, state and local financial assistance; sell bonds; and build tollways.

The Authority also has the power to take private property through eminent domain…including property that may be used to build private-profit toll roads.

No improvements to existing roads may be tolled, but new roads and bridges can be constructed as for-profit tollways.

Some of those could end up being owned and operated by foreign corporations.

Bush and other proponents of selling off public assets to private investors have argued that such “public/private” partnerships are the only way to pay for needed infrastructure.

“It has to make sense to an investor somewhere,” Commissioner John Broxson remarked during Board discussion of the Plan.

“It may be in Spain. It may be in some foreign country. They’re selling interstates and limited access highways in the north to foreigners. And I think it’s a great idea.”

“Chicago just recently sold one of their major throughfares to a conglomerate out of another country. They know they cannot build anything without making it appealing to some investor, somewhere…because who’s going to come in and build our roads unless they have a return they can achieve from that?”

Chicago awarded a $1.8 billion, 99-year lease of the city’s eight-mile Skyway segment to Cintra/Macquarie Infrastructure Group; a joint Spanish/Australian venture; in 2005.

Indiana sold concession rights to that state’s 157 mile east-west tollway to the same consortium in 2006, for $3.8 billion. The roadway is expected to generate $11 billion over the lease’s 75 year life, according to a January Mother Jones magazine report.

Indiana residents will continue to pay taxes during the lease term; the $3.8 billion franchise fee will go towards a ten-year transportation improvements plan.

But a November, 2006 study by the municipal finance advisor firm Northwest Financial Group, LLC, suggests Indiana taxpayers may be getting the short end of the stick, in the long run.

The study predicts lost public toll revenues, over the 75 year lease period, could run into the billions.

“Indiana’s sale of the Toll Road, while helping fund transportation projects for the next ten years, will result in depriving the public transportation funding network of very large and much needed future revenues in the final 65 years of the concession agreement to pay for publicly needed capital projects both on and off the toll road,” it concludes.

“Instead these revenues are directed to private corporate profits and shareholders. If road users are willing to pay higher tolls these funds should be captured for the public good.”

As for Northwest Florida’s transportation future, the Hwy. 98 Authority released four possible Alternatives in February, but group consultants say the final Master Plan will likely combine elements from each.

The group also presented a fifth “no build” option that would direct efforts towards already-funded local and regional construction projects, only.

The four Alternatives range from simple expansion of existing roadways; to building new corridors and bridges, some tolled, across the Panhandle.

More complex Alternatives (see cover for Alternative 4) would create a new east-west corridor north of Hwy. 98.

The route, likely a tollway, would parallel Hwy. 98 and pull traffic off the existing road, say Authority consultants. Officials contend the route would remove a portion of non-local traffic from Hwy. 98’s flow.

The Pace Beltway would be part of that corridor, say consultants.

But some observers charge the suggested Alternatives appear to reflect political influence at work…above and beyond the Authority’s official goals of traffic relief and hurricane evacuation.

Portions of suggested east-west routes appear to dip into areas where heavy development is expected – veering into northern Pace; and in Bay County, southward towards a planned Panama City airport.

In addition to improving traffic and evacuation routes, the Authority is tasked with promoting "economic development."

Along with the Pace ‘Beltway,’ other local proposals include a six-lane expansion of the Pensacola Bay Bridge through Gulf Breeze. Another option posits a new, north-south evacuation route, spanning Escambia from I-110 to I-65 in Alabama.

Gulf Breeze Mayor Lane Gilchrist spoke before the BOCC to voice objections to the six-laning proposal.

“I would just urge you to not consider the six-lane through Gulf Breeze,” Gilchrist remarked. “We’ve had multiple workshops showing where that would just devastate our city.”

Santa Rosa Commissioners have no official control over the Authority’s final Master Plan.

Other Pensacola Bay Bridge replacement Alternatives include a tolled span from Cervantes St. to Naval Live Oaks; or from the Pensacola Airport to Avalon Blvd.

Current Alternatives do not include a north-south Hwy. 87 evacuation route, despite expansion and improvement projects already happening on various segments of the roadway.

Santa Rosa’s long-term transportation plans include expanding Hwy. 87 to run around Whiting Field’s eastern perimeter, as a new hurricane evacuation route. The expansion would also carry the roadway past a planned 269-acre Aviation Park adjacent to Whiting.

Commissioner Gordon Goodin, who has met with Authority members, predicts the Hwy. 87 evacuation route may still be on the table.

“That’s actually their preferred route to I65,” he remarked.

“That’s not saying they’re not willing to keep working with the U.S. 29 [Escambia] route, but they see for the region the route going through Santa Rosa County as preferable.”

Goodin says ensuring that incoming BRAC military personnel can get to and from Eglin without traffic holdups is a key Authority focus. Eventually, he suggests, the Panhandle may serve as a through-corridor from Louisiana, Alabama and points west to Perry, Florida.

“They’re billing it as a high speed connection between New Orleans or Montgomery, and Tampa, Goodin remarks. The future, he says, could include a “Florida Autobahn” with no speed limits, and parallel high speed rail service.

After some debate, the Board voted to forward several comments to Authority consultants.

“The 98 Corridor Authority is the 800 pound gorilla -- they can do whatever they wish to do, as long as they pay for it,” Commissioner John Broxson noted.

But it never hurts to speak up.

“The Transportation Authority’s a wonderful thing and I totally support it [but] they’re an appointed entity, they’re not elected. And for us to sit here and say we’re only going to assist the Transportation Authority is ludicrous, when we have an opportunity to give input,” Commissioner Don Salter remarked.

“Let’s don’t sit back and let this new entity become a monster that just rolls through Santa Rosa County without listening to the elected officials in this county...not only do we need to assist, we need to give input on what’s important to the people of Santa Rosa County, and then let them go do their jobs.”

Santa Rosa’s comments note Gulf Breeze objections to a six-lane expansion through the municipality, and detail Avalon Blvd. and Hwy. 87 projects’ status.

Despite what some characterize as short notice, about 20 residents did show up for a recent Authority “public input” opportunity at Gulf Power’s Bayfront Headquarters building.

The public meeting schedule was set last year, according to consultant representatives. More public workshops will take place, say authorities, before final construction plans are set.

Ft. Walton resident Phil Babiak says current Alternatives fall short of solving Hwy. 98’s major traffic issues.

Babiak, who commutes to Navarre every workday, sits on the Navarre Chamber of Commerce’s Transportation Committee, and has served a similar capacity with the Ft. Walton Chamber.

He contends Authority plans appear to contain political, rather than purely traffic-oriented, considerations.

“Obviously the lines that have been drawn on paper have not been drawn purely from the standpoint of where traffic’s coming from and where it’s going,” he remarks.

Babiak predicts that six-laning alone (the most basic Alternative) isn’t enough to relieve the combination of pass-through drivers and local traffic.

“It doesn’t adequately address the need to separate local traffic from through traffic,” he remarks.

The Authority’s Alternatives, he says, need more discussion.

“I think they’re in the eleventh hour, and now they’re looking at public input,” he notes. “I think the starting point should have been public input…we need to get out of politics and get down to solving existing traffic problems.”

Environmental advocacy group Clean Water Network of Florida forwarded Authority consultants a letter detailing further misgivings.

CWN Director Linda Young charges that the plan is politically skewed towards development interests, at the expense of hurricane evacuation routes.

“None of these alternatives adequately solve this problem,” Young writes, “perhaps because a major goal of this work was to provide infrastructure in currently undeveloped areas of the Panhandle, which will lead to new developments and more traffic but not necessarily abate existing problems.”

Young says the Plan could severely damage delicate Panhandle ecosystems.

“Building east-west corridors through large tracts of wetlands will impede ground and surface water flow from north to south,” she writes.

“This impediment will cause massive adverse impacts to the near-shore waters of the Gulf of Mexico...Development opportunities and economic windfalls for a handful of special interests do not outweigh the value of these resources.”

Authority consultant Steve Wilson says it’s too early to predict where eminent domain may be used in future projects.