As many of you know, KMPO contracts with Spokane Regional Transportation Council (SRTC) on the Washington side of the state line for day-to-day operational and administrative needs. We had a meeting of the SRTC Board yesterday, which was preceded by a 'brown bag lunch session' presentation on transportation funding; where it comes from, how its determined what projects get money, etc. A topic that came up in the discussion was the role that Public Private Partnerships (PPP) play in improving transportation facilities.
It seems to be one of the topic du jours lately, as I logged onto the Federal Transportation Issues blog this morning and found this article on the same subject.
The piece makes an argument for making greater use of PPPs as fuel tax revenues drop and gives a refresher course on PPPs.
2 comments:
Well I think a lot of people have a bad impression of Public Private Partnerships in our area after the fiasco of the River Park Parking Garage that is sucking up parking meter money that could be used for street repairs, but is being used to pay off the debt incurred to build the parking garage.
Not sure toll roads in our area would work either, I remember the Maple Street bridge that few people used when it had a toll, they just used Monroe.
Yeah, I guess our track record isn't really impressive for PPPs around here, but we may have to change our way of thinking in the future in order to get things done.
And you're right about toll roads. Anytime they're brought up around here, I here a lot of grumbling. Polling and past use of tolls shows that folks around here just don't support the use of tolls and will actually drive out of their way to avoid them.
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