Perry's Highway Robbery cost$ everyone More.

The State of Texas (Gov. Rick Perry) should learn from California's expensive freeway to tollway mistake:

"...California in the early 1990s. Legislators caught in a budget squeeze and steeped in no-tax ideology saw private toll lanes as a win-win solution to rising traffic congestion in the endless suburbs southeast of Los Angeles. Under a banner proclaiming, "New roads, no tax dollars," an Omaha-based contractor was hired to build and operate four new toll lanes in the median of Hwy. 91 in Orange and Riverside counties.

When opened in late 1995, the lanes stretched 30 miles from Buena Park to Corona. Their $135 million cost was privately financed with bonds to be repaid through tolls. But those bonds would not sell unless a noncompete clause was included. The clause prohibited the state from improving the public portion of the roadway, so as to induce more drivers onto the private toll lanes. The clause also prevented any competing roadway improvement within 1.5 miles.

As often happens with road expansion, Hwy. 91 was again clogged with traffic within three years. When the state tried to add lanes to the public portion, the company sued, citing its noncompete clause.

Finally, in 2002, after a barrage of litigation, Orange County stepped in to purchase a key stretch of the toll lanes in order to make crucial road and transit improvements. The county paid the private operator $207.5 million for 10 miles, and faces a similar high-cost dilemma with three other local privatized toll roads. These roads contain no public lanes but do have noncompete clauses that prevent capacity improvements. Four years ago the county tried to persuade the state to buy the roads, but the $3.5 billion price tag was too high. Two of the roads are popular and profitable, but the San Joaquin Hills road is failing and cannot meet bond obligations.

Concepts that sound good in the halls of a think tank sometimes turn bumpy in the real world."