What happens when the city leases public assets to private investors?
By Susan Chandler, Chicago Tribune
The price to park your car for an hour in the Millennium Park Garage has risen 31 percent, to $17, since the garage was leased to Morgan Stanley in 2006.
The cost to drive an auto across the Chicago Skyway is now 50 percent higher than it was in 2004, when Australian and Spanish investors paid $1.83 billion for a 99-year lease.
Could an $8 airport pretzel be next? How about a $10 luggage cart?
Those are real questions facing consumers as the city moves ahead on a landmark plan to lease Midway Airport to private operators.
Mayor Richard Daley has been ahead of the curve leasing public infrastructure such as the Skyway and underground parking garages as a way to raise cash. So it wasn't much of a surprise that in 2006 Chicago's Midway became the first large hub airport to apply under a Federal Aviation Administration pilot program to test privatization at five airports around the country.
The privatization of public assets has sparked a debate among academics and urban officials across the country about whether the leasing of bridges, roads and other infrastructure is a smart way to manage public resources over the long haul or just a desperate quick fix.
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3 comments:
price goes up, quality goes down, customer service quality declines (court dates for crissakes when their software has bugs! No other industry does this.) because what you're buying is a monopoly. Noncompetes keep it as a monopoly.
The phone company is not a monopoly. Prices may go up- $500 for an iPhone last summer, but look at what you get. Improved product and services. If you don't like it, switch to other carriers or models. There's choice. There will never be choice in toll roads leased for 99 years. Noncompetes ensure that. It's like a tarriff directed from Spain against Americans for 99 years.
This mayor has too much power.
These decisions should be put to public vote like a BOND. Because we go into BANDAGE when we sell off our public assets.
Tolling roads and briges make as much sense as paying cash for a car and then also pay a monthly lease as long as you own it. To use tax payer money to build it and then be charged to use it? Is this where I am supposed to bend over and take in the ass also?
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