Private toll road shocker: Raise tolls to pay for transit
A shocking revelation
By Dan Malouff, Washington Post
A number of Virginia politicians are shocked and appalled that the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority is considering raising tolls on the Dulles toll road in order to pay the extra $330 million needed to put the Silver Line airport Metro station underground.
This is a good learning opportunity for those who think public/private partnerships equate to free money. When you turn over public infrastructure to private groups, you lose your authority to dictate policy, and the new private owners may not have the same priorities as the previous public ones. Virginia’s leaders should have realized when they turned the roll road over to the MWAA that MWAA would henceforth make policy for the road with its own interests in mind.
Apparently the idea that there’s no such thing as a free lunch is a shocking revelation.
Dan Malouff is an Arlington County transportation planner who blogs independently at BeyondDC.com. The Local Blog Network is a group of bloggers from around the D.C. region who have agreed to make regular contributions to All Opinions Are Local.