Although our organization is committed to finding transportation solutions for better public transit service, we do need to speak out against projects that are of no value to, or worse, a deterrent to transit.

As talk of privatization of our interstate system increases, it is quite obvious that the Highway Trust Fund is on its way to bankruptcy in a mater of a few short years. The AAA (Auto Club) just recently reversed its long term stance against toll roads. Automakers and critics of hybrid cars, alternative fuels, and electric vehicles will result in a reduction of a collection of gas taxes and therefore dry up funds to build and maintain roads.

I just got done reading a story on the Internet that said while some states are spending money to repair existing roads and highways, as well as making much needed safety improvements, those same states have not spent money on new highway construction. It has been perceived by some that lack of new road construction has contributed to gridlock.

Transit advocates, budget hawks, environmentalists, property rights owners, farmers, and even truck drivers, all need to work together to oppose new toll road construction. It seems strange that the first and the last of the aforementioned list could make for strange bedfellows on this subject, but it's true!

The problem with privatized toll roads are that the primary objective in any business is to turn a profit. That means the toll roads will be a conduit for making money instead of providing a transportation conveyance for the traveling public. When businesses get in trouble, they hawk off and sell their assets and/or borrow money to please the interests of their wealthy owners who refuse to back off. Such as now is being done with toll roads in Indiana and the Dan Ryan Skyway in Chicago. It has been proven that the roads were sold off to as a short term fix to budget problems.

If businesses are to turn a profit on these roads, they must return a profit to the investors. If toll road revenues don't keep up with the forecasted revenue, maintenance will be deferred and profits will go to the investors instead. As roads deteriorate, profit will be the motive until a slight repair work is finally done, like patching potholes, to give toll road users the false impression that the roads are being maintained. When the patchwork deteriorates to the point where roads will have to be rebuilt, and chances are a court order will be the only way private companies will be forced into rebuilding them, they will likely declare bankruptcy and leave the states and other government bodies stuck with having to pay for reconstruction costs.

Independent drivers as well as large companies in the trucking industry are opposed to the toll roads. A lot of drivers and companies are already struggling with high fuel costs. Many Owner/operators have called it quits because of fuel costs and tolls. Privatizing toll roads will increase costs of goods sold, as the trucking industry will have to pass those onto consumers, increasing costs of living. That means less money trucking will have to pay their drivers in a high turnover industry as well, risking safety with less qualified drivers who will be willing to settle for less pay.

Toll roads are bad for transit too. If toll roads are privatized, the toll operators will want to collect money from the buses that use their roads. That makes costs of transit fares go up or buses will have to avoid toll roads and take alternate routes, which could be a lot slower.

In many cases, privatized toll roads have become a failure. In southern California, the biggest failure is definitely the newly built privatized toll roads in Orange County. The San Joaquin Hills toll road was built with the intent of unlocking gridlock on I-5, but it has not happened. Critics of transit said nobody would ride the Amtrak and Metrolink trains, and how false that claim has turned out to be, as ridership continues to grow that more frequencies were added last year, as Orange County approved spending its rail funds for increased Metrolink service.

Meanwhile, Orange County Transportation Authority is applying exorbitant fines to toll road violators in the hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, against unsuspecting motorists who have not paid the tolls. Some motorists have had the tolls arranged to be paid on debit/credit cards, and still being assessed fines. Some users have even been threatened with having their cars or even worse, homes taken away for stupid administrative errors made by the administration. The agency has been proved that the system is rigged to maximize collection of monies through the fines being slapped on unsuspecting motorists.

Building and expanding commuter rail systems and expanding public transit is the more sensible way to provide a transportation alternative. Many railroad right-of-ways that are either under utilized or abandoned can be upgraded for a fraction of the cost of building new toll roads and digging the government deeper into debt.

Privatized toll roads are being built at the behest of greedy developers whose only objective is making money. Don't be misled by all the false facts and phony figures being cranked out by the Reason Foundation, a Libertarian party think-tank. It's quite odd that the political party that favors individual property owner's rights is not standing up against these toll roads. Why are they mum about it? As land space is being taken up, especially in rural areas, that leaves our nation with less farmland to produce products to feed our own people. Toll roads are becoming a behemoth of taking up land space and contributing to a declining agriculture industry in Texas and Florida. Our nation is already dependent on foreign nations for oil, food and clothing. More will follow as our lands give way to more roads. On the contrary, instead of expanding government's power of eminent domain for building such roads, the Libertarian Party would more live up to its name if they favored taking away or reducing government's power of eminent domain. Besides greedy developers. the only people who want toll roads built are wealthy "drive-at-any-cost" interests and speed buffs.

If our nation is stay out of debt, unlock gridlock on our highways, conserve our land space for resources that we need such as food and clothing, and protect the environment, it would make sense to put more money into public transit, and it has been proven, it is a more sensible fiscal approach to solving transportation maters, than building more roads.