News

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (Repub) today racheted up pressure on the Delaware River Port Authority - a bistate toll bridge operator in Philadelphia with no port but a hemorrhaging suburban rail line PATCO and a variety of 'economic development' rackets - holding a press conference outside its head offices to announce more vetoes of its 'minutes' and to denounce its board of commissioners for fake reforms.

A traffic and revenue report puts potential toll revenues on the proposed new Scudder Falls bridge near Trenton NJ - the subject of a P3 or private concession procurement - in the range of $22m and $35m/year. If operating costs are a quarter to a third of this then net revenues would be $16m to $24m/year. That's a 5% to 8% return on investment. Little growth is projected.

Macquarie Atlas Roads in their latest six monthly report have some neat illustrations showing the VDOT improvements to competing free routes to the Dulles Greenway that have devastated their traffic. The Greenway's current traffic should be a thorough embarrassment to traffic and revenue forecasters not least the old Vollmer Associates of New York City, nowadays Stantec.

Macquarie Atlas Roads (Mac Atlas) report a slightly improved financial result in the first half of the year despite poor performance on the Indiana Toll Road, Chicago Skyway and Dulles Greenway. Strong growth in the APRR toll network in France and the M6 Toll in England more than offset the poor American results - 4% to 5% declines in traffic

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission says it only owes the state DOT (PennDOT) $450m this year but PennDOT says it must turn over $922m. The dispute pits Turnpike CEO Joe Brimmeier against Allen Biehler, state secretary of transportation. It is unclear where Governor Ed Rendell stands on the issue.

When a government agency that has spent the past several years touting the virtue of a new free road, grants a political "scientist" a six figure sum to study the "economic impact" of that road, you'd better expect a lot more political propaganda than impartial economic analysis.

A toll collector at the Ohio Turnpike told us a couple of weeks back that the fancy new Automatic Toll Payment Machines (ATPMs) they've been introducing are "buggy," that motorists have trouble understanding them, that they've shorted out in rainstorms and their money bins have filled with rainwater. He said he personally had been required to "babysit" the machines.

New Jersey's dynamic Republican governor Chris Christie is threatening to deploy a rarely used lever of power - the veto of public authority board minutes. He is quoted as saying in an interview at the state house in Trenton today that if opposition Democrats in the state legislature keep blocking his appointments he is going to "start vetoing."

The dispute focuses on state and bistate toll authorities, initially PANYNJ, SJTA and NJTA.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC) appears to be working to rid itself of its bad actors according to a couple of PTC watchers. Two people speaking off the record today independently said they think CEO Joe Brimmeier and the Turnpike Inspector General Anthony Maniscola are working to remove thieving employees, and generally to "clean up" the country's oldest public turnpike.  

Traffic on the Dulles Greenway in the first half of this year was 47.3k average daily transactions (ADT) a drop of 4.3% on 2009's 49.4k and 23% down on the high year of 2005 when ADT was 61.2k. Every year in the past five years has seen a drop in traffic. And in the first half of this year revenue is down too - by 3.8% to $61.4m/yr v $63.8m in 2009.

Paul Mulshine, a columnist of the Newark Star-Ledger declared recently that all freedom loving people hate tolls. He claims that an anti-toll spirit is reflected in a 1975 trucker folk song by CW McCall called "Convoy" in which a trucker on the west coast decides to "put the hammer down" - accelerate away from the cops rather than pull over.

A couple of weeks back at around 11:20pm on a Saturday night a Canadian died on the Maine Turnpike near York when the car he was traveling in hit a moose, rolled several times and came to rest against a roadside tree. The dead man was in the right passenger seat. The driver sustained serious head injuries too. But a second passenger, a woman in a back seat, got minor scrapes and bruises.

Transurban Group report toll revenues of $696m (A$774m @$A=90c), for their FY2010 (year to June 30) an increase of 6.8% on FY2009 after allowing for the end of their M4 concession in Sydney. The group reports EBITDA of $567m (A$630m) up 13% and cash flow of $312m (A$347m) up 32%. Profit declared was $54m (A$60m) v a small loss in FY2009.

I want to weigh in on this morning’s post about Chairman Wageman as a staffer who has worked closely with him over the past three and a half years. There’s no denying the fact that our Chairman is one of the most polarizing figures in Texas transportation right now.  You were on the money with your subhead entitled, “Loved or hated.”  However, there were other statements that were not accurate, such as when you said he was “erratic.”

Paul Wageman the dominant figure at North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) for the past several years is suddenly out. He was a member of the board of NTTA via his nomination as a delegate of Collin County, one of the local governments that govern NTTA.

This week Collin County council (in Texan lingo a "Commissioners' Court") voted five to zero to replace Wageman as their delegate with an unknown to tolling, Jane Willard.

Local police say former Mass Pike chief Matt Amorello was "extremely intoxicated" and had to be pepper sprayed to get him out of his smashed vehicle in the early hours of Saturday morning. Amorello was clinging to the steering wheel refusing to accept arrest when he was pepper sprayed. Unwilling or unable to walk he was then dragged to the police cruiser, the police report says.

NTTA's board of directors last week voted 5/4 against proceeding with rebids of long established services contracts  at a special board meeting August 5. Five consulting or services contracts expire this year and procurement was under way with staff recommending three major changes. Instead, as it has for many years, NTTA will simply renegotiate the extension of the existing contracts with existing contractors.

It isn't just Penn Pike bigshots who have trouble with the booze. Massachusetts Turnpike's colorful former chairman and CEO Matt Amorello was booked by police for drunk driving, and leaving the scene of a crash, in the early hours of Saturday morning. He was held in the local lockup overnight.

The incident occurred on River Road, a major surface arterial in Haverhill, a northern suburb of Boston.

A private concessionaire is almost certain to be sought now for a new bridge over the Delaware River at Scudder Falls a few miles upriver of Trenton NJ. The river is the boundary between Pennsylvania and New Jersey.