Ammunitipn For Skeptics

摘要

In recent weeks, President Trump has let it be known that he no longer foresees public-private partnerships as the centerpiece of his infrastructure plan. No surprise there. The president will look for "shovel-ready" projects and understands that P3s are complicated and don't always work. But a few days later, we learned that another Australian P3 gone bad is headed for court-the second or third troubled P3 in that country, depending how you count (ENR10/23 p. 10). There is a link between these two apparently separate events in Washington, D.C., and Brisbane: flawed traffic-flow forecasts, which have doomed several P3 projects around the world and soured the atmosphere surrounding transportation P3s, especially in the U.S. The issue has a long history. In 2006, The Denver Post reviewed 23 toll roads built since 1985 and found that five of them "sold bonds based on projections prepared by companies promised or granted future business after their projects made sense to investors." Summing up the views of the experts and critics cited in the article, the Post writer said, "The arrangements raise questions about the objectivity of the traffic and revenue study."