No surprise, the toll road authority just went belly up and floated to the surface.
South Bay Expressway LP filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week in the Southern District of California, citing low traffic levels that render it unable to meet its debt-service demands, combined with uncertainty caused by ongoing litigation between the toll-road firm and its primary construction contractor.A major Spanish bank and US federal taxpayers are being told to pound sand.
The highway did not open until November 2007 — just in time for the subprime mortgage market to unravel, taking a major toll (no pun intended?) on the suburban communities the expressway was built to serve.
2 comments:
We have a deserted toll road here in VA too - the Pocahontas Expressway. It basically connects together two Interstates south of Richmond, which you can also do via non-toll roads. In a couple years it will have an exit at the airport (why didn't you do that first dumb-ass?), which you will also be able to reach through a variety of non-toll roads. For the privilege of running this, an Australian company has taken about $75M (AUS) in total losses the last 2 years. Only 97 years to go! I wonder what will happen when, in a couple more years, weather damage alone forces them to start to repave sections.
This same company is the major holder in the new Capitol Beltway HOT lanes. I ran the math one day and they would need a tolled driver paying the maximum predicted rate every 3 seconds or so, 24x7, to meet their debt service. And given that this only applies when there are 2 or less people in the car, that seems damn unlikely.
In short, as long as we can drive another road for free, we aren't going to take your toll road.
I wonder if this would change if the tollways were permitted to have "value adds"... like 10mph higher speed limit, for example.
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