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Merger mania in Massachusetts - Turnpike being studied for absorption into a super authority
Posted on Wed, 2007-10-03 21:18
Local reports are that the new Patrick administration in Massachusetts
is considering a plan to merge the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority
into a new super transportation authority to be called the
Massachusetts Transportation Authority (MTA). The new MTA - Mass Turnpike Authority is also MTA! - would include:
- the tax funded Mass Highway Department and certain roads and bridges now operated by a department of conservation
- the heavily tax subsidized Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority which operates trains and buses in the Boston area
- the Massachusetts Port Authority's Tobin toll bridge
- the Massachusetts Turnpike and its toll tunnels plus the venerable Big Dig complex
Reportedly Gov Deval Patrick wants the new agency to be governed by a board answerable to him - "serving at the governor's pleasure" as the old-fashioned phrase has it.
He also has in mind achieving economies of scale in consolidation.
The proposal still has to be detailed and would require enabling legislation.
The Boston Herald first reported this move.
They quoted a bit of touchy-feely prose out of the Patrick administration: "It’s clear that important, fundamental changes are needed in the way we finance and govern transportation in the commonwealth. The Patrick administration looks forward to working with the Legislature – and the public – in a collective effort to shape the new system."
COMMENT: This is a bad idea. Economies of scale in government are a fantasy - think of all the opportunities for scale economies at the US Postal Service or the US Department of Defense that aren't realized. A better case can be
made that there are generally diseconomies of scale - more bureaucracy,
more overhead and higher unit costs with increased size.
These divergent modes - transit, free roads and toll roads, all have
different styles of operation and as in New York City region under the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (another MTA) there will have to
be distinct subsidiaries or divisions - for transit, tolls, free roads.
All you get in the name of consolidation is a new umbrella bureaucracy
over a bunch of renamed modal agencies.
For all its faults the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority more or less pays its way with user fees (tolls.) All the other agencies depend largely on taxation and federal handouts. The Turnpike Authority's whole capital structure is built around bond covenants pledging toll revenues from an independent toll authority. These bonds aren't readily bought out and refinanced into a more political authority even than the existing MTA, especially by a state as broke as Massachusetts.
TOLLROADSnews 2007-10-03
Massachusetts Transportation Authority (MTA). The new MTA - Mass Turnpike Authority is also MTA! - would include:- the tax funded Mass Highway Department and certain roads and bridges now operated by a department of conservation
- the heavily tax subsidized Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority which operates trains and buses in the Boston area
- the Massachusetts Port Authority's Tobin toll bridge
- the Massachusetts Turnpike and its toll tunnels plus the venerable Big Dig complex
Reportedly Gov Deval Patrick wants the new agency to be governed by a board answerable to him - "serving at the governor's pleasure" as the old-fashioned phrase has it.
He also has in mind achieving economies of scale in consolidation.The proposal still has to be detailed and would require enabling legislation.
The Boston Herald first reported this move.
They quoted a bit of touchy-feely prose out of the Patrick administration: "It’s clear that important, fundamental changes are needed in the way we finance and govern transportation in the commonwealth. The Patrick administration looks forward to working with the Legislature – and the public – in a collective effort to shape the new system."
COMMENT: This is a bad idea. Economies of scale in government are a fantasy - think of all the opportunities for scale economies at the US Postal Service or the US Department of Defense that aren't realized. A better case can be
made that there are generally diseconomies of scale - more bureaucracy,
more overhead and higher unit costs with increased size.
These divergent modes - transit, free roads and toll roads, all have
different styles of operation and as in New York City region under the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (another MTA) there will have to
be distinct subsidiaries or divisions - for transit, tolls, free roads.
All you get in the name of consolidation is a new umbrella bureaucracy
over a bunch of renamed modal agencies. For all its faults the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority more or less pays its way with user fees (tolls.) All the other agencies depend largely on taxation and federal handouts. The Turnpike Authority's whole capital structure is built around bond covenants pledging toll revenues from an independent toll authority. These bonds aren't readily bought out and refinanced into a more political authority even than the existing MTA, especially by a state as broke as Massachusetts.
TOLLROADSnews 2007-10-03
