private

The new owner of the Swinford toll bridge near Oxford England won't be officially revealed until financial close, according to the auctioneer Neil Mackilligin.   All Mackilligan will say is that the buyer is a UK-based individual, who is not local to the area.

Bidding with a crowd of 700 people at Alsop's auction house in London December 3 began at pd800k ($1.28m) and the high bid was pd1.08m ($1.73m).

Chesapeake City Council voted Tuesday evening (Jan 27) to accept a private venture proposal to build a approx-$100m high level toll bridge over the Elizabeth River between South Norfolk and Portsmouth in the Norfolk/Hampton Roads metro area.

Margate Bridge Company in Margate NJ raised its tolls today. Frequent users who buy a proximity card with credits for 100 car trips will now pay $1.00 a trip compared to 80c previously, and cash payers will fork over $1.50 compared to $1.00 before. An official statement (see in full at end) cites high costs of maintenance of the near 80 year old bridge as rationale for the toll increases.

Nothing stimulates local self-help like a "No, sorry, we can't help" from on high. After Florida's Turnpike Enterprise (FTE) recently told Manatee County on the west coast that it can't build the Fort Hamer Bridge the county commissioners only took days to decide to go it alone. A decade of lobbying for FDOT and the feds to fund a bridge had gone nowhere. The state Turnpike was the last hope of help from higher levels of government.

GA

Bill for private pikes