Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s former transportation commissioner on Thursday suggested that the government might want to step away from the mega-project business.
“Transportation agencies are great at delivering those state-of-good-repair projects,” said Joan McDonald. “I’m not so sure that transportation agencies are the entities best suited to do some of these mega projects.”
McDonald made her comments during a discussion hosted by the non-profit research group Urban Land Institute on the role of the private sector in infrastructure projects.
At the moment, New York and New Jersey are grappling with how best to fund some integral transportation infrastructure projects, including a new Port Authority Bus Terminal and a new cross-Hudson rail tunnel to replace the one that’s now falling apart.
McDonald suggested that the 7 train extension to the far West Side, which finally opened in September, represents a public-private funding model worth replicating. Former mayor Michael Bloomberg funded the extension with bonds backed by Hudson Yards-derived property taxes. (Those taxes have accumulatedmore slowly than anticipated, shifting more of the burden onto the city budget.)
McDonald argued that public-private partnerships should play a role in the reconstruction of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, much as the Port Authority is relying on private sector partners to deliver a new Goethals Bridge.
“They’re going in that direction on a lot of their big projects,” McDonald told POLITICO New York, approvingly.
McDonald was not alone in her view that the government should rely more on the private sector.
Drew Galloway, Amtrak’s chief of Northeast Corridor planning and performance, told POLITICO New York that he was open to the idea of using a public-private partnership for the multi-billion-dollar Gateway rail project.
“We absolutely intend to consider [public-private partnerships] and will welcome the proposals as it goes forward,” he said.
Not all the panelists were equally enamored of the model.
Steve Santoro, NJ Transit’s assistant executive director of capital planning and programs, warned some projects might be too unwieldy to trust to a private sector partner.
“It depends on the scale,” he told the crowd of at the offices of law firm Shearman & Sterling in Midtown Manhattan. “As it gets bigger, it gets more difficult.”
He explained that projects with a larger scope, that involve more stakeholders, and different legislative jurisdictions, could be further complicated by private involvement.
AMTRAK’s Gateway project is precisely that sort of enterprise. The existing tunnel connecting New Jersey to midtown Manhattan is owned by Amtrak. It’s most heavily used by New Jersey Transit. The Port Authority is expected to play a role in managing the project, and it will rely on federal and state funding.