Transportation projects organized as public-private partnerships have offered useful infrastructure contributions, a group of industry officials told a special House panel March 5.
Transportation officials from Texas and Colorado told a part of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that they have had good experiences with their use of the partnerships, also known as P3s, and they urged Congress to continue to fund grants under the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act.
James Bass, interim executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation, and Phillip Washington, general manager of the Denver area’s Regional Transportation District, represented their jurisdictions before a hearing of T&I’s special panel on P3s.
A Congressional Budget Office assistant director told Rep. John Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.), the panel’s chairman, that vehicle mileage on public roads quadrupled in 2012 from 1960, while total road mileage has increased slightly. As a result, said CBO’s Joseph Kile, states have accelerated their use of P3s in the past five years as another way to provide infrastructure.
Hunter’s panel was created in January to gather information through July and inform T&I as it considers how to authorize highway programs beyond the Sept. 30 expiration of MAP-21.
