Last of two parts
By Ashley Rowland Staff Writer

Olney Meadows thinks it could take just 15 years to build a major bypass around Chattanooga, though he’s heard people say it won’t happen in his lifetime.

The key, he said, is letting private businesses build it as a toll road instead of waiting for state and federal tax money for the project.

"Corporations can cut through the red tape and get done much faster," said Mr. Meadows, executive director of the Catoosa County Development Authority. He said his comments reflect his views, not those of the development authority.

Mr. Meadows and some other officials say recruiting a private business would be the fastest way to build an east-west connector road across North Georgia — part of a 65-mile bypass that some day could run from Soddy-Daisy to Trenton.

A regional planning group voted last month to study the possibility of building the bypass. Several states, including Georgia, increasingly are looking at public-private partnerships to finance expensive road projects.

When private companies get into the road-building business, a large corporation or group of corporations builds the road, including buying rights of way, construction and maintenance for at least several years. Toll revenues are used to pay off construction costs.

Georgia is one of 20 states with laws allowing some form of private investment in roads. No projects have been approved under Georgia’s 2003 law, which allows private companies to propose road and rail projects.

The Georgia Department of Transportation is reviewing three proposals to improve roads and add tolls on state Route 316 between Lawrenceville and Athens; Interstates 75 and 575 in the Atlanta metro area; and Georgia 400 and Interstate 285, also in the Atlanta area.

Tennessee has no toll roads, and the General Assembly would have to pass legislation to build them, Tennessee Department of Transportation spokeswoman Kim Keelor said.

State Sen. Mark Norris, R-Collierville, said he has met with Te nnessee Department of Transportation Commissioner Gerald Nicely and other TDOT officials about building new roads as toll roads."They’re open-minded, as am I, to the idea," said Sen. Norris, who is chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee.

Gas tax revenue alone may not be enough to pay for the roads that will be needed in 10 or 20 years, said Sen. Norris, who co-sponsored a bill during the last session to build a toll bridge in Tennessee. That bill died in committee, as did another bill to study the feasibility of using a toll road to fund the U.S. Highway 64 bypass through the Ocoee Gorge. That bill was co-sponsored by Rep. Chris Newton, R-Cleveland, and Sen. Jeff Miller, R-Cleveland.

Mr. Nicely said the state needs to maintain its pay-as-you-gopay policy,- as - you - go pay-asyou-go policy, but it could look at "innovative" financing techniques in the future, including privately run toll roads.

Public-private partnerships let a business focus on planning a road, instead of spending millions of dollars to compete for a construction project, said Larry Shaw of Washington Group International, an Idaho-based company that does engineering, construction and management projects around the world.

The company has worked on about a dozen major state and local road projects since the early 1980s, said Mr. Shaw, president of the group’s infrastructure business unit.

"State and local agencies are facing some budget crunches, and it’s very useful for them to have a private partner," he said.

It can take time for businesses and governments to learn to work together, he said, citing a rail project the Washington Group worked on in New Jersey.

The state and the company had to agree on how much oversight state officials would have on the project, he said.

"The state has to be comfortable with that, that the process doesn’t require a daily review by their folks. Every once in a while, we come in and tell them what we’re doing," he said.

MIXED RESULTS Public-private partnerships had mixed results in Virginia, where they have been used most frequently, according to a study released in January by the Southern Environmental Law Center.

The road-building projects proposed under that state’s 10-year-old law have been funded mostly through tolls and tax money, not private investments, the study stated. Jim Regimbal, author of the study and a principal with Fiscal Analytics Ltd., said public-private partnerships aren’t a bad idea, but states shouldn’t look at them as the main source of funding for new roads.

Mr. Regimbal said there has been a lack of private investment and a lack of control over Virginia’s projects.

"There’s really no private money being put into them. They’re being touted as publicprivate partnerships, but they’re really just toll roads or local tax districts," he said.

Trip Pollard, spokesman for the Southern Environmental Law Center, said large national and international firms dominate the private road-building business, eliminating competition from a wide group of companies.

Despite the problems in Virginia, public-private partnerships can be successful if done properly, he said.

"You’ve got to be very careful, and some people have been jumping on these projects as the answer to all transportation problems," he said.

Bill Clark, chairman of the Catoosa County Board of Commissioners, said he supports having a toll road because it gives drivers a choice.

"They don’t have to ride on it if they don’t want to. That’s the beautiful thing about a toll road: YouYo don’tu don’t necessarily have to drive on it," he said.

Walker County Commissioner Bebe Heiskell said, "I think it would be built faster. They would have some source of revenue."

Ringgold Mayor Joe Barker, however, said few people in North Georgia would use a toll road."It’s just going to sit there empty," he said.