Australia’s Tantalizing Lessons on Privatizing Infrastructure

[mousquet]

I guess I would simply stick to tayser, despite his outrageous joke about "ménage à trois" in his signature.

Generally speaking, what's already profitable can be sold to the private sector or run by public-private partnerships, whereas long-run strategy that doesn't generate direct profits, but indirectly creates wealth or stands for a big potential for the future has to be funded by taxpayers.

It's even pretty obvious, and everyone on here must basically be aware. For example, I believe many research projects that eventually output tons of wealth in the US were originally publicly funded, at taxpayer expense. That's called strategy, and everyone needs it.

Otherwise, both ultra socialist and extremely conservative ideologies are pretty pointless and even downright harmful. You got to be pragmatic here.

[jens]

Originally Posted by mousquet

I guess I would simply stick to tayser, despite his outrageous joke about "ménage à trois" in his signature.

Generally speaking, what's already profitable can be sold to the private sector or run by public-private partnerships, whereas long-run strategy that doesn't generate direct profits, but indirectly creates wealth or stands for a big potential for the future has to be funded by taxpayers.

It's even pretty obvious, and everyone on here must basically be aware. For example, I believe many research projects that eventually output tons of wealth in the US were originally publicly funded, at taxpayer expense. That's called strategy, and everyone needs it.

Otherwise, both ultra socialist and extremely conservative ideologies are pretty pointless and even downright harmful. You got to be pragmatic here.

I thought it's a good joke.

[llamaorama]

Hate to burst your bubble but leasing the Port of Melbourne (mentioned in that article) was bi-partisan and the current state government is anything but conservative: ALP, and the left faction is the dominant one at the moment.

The proceeds of the lease are going into the pot of removing 50 level crossings on the Melbourne rail network (we have 150+ in the metro area). http://levelcrossings.vic.gov.au/crossings

You didn't burst anything. Your argument doesn't make sense, it doesn't matter which political party does something.

Actually, it makes me more skeptical. Is using some of the proceeds from privatization to finance mass transit just a political maneuver to attract votes from left and greens? Is grade separating commuter rail in an already highly developed city and country going to really result in meaningful reductions in pollution and sprawl or impart large economic gains, or is it largely for show?

Will privatizing a port facility negatively affect the cost and access of cargo shipping for small businesses? How will that affect jobs and economic opportunity?

I think this strategy was applied in the USA would really hurt people living in the Midwest and South for the benefit of people living in a few coastal cities. Working and middle class people usually live and work in areas where they don't really have a choice NOT to drive, so tolling their commutes lowers their household incomes. Small businesses and manufacturers need open, neutral access to highways to transport goods. It would be very wasteful to siphon money from those things just to spend it on suburban freeways which only induce more traffic, or on low ridership urban transit that only a small fraction of society can actually use.

Ironically, Trump's base would lose here.

Like I said, this seems like a zero sum game. Do you want all citizens and commerce to be dependent on a small number of monopolistic corporations, many of which are likely to be foreign owned? That has some serious implications. Also, as Pedestrian mentioned, attaching user fees to roads raises privacy concerns.

[tayser]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Is grade separating commuter rail in an already highly developed city and country going to really result in meaningful reductions in pollution and sprawl or impart large economic gains, or is it largely for show?

You might want to ditch the North American idea of 'commuter rail' (i.e low frequency) when thinking about our network. This is a map from the published heavy rail network plans in 2012 (there's been some updates, not just published yet,and a refresh expected to be released by year's end but the peak frequency figures are likely to be the same or revised upwards). Beyond 2030, this will be the peak frequency of each line in Melbourne's rail network



Running trains - in both directions - on frequencies even as low as 6-10 TPH creates mayhem at level crossings (we're living through this now) so the notion of running more trains on the existing network would be met with pitchforks - thus there's a massive grade separation programme (which is really only half the job that needs doing).

The new metro tunnel is partially a PPP as well - an availability PPP that will see a construct & operate contract likely drawn up (tenders have been announced, contract signing for the heavy work is due by year end as well).

I get the arguments against PPPs and for the most part have the same concerns - but it's not really associated with one side of politics here anymore - both major parties are quite happy to use them to get new infrastructure built.

We might, at long freaking last, get an airport rail line - that map from 2012 above has it as part of the existing (but expanded) rail network, in the federal budget just released a month ago, $30mil is going to be spent on a feasibility study on how to get it built faster, possibly not as part of the existing rail network.

Will privatizing a port facility negatively affect the cost and access of cargo shipping for small businesses? How will that affect jobs and economic opportunity?

Depends on how the contract is structured. There's also a gauge / regional rail conversion programme occuring so that all freight from Victoria's West and North can be shipped by one train from the regions (grains/produce/rare earths) to Victoria's three major ports: Melbourne, Geelong & Portland.

This is publicly financed and will allow competition. Melbourne will remain the main containerised freight port and the current car export facility will become import as Australia's car industry is shutting down (Toyota, [GM] Holden and Ford have all announced exit plans).

[a very long weekend]

^ very cool to hear they're ditching level crossings on the system.