A $12.8 billion bid by a Spanish-American consortium to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike has expired and is no longer on the table.

The bid proposal from Abertis of Spain and Citigroup of New York expired on Tuesday, Sept. 30, and the investment group did not seek an extension.

Highway users who oppose the privatization of existing roadways said taxpayers can breathe a sigh of relief at least for now.

“I think the financial markets had something to do with it, but more importantly, I think that the folks that were lobbying on behalf of Abertis up in Harrisburg, PA, started to see the writing on the wall,” Mike Joyce, director of legislative affairs for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, told Land Line Now on XM Satellite Radio.

“The writing on the wall was that the state Legislature was not prepared to move the governor’s proposal forward, keeping in mind that the Legislature had to give the green light to go ahead and enter into a deal with Abertis.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell announced in May that a turnpike lease would generate at least $1 billion per year for transportation projects around the state.

A spokesman for Rendell said he has not ruled out trying again in the future.

“Gov. Rendell remains committed to pursuing legislation to allow a lease of the turnpike,” Spokesman Chuck Ardo told Land Line.

“Should such legislation be enacted, it would be his hope to execute a lease with the Abertis-Citi team.”

Highway user groups are skeptical of privatization deals because they pave the way for profit-based toll increases and maintenance schedules.

Higher tolls can also lead to truckers and other users leaving a toll road and traveling less-safe secondary routes.

“I want to commend our members and our listeners for reaching out and calling their legislative officials and expressing their opinions in opposition to deals like selling pieces of infrastructure and converting existing roads to tolling,” Joyce said.

Truckers also claimed victory in mid-September when the Federal Highway Administration rejected an application by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission to convert Interstate 80 into a toll road.

“Our preference would be for Pennsylvania to be in a stalemate, and that’s exactly where they are. They need to go back to the drawing board and take a good hard look at how they fund projects,” Joyce said.

Joyce said he met with Abertis officials during the process and learned about their strategy.

“These folks representing Abertis really believed that once the I-80 tolling application was denied by Federal Highways that the Legislature and the governor would immediately move on to this $12.8 billion bid for the Turnpike,” Joyce said.

“They expressed the fact that this was going to be a cakewalk, that it would be a done deal. I think that once they ventured into Harrisburg, they probably found that that wasn’t the case.”

Joyce said Abertis will continue to be a player in the recent move by the federal government and states to turn over infrastructure assets to the private sector. He compared Abertis to Cintra of Spain and Macquarie of Australia who have taken over several assets, including the Indiana Toll Road and Chicago Skyway.

“They’ve got a lot of money to spend on lobbying,” Joyce said.

“They will be a player at the table and we’ll hear their name for many years in the future.”

Land Line Magazine introduced readers to Abertis in the July 2006 cover story titled “Toll Hogs: World’s biggest toll company hungry for U.S. markets.”

Click here to read the online version of the July 2006 story.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission offered no comment on the expiration of the lease proposal, instead referring Land Line to state Rep. Joseph Markosek, D-Allegheny, chairman of the state’s House Transportation Committee.

Markosek is credited with bottling up the lease proposal in committee. He previously told Land Line Now that a 75-year lease of the turnpike would have left taxpayers holding the bag after the $12.8 billion was spent in approximately 20 years.

Markosek continues to support tolling prospects for I-80 despite the FHWA’s rejection of that proposal.

– By David Tanner, staff writer
david_tanner@landlinemag.com

Land Line Now Host Mark Reddig and Staff Writer Reed Black contributed to this story.