State of the State: Here Come Public-Private Partnerships

2:20 PM PST on January 9, 2008

During his "State of the State" speech yesterday, Governor Schwarzenegger didn't spend too much time on transportation (and none on transportation reform). But what time he did spend shows how he's planning on meeting our funding needs: public private partnerships.

The Governor will be introducing legislation to make public-private partnerships (which for some reason he was calling "Performance Based Infrastructure") easier to accomplish in California. While Schwarzenegger mostly talked about Performance Based Infrastructure in terms of the state's water shortage, the examples given in a video blog by one of his advisers gave many examples of PBI's being used to get transit projects off the ground.

Does this mean the Governor is going to be bringing a new focus to finding more and better ways to fund transit options? Probably not. Before going into the advantages of PBI's the Governor defended his repeal of the car tax. "I did that. I would do it again. It is unfair to punish people who can barely afford gas to get to work."

Basically, we didn't learn a lot about what kind of future transportation projects have during yesterday's speech. What we did learn is that the governor thinks that car drivers are being taxed at more than their fare share, which is a sign that new revenues for transportation projects aren't in the cards for 2008

To watch a video of the State of the State, go to the Governor's Official Website.

Damien Newton

State of the State: Here Come Public-Private Partnerships

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