From the AP:

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Mayor Carty Finkbeiner is urging cities along the Ohio Turnpike to oppose a plan that diverts about $20 million a year in turnpike revenue to pay for Gov. Ted Strickland’s $1.6 billion economic stimulus plan.

Strickland’s goal is to create 80,000 new jobs by investing in road, bridge and water projects, along with renewable energy technologies. The plan would raise $970 million in bond sales, but turnpike revenue also would be diverted to help pay off $200 million in borrowing plus interest through 2030.

Cities along the turnpike could lose a total of $420 million over the time, depending on the bond’s financing terms.

And this is a squabble between two Democrats, Finkbeiner and Strickland, who vigorously opposed gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell’s plan to lease out the Ohio turnpike for 99 years in exchange for $6 billion, which could be used for local infrastructure development, local government services, and tax cuts. And since it is a lump sum payment, that money would accrue a lot of interest. Ted Strickland, at the time, dismissed the idea as a “gimmick.”
But now, instead of leasing the turnpike, Gov. Strickland will take away money from northern Ohio cities where the 241-mile long Ohio turnpike is located. The problem with the current system is inefficient, as the Ohio Turnpike provides no direct financial benefit to Ohio taxpayers even if more tolls are collected, such as is expected with the long overdue EZ-pass system (A system which, by the way, would have been already installed long ago if the system was privatized.)

Turnpike employees are overpaid (make roughly $50,000/year), the turnpike still has hundreds of millions of dollars of debt which 1/4th of their toll revenue goes to pay off, and they overspend on unnecessary construction projects with unionized firms on turnpike roads even though congestion is low. A private company would take care of these inefficiencies, and money would be diverted TO Toledo and other cities, instead of having $420 million diverted FROM cities along the turnpike.

No one is talking about turnpike privatization in the media anymore. But perhaps they should. And to Mayor Finkbeiner, as a former staffer of Ken Blackwell’s unsuccessful campaign, all I can say is: