During the last several years, the privatization of toll roads and parking meters in the United States has become an appalling trend. Cities such as Chicago and states such as Indiana have leased away their rights to profits from such devices to foreign-owned companies. Currently, the state of Ohio is poised to follow suit by privatizing their own toll roads.

Ohio Governor John Kasich has proposed a plan to lease the Ohio Turnpike for the next 75 years. The deal would redirect all tolls paid by Ohioans to a third party in exchange for one lump sum to be paid up front to the state. Unfortunately, in most cases of privatization, that initial sum of money almost NEVER makes up for the billions of dollars in income that is eventually lost out on.

This is certainly not a course of action that is going to benefit the people of Ohio either. Privatization of roads and highways is merely a short term solution that will lead to long term losses for everyone. According to a review done by the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA), the deal would likely lead to higher tolls and traffic headaches for communities whose roads would see more toll-dodging truckers.

Ohio citizens need only look to their neighbors to the west to see evidence of this: since the state of Indiana leased its toll roads in 2006, the price of crossing that state has doubled. The NOACA’s review “suggests that leasing the Ohio Turnpike appears to have few positive merits and quite a few likely negative outcomes.”

The question that needs to be asked is, “What do the people of Ohio stand to gain with this deal?” Higher tolls? Increased traffic? More money flowing out of the state? Leasing and selling off public roads only serves to make short term budgets look more glamorous for political purposes. But in all reality, the only thing Gov. Kasich’s road privatization will do is weaken the state of Ohio’s economy and hike up the tax Ohio drivers pay to travel in their own state.

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