New report touts privatizing Mass. Turnpike

A new report that advocates privatizing the Massachusetts Turnpike deserves further study, a transportation spokesman for Governor Mitt Romney said yesterday.

But a deeper examination of privatization won't begin without the cooperation of Massachusetts Turnpike chairman Matthew J. Amorello, whom Romney has been trying to oust and who balked at the idea.

Mariellen Burns, spokeswoman for the Turnpike Authority, said that privatizing the turnpike would force managers to keep tolls in place and that the initiative goes against Amorello's promises to remove tolls west of Route 128 by 2017.

''Entering into this type of . . . lease with a private entity with very strong profit motive would guarantee the entire road's permanent status as a toll road," she said.

Jon Carlisle, spokesman for the Executive Office of Transportsion, said: ''It's an idea that deserves to be explored. But it's clear that it won't get far with the entrenched protectors of the status quo that are presently managing the turnpike.

''I think the kind of information we would need to form a final analysis . . . requires the kind of cooperation and forthrightness that has so far not been forthcoming from the Turnpike Authority," Carlisle said.

The release of the study yesterday by the Pioneer Institute, a Boston think tank, triggered more political salvos between the authority and the Commonwealth, which wants to merge the Turnpike Authority with the Massachusetts Highway Department.

The merger would cut overlapping services and save at least $20 million annually and $190 million in one-time savings by having the Commonwealth back the authority's bonds, state officials said.

In March, the governor asked the state's highest court whether he can oust Amorello from the Turnpike Authority chairmanship, a ruling that the court has yet to decide, according to a court spokeswoman.

Despite repeated requests, Amorello has refused to step down, saying he plans to stay in the $205,000-a-year job until the Big Dig's completion this fall.

State Transportation Secretary John Cogliano is scheduled to become the authority's chairman after July 2007, when Amorello's contract expires.

The new study asserts that a private company could raise and lower tolls without political fallout and operate more efficiently. The study cites privatized roads in Chicago, Texas, and Indiana, and admits other efforts have failed.

The author of the private, unsolicited study, Ted Bunker, writes that privatizing the turnpike, including the Big Dig, could provide as much as $5 billion to the state. He also said a long-term lease of the Mass. Pike ''would probably require regular toll increases over the length of the lease." The study does not advocate adding tolls.

Bunker cites the recent privatization of the Chicago Skyway, a 7.8-mile road linking Chicago to the Indiana Toll Road, where private operators paid the city $1.83 billion for the right to run the refurbished road under a 99-year lease. Detailed rules govern future toll increases, cap those increases, and link them to inflation.

Bunker said the private companies running the road -- a Spanish toll road builder and operator and an Australian investment bank -- based their bids on the future cost savings of adding new electronic toll collection systems.

The road runs at about 30 percent capacity, while nearby interstates run at or above capacity. As a result, even if tolls are raised on the Skyway, Bunker said, the companies say it won't impact their ability to attract more commuters and generate more revenue.

Mac Daniel can be reached at mdaniel@globe.com.