American Dream

You may be interested to learn that a firm from way down under may soon be the operator of a Virginia toll road. In the annals of Virginia transportation, this amounts to one odd development.

If only it were the only odd development.

NO EASY REMEDIES

The nine-mile Pocahontas Parkway opened three years ago to cross the James River below Richmond and connect eastern Henrico County with fast-growing Chesterfield County. It was the first project advanced under the state's 1995 Public-Private Transportation Act and it helped build the road "at least 15 years sooner than it would have been through public funds alone," Gov. Mark Warner declared at the ribbon-cutting.

Warner was right about the building part. The almost $300 million raised through the sale of private bonds accelerated the project.

Traffic projections, however, proved somewhat optimistic, with only half as many toll-paying vehicles as expected using the road. Even with a toll increase last August, revenues have been less than sufficient to service the debt.

Enter an Australian (as in, kangaroo) outfit called Transurban, which has established a formal interest in buying, for about $350 million, the right to all toll proceeds on the Pocahontas Parkway. If the deal goes through, it will be the first foreign acquisition for Transurban, which operates toll roads in Sydney and Melbourne.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH A BUS?

Not convinced yet? Then take a gander at the Northern Virginia Metrorail extension to Tyson's Corner. The price on it just went up, too, from the originally projected sum of $1.5 billion to a whopping $2.4 billion.