2015 Theses Master's

Public Private Partnerships: An Off Balance Experience

Aaron, Meagan

The development and maintenance of road networks has become a fundamental factor in a country's success. In the United States, the process of design, construction, financing and maintenance of individual roads has been organized in several different ways. The most preferential form of governance in the United States has become public private partnerships. Cases of attempts by different states governments to implement public private partnerships in the realm of surface transportation reveal major difficulties in governance, policy, as well as questions of ethical conduct. The government's perception of the private sector's capability of rescuing American highway system is detailed throughout the paper. The partnership between the government and the private sector instead of combining the strengths of each seems to combine the problems inherent in each. The origin of the private entity's association is illustrated as means of giving a background of the shift in the government's position in favor public private partnerships.