4
infrastructure
investor
may
2014
While the resignationof Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey chairman David Samson
was described as a decision he had put off for
months, it nonetheless came 10 days after the
US Attorney’s Office of New Jersey issued a
subpoena seeking records related to Samson’s
law firm and projects procured by the agency.
According tomedia reports, New JerseyUS
Attorney Paul Fishman is investigatingwhether
there was a conflict of interest regarding Sam-
son’s lawfirmWolff &Samson and the compa-
nies awarded theBayonneBridge andGoethals
Bridge projects.
The latter is a $1.5 billion project the Port
Authority procured as a public-private partner-
ship (PPP; P3).
It is as yet unknown whether a conflict of
interest did exist and what, if any, impact this
may have on the Goethals Bridge project.
Because the investigation is ongoing, Fish-
man’s office could neither confirm nor deny
whether it had issued a subpoena.
Yet, the timing of Samson’s resignation is
noteworthy since hewas one of New JerseyGov-
ernor Chris Christie’s allies who had survived
the initial fall-out fromthe bridge scandal that
involved closing two access lanes to theGeorge
WashingtonBridge –which linksNewYork and
New Jersey – for five days last September. Inves-
tigators are trying to determine whether the
lane closures were politically motivated and
who knew about them.
In addition to theGoethals Bridge, the Port
Authority is also in the procurement process for
anothermajor P3 project – the redevelopment
of LaGuardia Airport, one of New York’s three
major airports.
In late March – after the law firm Gibson,
Dunn & Crutcher, which Christie hired to
conduct an internal review of the lane clo-
sures, presented its report – the New Jersey
Governor spoke of possibly dismantling the
Port Authority.
A few days later, the Rudin Center for
Transportation andManagement at New York
UniversityWagner, released a report calling for
reform of the authority.
“There is now broad recognition that the
Port Authority (especially in New Jersey) has
served as a source of patronage for political
appointees,” the report’s authors wrote.
But the agency’s “critical problem” is
arguably not political abuse or mismanage-
ment but an out-of-date business model.
“To fulfill its mission and to help the New
York-New Jersey region thrive over the next
fifty years, the Port Authority needs to rethink
not only how itmanages its business, but how it
defines what that business is,” the report stated.
A reformed – rather thandismantled – Port
Authority would be good news for New York’s
P3market; suchprojects wouldnot be possible
without it, since the state does not currently
have enabling legislation in place.
n
EDITOR’S CHOICE
“We don’t seem at all concerned
about how fragile and vulnerable
our huge private sector critical
cyber-infrastructure, such as our
electrical grid, Internet, banking
and financial sectors, is to cyber
attack.”
Daniel Gallington
, senior policy
and program adviser at the
George C. Marshall Institute in
Arlington, Virginia, writing on the
US News website
“Unless we act dramatically and
quickly, science tells us our
climate and our way of life are
literally in jeopardy. Denial of the
science is malpractice.”
US Secretary of State
John
Kerry
, reacting to the publication
of the “Mitigating Climate
Change” report published by
the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change
“Unprecedented state of
deterioration”.
The verdict on Spain’s road
network in a report produced
by the country’s National Road
Association (AEC). It said roads
were in the worst condition
since studies began in 1985
“This announcement shows both
governments are fair dinkum
about a second Sydney
Airport”.
Brendan Lyon,
chief executive
of lobby group Infrastructure
Partnerships Australia,
welcomes the news of federal
and state funding to support
infrastructure around a
second airport for Sydney
Another
George Washington
Bridge casualty
The lane closure scandal has now extended to the Goethals
Bridge and other projects as well as the resignation of the
Port Authority chairman
