Driving blind to fairness - Haaretz

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Tue., January 15, 2008 Shvat 8, 5768

Israel Time: 01:58 (EST+7)

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Driving blind to fairness

By Sandy Kedar

Tags: Israel

Or is there perhaps a sophisticated plan at work here, and as compensation for the sum of about NIS 88 per month laid out by daily users of the highway, the country intends to invest a huge sum in infrastructure, education and a mass-transportation system for the country's South?

Guess again. It turns out that one of the main justifications for the new road being a toll road is that the highway in question is the continuation (the southern part) of Highway 6, the Trans-Israel Highway. And that's a toll road. And if a toll road is a road that is better maintained - as claimed by the professional groups that appeared before the Knesset Economic Affairs Committee in November during a special hearing on the subject - the drivers using it cannot suddenly be transferred to a section of highway that is less well maintained.

From a reading of the minutes of the discussion, it is evident that the absurdity of this reply did not escape the eyes of committee chair MK Gilad Erdan (Likud), and he wondered about the difference between the terrible transition from a private section of the highway to a public section of it, and an exit at the interchange from the private Highway 6 to one of the public feeder roads leading into and away from it. The somewhat circular reply was more or less the following: In the first case, it is the same highway, and it should be maintained at a high level over the long term, for the pleasure of those using it. Beyond that, there is a parallel public road from the South to the center, Highway 40.

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I am dwelling on this administrative absurdity, similar examples of which can be found in the minutes of a large number of Knesset hearings, only because it expresses something more profound - the absence of a policy that takes into account, among its many considerations, the social effects and the aspects of distributive justice and equality. Instead, we have a policy that apparently recognizes economic considerations only, and technocratic, almost arbitrary logic, to the effect that a highway has to be uniform in quality along its length, no matter what.

The seriousness of this situation becomes clear if we take into account the fact that the highway in question is a highway paved by the state with the taxpayer's money. One of the central claims in favor of privatization of highways are the BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) agreements, which mandate that the franchisee who operates the highway for a long period of time also paves it or participates significantly in its construction. In the case of Highway 6, the state is handing over a road that it paved at its own expense to the maintenance of a private company, in order to subtract the general expenses of road maintenance from the state budget.

Whereas at first glance the possibility of subtracting expenses from the state budget is enticing, a more thorough examination of the issue raises many questions. Is it right to reduce expenses at all costs? Is it right to remove expenses and responsibility from the government in the area of highways, of all things, when the government is supposed to prefer security to profitability? And most important: If it has already been decided to reduce expenses in the road maintenance budget, is it proper to look for the savings specifically in an important traffic artery that leads from the periphery to the center, thus diverting the cost from the residents of the country as a whole (by means of progressive taxation) and to impose it on a small group of residents from the outerlying regions?

The failure of the one-dimensional policy, which is blind to aspects of equality and fairness, apparently applies to the policy of toll roads as well. In this case too, the government authority is violating its obligation to take distributive justice into account in the allocation of resources, as that obligation was defined by the Supreme Court.

Dr. Sandy Kedar is a professor in the University of Haifa's law faculty, and is active in the Israel Association for Distributive Justice.

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