Politics on the Hudson

Gov. David Paterson plans to appoint a panel to consider ways to get private investment in state infrastructure projects, potentially like the building of a new Tappan Zee Bridge, he announced today.
The panel on public-private partnerships, headed by one of his key aides, is to issue a preliminary report in 90 days and a final one in six months. “There’s a lot to do to fix New York State’s infrastructure, and there’s not a lot of money to do it with,’’ said state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. “New York needs to craft new strategies to address our capital needs…’’
Last week, Paterson’s administration announced a $16 billion plan to build a new Tappan Zee Bridge across the Hudson River between Rockland and Westchester counties, and to add a commuter-rail system in Rockland that the new bridge would carry over the Hudson before joining up with tracks leading to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. The plan also calls for an expansion of bus service in the area. A financing plan is due out in the middle of October.
Paterson aides today didn’t specifically identify that project as one the commission will look at, but other administration officials have said before that getting private money for the bridge would be considered in trying to find the money needed for it.
Last year the administration of former Gov. Eliot Spitzer looked at privatizing the state Lottery, and there has also been talk of doing the same to the state Thruway.