The state PIRGs and U.S. PIRG are devoting significant efforts to mass transportation, infrastructure rebuilding and state budget policies. We want to build a 21st Century transportation system. This week, Georgia PIRG attorney Sandra Glaze had an op-ed column The crack in bridge policies appear in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Also this week, U.S. PIRG senior analyst Phineas Baxandall, Ph.D., commented in a story Is leasing roads a viable option? by George Spohr in upstate New York's Times-Herald Record:

The downside is that states enter into long-term leases -- typically between 75 and 100 years — and there's no way of knowing how valuable the assets will be in the future, Baxandall said. And the private companies have leeway to get what they want to turn a profit. "It's a lot like your HMO, where you've got an army of lawyers aimed at providing as little service as they can," he said.