Like most transportation agencies, the Port Authority has been stung by the recession. It no longer has the financial capacity to commit funds to downtown Manhattan and the Access to the Region’s Core tunnel while also building its other planned projects. So, in what could be a test case for the region, the authority has been testing the waters on a deal to partner with a private company or venture that will design, build, finance, and maintain a replacement for the Goethals Bridge between New Jersey and Staten Island. On Sunday, the agency said it had gotten 12 responses to a “request for information” it issued last month.

According to its RFI, the authority would essentially borrow an agreed-upon sum from a private venture, and then pay that money back with interest as the venture designed, built, and maintained the bridge. The private venture would have responsibility for maintaining the bridge over a 30-40 year period. At least in theory, the private investor would get a fixed return and be forced to cover cost overruns out of its own pocket, a transfer of risk that would act as an incentive for it to keep costs low.

Because the investor would not get an equity stake in the bridge or a percentage of toll revenues, a finance professor asked to review the proposal by the Star-Ledger told the paper that the authority “[lays] out a bone without much meat on it.”  But Port Authority spokesperson Stephen Sigmund told MTR that the 12 “serious responses” the authority had received was proof of investor interest. From a public point of view, the bone should have as little meat as is needed to attract investors. Elsewhere in the country and in the world, these types of arrangements have often seen government give up much more. For example, when Indiana leased its state toll road in 2006 in exchange for an up-front payment, it gave up all toll revenue for a lease period of 75 years.

The Goethals replacement, which is estimated to cost $755 million, is also a much smaller and less complex endeavor than some of the projects frequently cited as candidates for a public-private partnership (PPP), such as the $16 billion project to replace New York’s Tappan Zee Bridge and add transit to the I-287 corridor.

But this does not mean there are no risks. As Eliot Brown pointed out in the Observer last month, a 40-year maintenance contract can ensure that a private firm won’t build a bridge that starts to crumble in 20 years — but what about in 41 years?  The history of public-private ventures is also rife with cases where government tried to transfer responsibility for cost overruns to private firms, but ended up paying them anyway after the companies defaulted. Both are reasons why a more detailed request for proposals, which will be released next spring, must be very carefully worded. The Port Authority will decide which, if any, proposal to accept by the end of 2011.

Completing the deal could open the door to further use of PPPs. Last year, a New York state commission suggested that the state consider private operation and maintenance of the Gowanus Expressway and use of PPPs for repairing or replacing other bridges. NJ Gov. Chris Christie seems ideologically supportive of expanding the private sector’s role in infrastructure, though he has not yet suggested doing so for transportation projects. There have been some experiments in Connecticut as well. Certainly, there is no shortage of unfunded transportation projects in the region.