Temporary roadblock, anyway

Temporary roadblock, anyway

It is not going to be easy to stop Ohio Gov. John Kasich from selling off the Ohio Turnpike.

History shows that when the governor gets an idea in his head, it sticks like taffy. And despite that moment last summer when Kasich feigned indecision about whether the Ohio Turnpike should be leased to private investors, there’s been no doubt about what he wanted to do since last December.

For our part, we’ve left no doubt that we think leasing the turnpike is a bad idea, for any number of reasons that have been described in this space. Most of Ohio clearly thought so back in 2006, when the issue worked against the election of Republican Ken Blackwell in his gubernatorial race with Democrat Ted Strickland. It doesn’t take a degree in political science to see why Kasich avoided talking about leasing the turnpike until after he was elected.

Dipping into the federal trough

Stopping Kasich from leasing the turnpike will be hard But there was no reason to make it that much easier by allowing him to use federal money to pay a consultant to tell him what he wanted to hear.

So we were happy to see that U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Niles, and the rest of Ohio’s Democratic congressional delegation prevailed on the Federal Highway Administration to revoke a $1.5 million “highway planning” grant. That money is supposed to be used to plan highways, not plan a high-stakes yard sale of an asset built over a period of a half century.

Ohio DOT Director Jerry Wray criticized the revocation of the grant as “political” and “disappointing.” How ironic, two of the same words that could be used to describe the governor’s single-minded effort to auction the Ohio Turnpike and its future to the highest bidder.