Ten years ago, many people involved in the U.S. public-private partnership infrastructure world believed that the relatively new availability payment (AP) model was the wave of the future. It proved successful on two Florida public-private partnership (P3) megaprojects—the Port of Miami Tunnel and the reconstruction and widening of I-595 in Fort Lauderdale. It was seen as more attractive to bidders since there was no revenue risk, and operations and maintenance seemed to morph into simply hiring a specialized maintenance contractor.
According to a database of design-build-finance-operate-maintain (DBFOM) transportation P3s I’ve maintained since State Route 91 in California reached financial close in
