The other shoe has yet to drop on Nevada’s transportation funding. The compromise between Gov. Jim Gibbons and the Legislature is barely more than a down payment on what’s needed here in Southern Nevada. And if anyone thought that public-private partnerships were the answer, they should probably think again.

An unusual combination of the trucking industry and congressional Democrats says that selling highways to investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Macquarie is a mistake, reports Bloomberg. The truckers say they would much prefer a fuel tax increase to the tolls. That won’t sit well with the Gibbons administration, which fought a trucking industry tax increase in favor of … well we’re not sure but we suspect that there could be some talks with prospective road investors.

Those, like the Bush administration, who see private investment as the answer to infrastructure needs, should bear in mind the big difference between the U.S. and the rest of the world on these infrastructure projects.

And it’s this. We’ve had free urban freeways since the 1930s and the Interstate Highway System is now 50 years old. And it’s all been free. In Spain and Australia, these private road deals were often designed to build the first real freeways and tunnels that bypassed the congested surface streets. And in most cases, they created freeways along heavily-trafficked routes like downtown to the airport for the first time.

In the U.S., especially in the West, simply adding a lane or two to create a better traffic flow, won’t do that much and many, many people will chose the free congestion to the toll road. And, there’s no evidence that banks are interested in these half-baked deals. The deals in the U.S. have given exclusive rights to the buyer. So Act Two of the transportation drama in Southern Nevada may not play out like some people had hoped when the Legislature underfunded Clark County transportation. And there’s still plenty to be said for the idea I floated a couple of months ago — privatize the airport.

And the reason the Democrats are fighting toll roads is that they know the voters see the tolls and the increasing tolls as another kind of tax increase. So while it makes economic sense, there’s huge political danger in charging for what lots of people, including the trucking industry, think should be free.