Word: mile
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...Rockies were born in 1993 after 30 years of snubs from baseball's pooh-bahs, who were concerned about the metro region's slight population, lousy stadium, capricious weather and high altitude. When baseball finally caved, its reward came swiftly: the Rockies' opening day drew 80,227 to old Mile High Stadium--still the largest single-game turnout in baseball history--and first-year attendance totaled 4.5 million. These were happy days, particularly when hitter-friendly Coors Field was christened in 1995 and the team scooted into the NL playoffs...
...that field. The thin air in mile-high Denver turns ordinary baseballs into missiles, adding 40 ft. (about 12 m) to a 400-ft. hit. But it did little for the Rockies, who tried to compensate by loading up on sluggers and pitchers. One colossal mistake: signing two gimpy pitchers in 2000 for $172 million. Come 2002, the Monforts were in trouble. Rumors of bankruptcy or a fire sale abounded amid a multimillion-dollar cash call from the other partners...
Pennsylvanians had been clamoring for a new road between Philadelphia and Lancaster for years, but the government just couldn't afford it. So in 1792 the state chartered a company that would build the nation's first private turnpike--62 miles (100 km) of stone and gravel--in exchange for the right to collect tolls. Today Pennsylvania finds itself in a similar bind, with the money it needs for roads and bridges far outstripping the money it gets from the gas tax and other revenue streams. So Governor Ed Rendell is turning back the clock, proposing a slew of deals...
...operator Cintra and Australian bank Macquarie. At about the same time, Texas bagged $1.2 billion to let a Cintra-led consortium build the first part of the Trans-Texas Corridor and collect tolls on it for 50 years. In 2006 Indiana signed a 75-year lease for the 157-mile (253 km) Indiana Toll Road in exchange for $3.8 billion, funding the state's transportation needs for the next decade--and grabbing the attention of other budget-conscious states. "It was an earthquake in transportation," says Bob Poole, director of transportation studies at the Reason Foundation, a think tank...
...wring plenty of cash out of toll roads by essentially behaving like the private sector and charging market rates for usage. The express lanes of State Road 91 in Southern California, for example, carry some of the highest tolls in the nation--at peak hours, nearly a dollar a mile--which may annoy drivers but help pay for the state's transportation needs. The Pennsylvania Turnpike commission has produced a plan to raise turnpike tolls and attach tolls to other roads in the state...