First, toll roads are completely consistent with conservative economic principles. Why should the government being in the road building business? Why should taxes be used to charge people for their use of roads? Tolls are better than gas taxes because they place the burden of payment on the consumer of the services. You can't get much fairer than that.
The only thing that is going to result from private toll roads is increased tolls and increased traffic on free alternate routes as a result of the increased tolls.
No. Private tolls roads will get roads built more cheaply and more quickly than government roads.
Without tolls roads, the government just wouldn't be able to keep up with demand.
Oh, and one more nice thing about toll roads -- you can expect the owners to try and maximize road throughput. The more cars, the more money they make. That means they have an incentive to price the toll so as to avoid traffic jams.
Compare that with "free" government roads where everyone sits going nowhere in traffic jams while burning gasoline that they paid tax on for the privilege of driving on a government road.
The slower you go, the MORE the government collects!
The REAL reason people hate toll roads is that it exposes them directly to the costs of travel. Apparently most people would rather pay more money in hidden taxes.
Out of sight, out of mind, as they say.
Gee, I remember from my classes in American governement (long ago), that building and maintaining roads was the second duty of government--right behind providing for the common defense. Something must have change in the intervening years.
I'm not disagreeing that toll roads are a good idea. Government should own the asset, but use, as much as possible, private entities to build and operate the road. The main reasons traditional toll roads such as the Penna. Turnpike and the TPNJ cost so much to operate is because government is charged with collecting the tolls and maintaining the roads. These government employees cost much more than private employees (some toll collectors on the TPNJ make 100k a year) that it raises the overall maintenance costs accordingly.
That means they have an incentive to price the toll so as to avoid traffic jams.
And where does all that excess traffic that doesn't use the toll road go? It doesn't disappear, it simply goes to the free roads which often parallel toll roads. This strains the local governments which own and maintain these roads. For example, the last time I crossed one of the bridges that connects NJ to Manhattan, I paid a $6 toll and the traffic was backed up immensely. Say these facilities were privately owned and the owner found out that if they raised the toll to $100, it would significantly improve traffic flow. Well, it does, because fewer people use the facility, but then other transportation infrastructure, such as PATH trains and the like, get overflowed with extra users.
Furthermore, because fewer people are using the asset because of the high cost, the owner will not have an incentive to expand the asset.