Roads to riches-(privatization of transportation)

businessweek ^ | 4/30/07 | By Emily Thornton

[Flavius]

Investors clamor to take over America's highways, bridges, and airports

[TheZMan]

I expect my taxes will be dropping any day now since the government won’t be maintaining all these roads. /s

What an absolutely stupid proposition. A private company has no right to take over a public road, slap a toll booth on it and expect you to appreciate it. The day is coming when you’ll spend your entire drive to work on access roads and driving through neighborhoods...

...until of course they block those off and force you onto the toll road where you’ll need to get a 2nd job to pay the ridiculous rates. Thank God I don’t have a long commute these days.

[Rodney King]

I expect my taxes will be dropping any day now since the government won’t be maintaining all these roads. /s

In pure theory, this makes a lot of sense. Congestion is the result of, in effect, roads being priced too cheaply.

In a perfect textbook world, the government gets the money up front, reducing your taxes now. Then, depending on how much you travel these roads you either come out ahead or behind in the long run.

The problem, of course, is that this is not a perfect textbook world, and the government will just take the money from the sale of the roads and blow it on something useless.

[Fudd]

Business Week had a good article about this trend. My read is that this is a short-term fix - governments looking to raise some quick cash without raising taxes. Unfortunately, this is only delaying the problem a few years. The problem being government has promised more than it can pay.