Privately run toll roads? The horror!
The taxpayers paid for and support the highways with their taxes.
The states gains ownership.
The state sells the highways to private consortiums and spends both the sale proceeds and taxes hitherto used for road maintenance on pet projects and whatever else was unfunded.
The private consortiums create toll roads to pay back their investors loans and profit.
We've already paid for them once. No tax relief is given to the public for the reduction of road maintenance tax obligations; instead they're still taxed and now also pay the tolls.
The states need funding for their fat cat friends to have their projects funded or bailed out so they start selling off public assets to private investors, re: the pillage of state assets after the fall of the SU.