Sounds like kneejerk scaremongering to me.
My problem is that many of these lease agreements include “noncompete” clauses in them - which is to say, neither the state nor any other private investor can build another freeway-quality road within a certain distance of the lease road.
That is meant to ensure that taxpayers are forced to use the leased “product.” It’s also anti-competetive and anti-market.
> Used to be, “conservatives” thought privatization was a good thing. I don’t know what the beef is here.
1. It’s not privatization. It’s a lease. Not only do we end up with the road back in our laps after some years, but we can’t kick the tenants out before then if it doesn’t work out. Worst of both worlds.
2. Privatization is good when competition is possible. How many people are able to pony up the umpty-ump billions it would take to construct a competing road? Give me three or four (or even two) more-or-less-equally convenient ways to get to a place and I’ll agree that competition is the right motivator here. But these are major highways, sometimes through heavily populated areas, which makes the barrier to entry into this market impossibly high.
Without competition, the good-hearted accountants may decide that fixing their road is too expensive and I should buy a new axle every month instead. We already paid for the **** road!! We paid to build it, we pay tolls through the nose to maintain it, but at least now we have recourse to redress of grievances — the people who appoint the road authorities are elected!
I don’t care who owns it. I want to know what recourse I have if the service doesn’t suit me. For many of these roads, there just isn’t another way to travel.