WMN: t3_1tpqhr_t1_cea9xuh

[TITLE]

I believe that all highways should be privatised. CMV

[Xerxster]

I believe that having government-provided public highways is a subsidy for car drivers with lots of negative externalities like air pollution, noise pollution, congestion, sprawl, etc. Basically, the big problem with most highways as they are now is that they are underpriced. I think a better solution would be to privatize all the highways and have private firms plan, build, operate, and own them. This would eliminate the subsidy given to car drivers and hopefully reduce the use of government expropriation to build highways. Also, I think that if private firms were allowed to operate highways, they would have a greater incentive to minimize congestion to attract users. Private ownership of the highways would also introduce the element of competition and innovation(e.g. congestion pricing, more real-time information, better asphalt, etc.).

[hottopin]

I think that practicality is the best guide for most problems. Private roads have been tried all the way back to the founding of America and they always had the same 3 problems: 1. Ripping off people using them with excessive charges. 2. People avoiding the charges and thus encouraging disorder. 3. Regular repair. A toll operator doesn't have a huge intensive to regularly repair the roads due to the monopoly of owning the road. Having the public robbed(taxed) for roads handles road construction, maintenance, and use better than private tolls.

[bahanna]

Just highways or all roads?

[Xerxster]

I'm thinking just highways, privatizing all roads gets too complicated.

[bahanna]

Auctioning all roads off to private parties might take a longer period of time, but that's more of an issue of scale than of being complicated. So when you say it's too complicated I think you mean: It's be complicated for people to go about their daily lives. For example, a farmer *might* be able to live solely off his land, but 99% of the world would need to go to market and trying to do that would be complicated. Is that about right?

[BrokeDiamond]

If private companies owned highways, how would you actually be able to get anywhere on your own? How would businesses be able to afford shipping anything?

[DrDerpberg]

It doesn't have to be privatized to turn a profit. If that's your main argument, why not have the government collect tolls? That way the profit goes back into public coffers. Besides, highways are actually pretty poor candidates to be privatized. It's not like someone's going to build a new one just to compete if the prices are a little high. That's asking for price gouging. Plus don't forget everyone uses highways in one form or another. Even if you don't drive a car, your food comes into town via roads, the buses you take use them, etc. It's not like you have to get in a car and drive to be better off with an accessible transportation network.

[narcissus_goldmund]

The market for highways is very unlikely to be competitive. Firstly, there are extremely high barriers to entry. Purchasing the requisite land and initial construction are extremely costly, and it is highly unlikely that after the initial auction of existing highways that any private firm would be willing to bear the risk to enter such a market. Furthermore, highways are not interchangeable. Exactly one highway is capable of going from point A to point B in the shortest distance. Any other highway attempting to compete with that highway will necessarily be longer and therefore inferior. Because highways fail to meet the conditions for competitiveness in several important ways, they are a poor candidate for a free market solution.

[Xerxster]

∆ I've changed my opinion on private ownership of highways for the reasons you've discussed. I'm still open to private franchises bidding for rights to operate highways though with government paying the upfront costs and maintaining ownership.

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[disciple_of_iron]

Why would this be better than just adding a high tax to gasoline?

[Xerxster]

Gas taxes doesn't address congestion like tolls would. It also doesn't charge electric vehicles for the wear and tear they put on highways.

[disciple_of_iron]

[STA-CITE]>Gas taxes doesn't address congestion like tolls would. [END-CITE]It kind of would. Gas taxes encourage people to use alternate methods of transportation which would mean less cars on the road.

[ben1204]

When you think about monopoly prevention, the only way to prevent a monopoly is through competition. Privatizing the roads wouldn't do this. You don't have much of a choice as to what highway to take to New York City, lets say. What is to stop a private company from charging exorbitant tolls, and enslaving drivers because they have no other route to travel?

[twoVices]

how would people in rural areas get roads? how would rural communities deal with price gouging? how would the safety of these roads be guaranteed? how would the rules of your privatized highways be normalized throughout? How would highways connect uniformly when crossing between different road owners?

[alcakd]

[STA-CITE]>I think a better solution would be to privatize all the highways and have private firms plan, build, operate, and own them. [END-CITE]Why a massive handover when, if all you want is to raise the price of travel, you could just have the government manage the costs? [STA-CITE]>Also, I think that if private firms were allowed to operate highways, they would have a greater incentive to minimize congestion to attract users. [END-CITE]No, they have the greatest incentive to get the most money. It remains to be seen if the most money comes from minimal congestion (which means less users by the way). [STA-CITE]>Private ownership of the highways would also introduce the element of competition and innovation(e.g. congestion pricing, more real-time information, better asphalt, etc.). [END-CITE]How do you compete on a highway? How do I decide that I'm not taking *your* highway and taking a competitors? Do you double-up on the number of highways (1 for each competitor)? How does that not increase pollution?

[awa64]

Interstate systems, like most infrastructure systems, are a natural monopoly. Going to private ownership of the highways wouldn't introduce genuine competition any more than privatizing water systems would give you any real choice as to who you pay for water. And as we've seen with the telecommunications industry, private companies in such an advantageous position are extremely reluctant to spend money on maintaining and upgrading their infrastructure, even when the government DOES offer to subsidize it. A bridge that's in danger of collapse when under heavy traffic conditions isn't going to be repaired or replaced if it's privatized, it'll just have the toll cranked higher and higher instead. Why spend millions of dollars (and months of capacity-reducing construction lane closures) widening that stretch of highway to four lanes when you could just hike the price? There might be a point, many years in the future, where privatizing the highway system would be a good idea. We'd need alternatives to road transport figured out first, though, throughout large parts of the United States, and we'd need to already have other incentives pushing large numbers of people to denser areas where public transit is viable. Done as the first step, rather than the last step, all it does is depress the economy by taking money out of the pockets of the working poor who rely on highway systems on a daily basis and put it in the pockets of investors literally rich enough to buy the nation's infrastructure.

[SPC_Patchless]

[STA-CITE]>And as we've seen with the telecommunications industry, private companies in such an advantageous position are extremely reluctant to spend money on maintaining and upgrading their infrastructure, even when the government DOES offer to subsidize it [END-CITE]The telecommunications industry represents an excellent counterpoint to the OP's view. Sure, eventually GoogleRoads might come by and actually force competition by building an entirely parallel set of fancy roads, but the decades of monopoly by companies with no competition will cause incredible damage to the economy.

[heelspider]

We have toll roads but nobody is building private roads to compete with them. If these toll roads were called "private" instead of "public", why do you think it would suddenly be worth it for entrepreneurs to compete against these roads?

[jonathan88876]

Would you want to pay a toll getting on/off every single fucking highway?

[Xerxster]

I don't mind paying to get on every train, boat or bus, why should highways be any different?

[twoVices]

it would be different. a highway wouldn't be owned by one entity from point a to b for each trip. in a hotly contested area you could drive on many differently owned sections per mile. ok, so you develop an easy pass system. so has each competitor. there's no guarantee that they would be compatible. say you have a 20 mile commute through a well populated area. that could be dozens of different companies. so you either stop to pay each toll or you have 20 or more ez pass systems. maybe they can just take a picture of your car's license plate as you drive through. in this case you only have to cut 20 or more checks each period that they expect to be paid. each company would have different payment requirements, of course. how does this seem like a good idea?

[DJWalnut]

wouldn't it be more convenient to not have to stop and pay to get on a train, bus, ect.?

[makr28]

Car drivers pay for gas and pay a tax on that. They pay registration fees, licensing fees, and pay for tabs. Driving a car already costs more than the bus.

[Xerxster]

I can accept that they are paying more, doesn't mean that they are paying the right price though.

[NSNick]

Wouldn't the simpler answer be to adjust prices on registration and taxes instead of trying to completely rework how our transportation infrastructure functions?

[alcakd]

Why do you believe they are not "paying the right price". Not only that, but not paying *enough*, that drivers should all be paying more. Not only just paying more, but it has to be paid to *private* companies? I don't understand your point at all. All I can get from it is a heavy disdain for government management and the belief that people should pay more for travel.

[jonathan88876]

Yeah, because you get on a train or bus once in a while. Think of how many individual highways you use to get somewhere 20 minutes away.

[isaac777777]

i ride buses and trains daily. they use passes that you can buy for unlimited access for a month at a time. something similar could be employed

[NSNick]

Unless you have to drive on 6 different companies' roads to get to work every day. That could get annoying.

[jonathan88876]

Like an EZ Pass? Hmm, that's true. But wouldn't buying a pass for every single highway regularly that you regularly traveled upon every single month still be a burden?

[fleshrott]

You don't think the companies would work something out to make it convenient? I mean, no company is going to intentionally make it difficult to get paid. Odds are they'd cooperate on payment much like phone companies have traditionally done.

[apros]

Yeah, cable companies have shown us that they'll work together to screw consumers as hard as possible because the cost of infrastructure construction precludes all possible competition.

[fleshrott]

I was speaking directly to payment systems which you're not addressing. Your statement is still invalid because cable companies operate as local monopolies thanks to municipal governments and the myth of natural monopolies (infrastructure construction you mention). Yet, phone and internet providers manage to use the same infrastructure. Cost to service ratio has improved tremendously (at least in my area) as other techs eroded cable providers ability to maintain a monopoly even with local govt in their pocket.

[simonsutty]

The Harris government in Ontario privatized our 407 highway in the 90's and created a short term billion dollar way to offset the budget and fix the deficit. This short term gain is very short sighted by the long term billions of dollars the often foreign corporations make on the profits. Privatizations are neoliberal polices that never work are often prone to cronyism and corruption. The real solution to fixing highways is to stop cartels with the construction industry.

[__Pers]

What happens when it's decided by these same private entities that several locales, particularly those in rural areas not near major highways, are simply not sufficiently profitable to maintain? Do they close down the roads and thus cut off these communities from transportation?

[Xerxster]

I'd imagine something similar to locales where electricity or telephone service is expensive to maintain.

[OSkorzeny]

You understand that those telephone lines in rural Montana are paid for by the government, right? If not for government subsidies, those ranchers would pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to get a landline. Why would this be a good idea for roads?

[Xerxster]

I misread the reply. I'm only talking about highways, not roads.

[ThePantsParty]

[STA-CITE]> Basically, the big problem with most highways as they are now is that they are underpriced [END-CITE]All this would be an argument for would be to increase the cost at best. We already have toll roads, even though the roads are public, so why not just change your view to say that all roads should have tolls or something? The jump to "private roads" seems almost entirely unrelated to your proposed problem.

[Xerxster]

I think competition would be the best way for finding the best price for roads as opposed to governments trying to figure that out.

[SPC_Patchless]

[STA-CITE]>the best price for roads [END-CITE]Your problem is here. The "best" price for roads when privatized is when they generate maximum profit. Society needs roads that are safe and efficient as well as ideally ones that impact the environment as little as possible. On the upside, being able to sue the road every time you get into a traffic accident would be a great boon to lawyers, so there's that.

[maxpenny42]

How is a company going to make money? Tolls? Also how does competition get going? Certainly you cannot have multiple companies with different tolls. If company a buys the highway I take to work I have no say in the matter. I cannot choose to take another highway owned by a better and competing company because that road doesn't go where I need it. Once a private entity owns the road we are forced to pay whatever toll they ask regardless of how shorty the road gets. The only way this could work is if ownership stayed with government and they let forms compete to fix and maintains the roads. So, basically, what we have now.

[Xerxster]

Well, you could just have the toll rates regulated similar to how in some places taxi rates and public transport rates are regulated. But I don't see why government ownership is required.

[maxpenny42]

What is the incentive to have good roads? Quality roads benefit most citizens and the government will lose votes if the roads turn to complete shit. But if a private company makes toll money either way why build something better? Look at the privately owned bridge on Michigan to Canada. The owner of that actively fought a new bridge despite terrible congestion because he made money off old infrastructure.

[Xerxster]

To attract more customers. I'd imagine having private highways would be similar to the current system of electric utilities with similar structures of competition(monopolistic or oligopolistic). With some regulation and competition(from other highway operators, ferries, or railways), there would be some incentives to not let roads turn to shit. To use a non-highways example, the MTR is part-government owned/part-private corporation that runs the rapid transit system in Hong Kong; since gaining a monopoly on all rapid transit in Hong Kong, the system's hardly turned to shit.

[NSNick]

There's no need to attract customers. Almost no one will go significantly out of their way to save a marginal amount on tolls--people value their time too much. And if the differences in tolls are large enough, now you've created an incentive for people to go significantly out of their way--which means more travel time, which in turn leads to more wear and tear on the roads, more emissions, less efficient shipping, and more. This is all without going into how hard it would be to deal with local monopolies and other regulatory nightmares.

[maxpenny42]

You've really explained nothing. How is the road monetized? Have you settled on tolls? Tolls are inherently terrible. Forget the regressive nature of them compared to a tax system (all thought I believe roads are paid by gas taxes anyway so you whole complaint against paying for roads non drivers don't use is moot). In order to get into the highway you have to stop as you merge and exit and the infrastructure of those toll systems not only can bottle neck traffic but also require huge amounts of space and large on and off ramps where simple exits and entrance ramps are much simpler. The space needed to build a highways system entirely toll based is ungainly and prohibitively expensive. You'd not only force every driver to pay for the highways, the toll infrastructure, and whatever profit the private company makes rather than just the highways that we currently fund.

[ThePantsParty]

One thing I want to point out first is that "competition" when it comes to roads is a rather nebulous concept. I mean think about what we're actually talking about here. This isn't a *product* where anyone can just come on the scene and start competing...this is the limited physical space in the country. Think about highway 1. It goes from the Canadian border, all the way down the west coast to Mexico. Now if someone wanted to be a "competitor" for this, they would have to take that *same* amount of land essentially next to the existing highway, cover it in asphalt, etc. And what if a third competitor wanted to come on the scene? All of this all over again? This would be true for every road in the country, and it would consist of having half a dozen identical roads all going to the same places, essentially covering the entire country in a asphalt just to be able to say we have competing roads. It doesn't really seem practical. But ignoring the logistical difficulties for the moment, competition is thought to be a benefit because it produces the lowest most efficient price for something to be offered at. But considering what your objection is, do we *want* the lowest price? I thought you wanted to discourage driving unnecessarily, and if that's the case, we want to artificially *increase* the price from its lowest threshhold to a higher deterrant rate. If that's what we want, that brings us back to just making everything a toll road with whatever price was necessary to achieve this.

[Xerxster]

For your first part: we don't have any of those issues with the railways. I don't see why highways would be any different. My objection to public highways is that the government makes the price too low. Having private companies would at least put some price on them where right now they are free.

[jcooli09]

I'm not sure if you've had any experience with the rail system in the US, specifically freight rail, but it really sucks. Costs are continually rising, service is terrible, and they really don't care about the individual costomer at all. There isn't any competition because there is only one company that services an end user in a given area. I don't really see how this situation wouldbe any different for highways. Why would a second highway be built to serve an area that already has one?

[SPC_Patchless]

[STA-CITE]> For your first part: we don't have any of those issues with the railways. I don't see why highways would be any different. [END-CITE] Except, y'know, we absolutely do. Railways are underutilized and relatively overpriced with very little competition because breaking into the market is such a huge investment and the majority of the population doesn't see them as a viable option.

[ThePantsParty]

Well there are a few problems with the comparison to railroads. Many of the rail systems are government owned, but even among the private railways, there is nothing even remotely comparable to the road system. First, how many competing railway tracks do you really see anyway? Do you ever see multiple rail lines with tracks going on the same route? Even if we could say that *all* rail lines did, the rail system is a very spread out setup with isolated stretches of track. That's not what we're dealing with when it comes to roads. Think if every road in the vicinity around where you live were proposed to have another road added to "compete" with it. Where would it even be put?? I don't know where you live, but imagine trying to do it in Manhattan where every square inch of space is occupied. Even if you had the room for it, you would *want* to double or triple the amount of land covered in asphalt, eliminating its use for anything else? All just so we can say that we have "competition" to roads that seemed to be functioning just fine as it is? [STA-CITE]> My objection to public highways is that the government makes the price too low. [END-CITE]You seem to kind of just ignore my point every time. Yes, this is your objection. So why is your solution not to propose that the government raise the price? Instead you propose scrapping and reworking the *entire* transportation system across the whole country, creating entire new industries that don't presently exist in "road companies", create a need to make more roads going to the exact same destinations and at least double the paved area as described above, all while making an exponentially more complicated system. You want all of this instead of merely proposing "hey, let's just charge people $5 (or whatever) when they use one of the current roads". And you're not really offering any reason why this would ever be preferable. [STA-CITE]> right now they are free. [END-CITE]It was pointed out elsewhere that the road maintenance is paid for with things like the gasoline tax. What you're *actually* proposing is the removal of this maintenance tax since the government would no longer be paying for it. This means you've just proposed lowering the cost of gasoline, thereby making driving even more affordable. Of course you want to offset this by making private companies charge you for the road, but still, none of that makes any sense compared to just having the government raise the current cost.

[Xerxster]

In my original post, I only said that all highways should be privatised, not all roads. So, I'm fine with things like gas taxes still being collected to maintain smaller roads. [STA-CITE]> Do you ever see multiple rail lines with tracks going on the same route? [END-CITE]If you mean having rights of way that are literally right next to each other then no. It's more likely they'd work out some kind of track-sharing agreement. If you mean parallel rail lines serving close-by if not the same towns/cities then yes, you do see some parallel going on the same route. In B.C. you can see the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian National Railway going parallel most of their routes until they reach Alberta. I'm skeptical of governments raising the prices of highways because I think political pressures cause more roads to be built than are necessary. All I am proposing is that the highways be sold off. There are already private operators maintaining and collecting tolls on highways, and contractors building them.

[HomSig]

[STA-CITE]> I believe that having government-provided public highways is a subsidy for car drivers with lots of negative externalities like air pollution, noise pollution, congestion, sprawl, etc. Basically, the big problem with most highways as they are now is that they are underpriced. [END-CITE]I'd say this is actually an argument *against* provatising highways, because the companies wouldn't have to charge any money for the pollution etc. because it doesn't hurt them personally (corporatally?).

[Xerxster]

I'd think though that with private highways, you'd get less highway building since private firms don't have to respond to political demands for highways and have less access to use of government expropriation. As for pollution, I do see a role for government measures at reducing pollution such as carbon taxes or gas taxes.

[Crayshack]

[STA-CITE]> I'd think though that with private highways, you'd get less highway building [END-CITE]Again, that is an argument against privatization to me. Highways provide a crucial function to many people and I wouldn't want a private company to be able to say "There isn't enough profit in it for us, so you don't get a highway." When it is the government building the roads, they build the roads where they are needed, not where the money is.

[Xerxster]

You could say similar things about railways(which are and were privately-run) before the mass adoption of the automobile and people seem to get by well enough.

[awa64]

They were privately-run--sorta--but are and were heavily government-subsidized, too. The land used for the First Transcontinental Railroad was donated by the US government, and the construction efforts were funded via government bonds. Today? Amtrak is as privately-run as the United States Postal Service. Most commuter rail lines are in a similar situation at a state level--Metra in Illinois, the light rail system that serves the Chicago suburbs, is another government-owned corporation.

[Crayshack]

And if we were living prior to the mass adoption of the automobile, maybe I would be okay with privatizing highways, but the fact of the matter is that we are living after the mass adoption of the automobile. I actually think that passenger trains should be owned by the government rather than for profit organizations, because that can keep ticket prices down and enable the transportation to be more easily used by more people. Even without that kind of suggestion going to a vote, I have voted in the past in favor of public funds being used for building railroads and metro lines. What you see to support is moving in the exact opposite direction of what I support.

[ablarga]

Car owners pay registration fees to offset the cost of roads. They also pay sales tax on their car, and a tax on gas. No one drives on the roads for free. You do also realize that a majority of products are moved along these public highways via trucks. Can you imagine how the price of goods will jump if roads are privatized?

[fleshrott]

[STA-CITE]>Car owners pay registration fees to offset the cost of roads. They also pay sales tax on their car, and a tax on gas. No one drives on the roads for free. [END-CITE]OP appears to be speaking of only privatizing highways and not all roads. Sales tax on cars go into the general fund (at least in my state) and does not support your argument. [STA-CITE]>You do also realize that a majority of products are moved along these public highways via trucks. Can you imagine how the price of goods will jump if roads are privatized? [END-CITE]Those trucks already pay a special road tax and pay higher tolls anywhere that is tolled. They also are paying higher taxes both on registration (which is by weight of the vehicle) and through fuel (which they consume more of). If private enterprise were paying for highways (by collecting tolls) everywhere then I would suggest those taxes should be lowered.

[Xerxster]

The problem with sales taxes on cars is that they don't go directly to the funding of the road system. With gas taxes and registration fees, it's not enough to fund highways(at least in most places I've looked at). In regards to your second point, I'm not sure how much prices would increase since I'm not aware of any place where the roads are privatized.

[ablarga]

http://www.ttnews.com/articles/basetemplate.aspx?storyid=33778&t=Opinion-Zeroing-in-on-Actual-Cost-of-Tolls Tolls can account for as much as 23% of the cost associated with operating a commercial vehicle. Now imagine this, on every highway. Not to mention the harm it would cause lower income individuals who need to travel to work.

[Xerxster]

You need to also look at the costs from the infrastructure perspective. The good thing about tolls is that they can be a price for the damage trucks cause on the roads. The current underpricing causes more trucks to go on the highways than is optimal, which in turn causes excess wear on them. As for lower-income individuals, you could always give them tax credits or some sort of subsidy for those dependent on cars to get to work. Or you could improve public transport.

[alcakd]

[STA-CITE]>As for lower-income individuals, you could always give them tax credits or some sort of subsidy for those dependent on cars to get to work [END-CITE]So allow private companies to own the roads and have the government pay its citizens so they can pay the companies to use them. That sounds like an awful idea.

[Xerxster]

In the U.S. people are given food stamps, which is essentially having the government pay its citizens pay private companies for food.

[Soviet_elf]

When I checked budget of my country last time, road spending was much bigger than income from car tax and petrol tax combined. The same is true for many other countries. And cars cause negative external effects like local pollution, global warming, road deaths. So tolls and taxes shouldn't just offset road costs; car travel should be taxed, not subsidized as a whole. Also congestion charge (especially in big cities), tolls on busy highways, but no tolls on empty rural roads create more correct incentives (to reduce traffic jams, to use public transport in cities) and are more fair than car tax only. Taxing goods and subsidizing trucking isn't efficient. By the way, German autobahns already toll all heavy trucks.