Should roads be privitized?

[Gabu]

Roads are one of the things that are just fine being government-run.  I honestly cannot see what privatizing roads would do to help anything.  There's nothing to fix.  Roads are fine.  Contrary to what appears to be popular belief, "it's private" is not a valid argument to prove that something is better than the alternative.

[Gabu]

Here's a question: what exactly is so wrong about our roads that needs fixing?  It seems to me that we're attempting to fix something that isn't broken.

[Gabu]

Different companies could have different speed limits, fees, qualifications for driving, etc.

Are you somehow trying to claim that this is a good thing?  It would make things ridiculously complicated if roads kept changing speed limits imposed, tolls charged, qualifications for driving required, and what have you over and over as you drove through a city.

Plus, where would people pay the tolls?  Would we have a toll booth on every single strip of road in existence?  Do you have any idea how much it would slow down traffic to have every single driver have to stop and pay a toll every time he drives a block?

[Gabu]

I was thinking there would be some big name companies (the Microsoft and Time Warner's of the road industry) that would own roads throughout the country, so you could follow a constant course.

Why would it be a good thing to have large monopolies on the road systems?  Given that it's, uh, kind of difficult to create competition when it comes to roads, it seems to me that having a large corporation owning all the roads in a city would be very bad for the citizens of that city, because the corporation could charge whatever the heck it wanted since the people's choice would be either to pay the toll or to not go anywhere.

We use private roads on occasion here. It uses Smart Tag technology, so you can just drive right through.

Yes, but they're easily avoidable as it currently is.

You didn't answer my question with regards to the payment of tolls, as well.

[Gabu]

Gabu,

I'm not saying they'd be monopolies. I'm saying there's be a couple big name companies competing.

How do you "compete" when it comes to roads?  Either you have the situation I described before where you're constantly changing fees charged, speed limits opposed, qualifications required, etc., or you have a situation where the roads in a city are divided up into chunks, with each corporation owning large chunks of roads in a city, and then the citizens are still screwed because all of the roads in their neighborhood are owned by the same corporation.

Plus, couldn't one larger company just buy out the other companies that own the rest of the roads in a city?  It would be essentially impossible for new competition to arise if that happened, given that you can't exactly create a startup company in the road business.

You subscribe and get a SmartTag. Alternately, you go the iTunes route and just have it charge you right there, though some might not like that idea.

I'm not really familiar with how this works, so I can't comment on it.

[Gabu]

Well, I wouldn't mind buying the street that my house sits on just so that I can use it to block traffic and give everyone a hard time. People can always take another street, even if it adds an additional ten minutes onto their travel time. I mean, it's just like a board game! Annoying people is fun!!!

[/sarcasm]

I hate to take the point counter to the extreme free market position, but Everett has a point.  If there's a highway and an owner buys it from the goverment and doesn't want anyone on it, he could keep the road all to himself.  This would prevent many people from getting where they want, and cause an inconvinience in trying to find another route.  However You could have public roads and have the private sector charge money to maintain them.  Although I hate being moderate, I think this stance might work alright.

What?  That's crazy.  The free market will solve anything!  ANYTHING!!!

[Gabu]

It is also far more pleasant and interesting.

That's a rather subjective thing to assert in such absolute terms.  Why should everyone else be forced to live in dense urban centers purely because of your subjective opinion that they are more pleasant and interesting?