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Category privatization

20/20 Segment on Private Roads (& Some things to ponder while in traffic)

Some other things to ponder for the next time you are sitting on a congested highway… When I talk to people about tolling roads, most people immediately reject the idea entirely.  I like to ask them to think about it next time they are in a traffic jam.  Hey, if you sit in traffic, you probably spend a lot of time thinking…  So, next time you are waiting for the car ahead of them to move, think of what dollar amount you would be willing to pay to avoid the traffic jam in order to get to your destination.  Then, think of waiting in a long bread line, as if the only source of food were free government bread.  Obviously, the bread is underpriced.  How much would you be willing to pay for a loaf of bread to avoid the line?  Recall the price you were willing to pay to avoid traffic and ask yourself whether roads are priced correctly.  Interestingly, almost all people are fully willing to pay for bread, a staple of life, while we tend to think of roads as “too important to leave to private companies.”  So from now on, think of a bread line every time you are sitting in traffic. After a few commutes, you might be ready for some more thinking on the subject.  Once you’ve learned to recognize the socialism of the highways, think about how tolled roads might affect where you decide to live.  Would you live further away from your destination, and gladly pay for a congestion-free commute?  Or would you choose to live closer to work, to pay less in tolls?  Now, keeping in mind that most highways are congestion-free when they are originally built, ponder how socialized roads effect living patterns.  Had roads been priced properly, would the […]

Private Roads Work

Bart Frazier wrote a brief article for the Future of Freedom Foundation on private roads. He begins by discussing how most Americans remain strongly opposed to privately owned roads, while at the same time many have warmed to private education, medicine, and social security. This first part of the article is somewhat similar to many articles advocating private roads. In the second part of the article, Bart goes on to discuss some examples of private roads in America, including a homeowners association, The Dulles Greenway in the suburbs of DC, and the city of North Oaks, Michigan, which doesn’t even own any property. Frazier concludes: Everyone, particularly libertarians, should favor private roads. They have much going for them — they rely on mutual consent for their construction and use, and the market decides what is the appropriate level of their use. People who don’t want to use them are free to spend their dollars on other things that they consider more worthy. And as far-fetched as they seem to some, we have examples of working private roads. I cannot think of a better way for cash-strapped state governments to reduce their budgets than to stop paving the roads.

Yes, Virginia, government roads really are government subsidized, and no, they don’t approximate freed-market outcomes

Recently, I came accross an article by Charles Johnson, who blogs at Rad Geek.  The article had linked to a Market Urbanism post about how user fees and gas taxes fall well short of funding road use in the US. Charles’ article further debunks the Urbanism Legend asserted by free-market imposters that a free-market highway system would be similar to the system we see today. I like the post so much that I asked Charles about posting it at Market Urbanism.  Charles requested that I, “indicate that the post is freely available for reprinting and derivative use under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0 license.” I am happy to comply, and must admit that I haven’t taken the time to acquaint myself with Creative Commons.  So, here it is, in it’s original form, and feel free to read the comments in the link: Yes, Virginia, government roads really are government subsidized, and no, they don’t approximate freed-market outcomes by Charles Johnson, RadGeek.com When left-libertarians argue with more conventionally pro-capitalist libertarians about economics, one of the issues that often comes up is government control over roads, and the ways in which state and federal government’s control over roads has acted as a large subsidy for economic centralization and national-scale production and distribution networks (and thus, to large-scale “big box” retailers, like Wal-Mart or Best Buy, dependent on the crafty arrangement of large-scale cross-country shipping as a basic part of their business model). People who have a problem with this analysis sometimes try to dispute it by arguing that government roads aren’t actually subsidized — that heavy users of government roads are actually getting something that roughly approximates a freed-market outcome, because users of government roads pay for the roads they get, in proportion to how heavily they use them, because government […]

Chicago Privatizes Parking Meters

Of course, Chicago is just privatizing the revenue from meters, not the actual parking spaces. Plus, the city will regulate rate increases, but it’s a step in the right direction. (right?) For today’s politicians, this is a great way to get windfalls of money today for revenues of future generations in order to mask their fiscal irresponsibility. I think we’ll see more of this during the current mess as other municipalities catch on. Ideally, cities should auction off the spaces (including the land), with no regulations on rates or use of the land. Let market mechanisms determine the highest-and-best use of the spaces and land. Chicago Tribune: Most city parking meters to cost $1 an hour [Hat Tip: reader, Dan M] City Hall officials said that after the first five years of the 75-year parking meter lease, rate hikes will be subject to approval by alderman and are expected to be at the rate of inflation. The $1.1 billion to city coffers will come from Chicago Parking Meter LLC, which is made up of two Morgan Stanley infrastructure funds. The Daley administration said $400 million will go into a long-term reserve, $325 million will be spent in city budgets through 2012 and $100 million is earmarked for programs helping low-income people. An additional $324 million is headed toward a fund city officials said “may be used to help bridge the period until the nation’s economy begins to grow again.” and a video:

Cul-de-sacs – Privatize ’em

Daniel Nairn at Discovering Urbanism brings up a great point about cul-de-sacs. Are they public goods, or truly unnecessary “socialism in its most extreme form”? Take the standard cul-de-sac that serves a handful of households. The purpose of this design is to exclude the general public from passing through while serving the automotive needs of a small number of individuals. Does it pass our intuitive sense of fairness to declare that the entire public, say the local municipal citizenry, ought to foot the bill for what could essentially be considered a shared driveway? Perhaps a more important question: How does the government’s decision of where to draw the line between public and private encourage or discourage the connectivity of the road system? Dan discusses that Virginia’s DOT is looking at shifting funding away from roads that don’t play a significant role in the transportation network, by using a very well defined metric: The link-node ratio is calculated by dividing the number of links (street segments and stub streets) by the number of nodes (intersections or cul-de-sacs). A perfect grid of streets will have a link-node ratio around 2.5 and a network of complete cul-de-sac or dead end streets with only one way in and one way out will have a link-node ratio of 1.0. It is suggested that a ratio of 1.4 will provide adequate connectivity in many situations. The link-to-node ratio seems like a very rational approach to determining public roadway funding, if one chooses to concede that roads are a public good. Unfortunately, owners of homes on cul-de-sacs have grown acustomed using their publicly-funded, communal driveways, and would suffer from decreased funding for roads they are entirely dependent upon. A viable solution would be for the municipality to grant the cul-de-sac roadway and land to the owners of […]

Who Owns the West?

Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution – Now is the Time for the Buffalo Commons: The Federal Government owns more than half of Oregon, Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Alaska and it owns nearly half of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming. See the map for more. It is time for a sale. Selling even some western land could raise hundreds of billions of dollars – perhaps trillions of dollars – for the Federal government at a time when the funds are badly needed and no one want to raise taxes. At the same time, a sale of western land would improve the efficiency of land allocation. Alex suggests using the funds to buy cheaper land in the plains for The Buffalo Commons, the world’s largest nature park. I haven’t looked into the nature park idea, but I would like to see the Federal Government unload much of that land. The MR post links to an article at a blog called Strange Maps, which uncovered the map from Stanford Magazine. Strange Maps explains: This map details the percentage of state territory owned by the federal government. The top 10 list of states with the highest percentage of federally owned land looks like this: 1. Nevada 84.5% 2. Alaska 69.1% 3. Utah 57.4% 4. Oregon 53.1% 5. Idaho 50.2% 6. Arizona 48.1% 7. California 45.3% 8. Wyoming 42.3% 9. New Mexico 41.8% 10. Colorado 36.6%

Tolling NY’s East River Bridges Back on The Table?

[flickr: darren bryden] Congestion pricing schemes, touted as environmentally-responsible at the time of $4 gas, were defeated in New York City last Spring. However, as the market turmoil threatens to wreak havoc on tax revenues, fiscal necessity has lured New York State and New York City politicians to re-examine the political viability of charging tolls to drivers entering Manhattan. The NY Times City Room blog discusses the history of tolling on New York City’s East River bridges, but much of that history features plans to reinstate tolling and the popular resistance to those plans. How East River Bridges Stayed Toll-Free: On numerous occasions, politicians have tried to reinstitute tolls on the four bridges — the Brooklyn (completed in 1883), Williamsburg (completed in 1903) and Manhattan and Queensboro (both completed in 1909). After all, the Brooklyn Bridge charged horse-drawn carriages a toll from the time it opened. But by the Depression, the tolls were a thing of the past. The history shows that officials have failed again and again to revive tolls on the four bridges. (Other major crossings, including the bridges run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, already charge tolls.) Tolling being “the third rail of of New York City politics”, it will be hard enough to institute in the face of voter sympathy for road socialism. So, we shouldn’t hold our breath for the ideal solution, full privatization of the bridges and transit, but tolling may be a step in the market direction. Or is it?? Is tolling just away for politicians to let themselves off the hook for their irresponsibility, and will just result in another new tax? Or can we hope it will soften the resistance to market-based solutions. [thanks to loyal Market Urbanism reader, Benjamin Hemric […]

Another On “Conservatives” and Urbanism

While I sympathize with the theme and agree with regards to roadway spending and “conservative” hypocrisy, a recent article in the progressive The American Prospect takes a narrow-minded view of politics and urbanism, while throwing around broad generalizations about evolution and global warming to support their assertions: The Conservative Case for Urbanism In fact, one doesn’t have to be concerned about climate change at all in order to support such policies; values of fiscal conservatism and localism, both key to Republican ideology, can be better realized through population-dense development than through sprawl. Tom Darden, a developer of urban and close-in suburban properties, said Wednesday, “I’m a Republican and have been my whole life. I consider myself a very conservative person. But it never made sense to me why we would tax ordinary people in order to subsidize this form of development, sprawl.” Darden told the story of a road-paving project approved by North Carolina when he served on the state’s transportation board. A dirt road that handled just five trips per day was paved at taxpayer expense, with money that could have gone toward mass transit benefiting millions of people. “Those were driveways, in my view, not roads,” Darden said. I agree with Darden. However, so-called “progressives” fall into the same narrow minded trap when they support public transportation as a solution to global warming that “conservatives” fall into when they try to protect their auto-centric lifestyle. Many are really calling for more of the same top-down overspending on transportation infrastructure that will require a taxpayer bail out at some time in the distant future. Where is the rational voice trying to slow down overspending on all energy-reliant, sprawl-creating, redistribution of productive resources? While existing transit may be less bad environmentally in comparison to highways when looked at from a […]

Block on Road Socialism

For quite some time, Economist Walter Block has been one of the more radical thinkers when it comes to advocating free market solutions. Many of his writings on roads and rent control are featured in the Links to Articles, Academic Papers and Books page. Today’s Lew Rockwell Podcast features an interview with Professor Block discussing Road Socialism. The interview begins with a discussion of the fact that certain socialist institutions exist in our supposedly free-market society, and Block mentioned that when he debated Milton Friedman, he accused Friedman of being a “Road Socialist”. Friedman eventually admitted, “Yes, I am a road socialist.” The discussion turns to deaths on highways, competition, congestion pricing, some history of private turnpikes and transit, eminent domain, and homesteading. Many of Block’s thoughts and ideas are highly controversial, but make for fantastic conversation. I can’t say I always agree with his point of view or ideas, but I like the unique perspective he brings that is always thought provoking and sparks interesting debate. I encourage readers to listen to the podcast and discuss their thoughts on the podcast. Also, check out his recent lecture at FEE on Privatizing Roads and Oceans, and articles on rent control and highways.

Boudreaux: Roads Don’t Need New Taxes

Don Boudreaux to the Washington Times: LETTER TO EDITOR: Roads don’t need new taxes Thursday, July 24, 2008 Upset that Virginians’ taxes were not recently raised to construct more roads, State Delegate Brian J. Moran, Alexandria and Fairfax Democrat, declares that “Government has an important role to play in strengthening our infrastructure, developing our economy and creating new jobs” (“Virginia’s transportation conundrum,” Op-Ed, Tuesday). Not so fast. Infrastructure that we today naively suppose must be supplied by government has in the past often been supplied by the private sector – supplied so well, indeed, that these private-infrastructure projects helped to spark the Industrial Revolution in 18th-century Britain. Harvard University historian David S. Landes explains: “At the same time, the British were making major gains in land and water transport. New turnpike roads and canals, intended primarily to serve industry and mining, opened the way to valuable resources, linked production to markets, facilitated the division of labor. Other European countries were trying to do the same, but nowhere were these improvements so widespread and effective as in Britain. For a simple reason: nowhere else were roads and canals typically the work of private enterprise, hence responsive to need (rather than to prestige and military concerns) and profitable to users…. These roads (and canals) hastened growth and specialization.” DONALD J. BOUDREAUX Chairman Economics Department George Mason University Fairfax Also, Cafe Hayek – Infrastructure and the State (by Don Boudreaux) for some good discussion in the comments.

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