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By A Smith (anonymous) | Posted October 01, 2008 at 23:26:31
Dr Downtown, the reason why there are not five electric lines running down the street is because government forbids it.
It's government that gives local power distributors the monopoly you speak of, therefore until you remove these artificial restrictions, you can't say that there wouldn't be five lines on the street.
With regards to private roads, profits would motivate road owners to maintain and operate them in the most efficient manner for paying drivers. If they did not, the area the road services would fall out of favour and the road owners would lose well paying customers.
You mention that the 407 was built by the government, so what. Are you saying that the expertise it takes to build a road is beyond the scope of the free market? Hardly.
You also mention that you are in favour of tolls, but don't see why the toll roads couldn't be owned by the government. I would say it's the same reason why governments shouldn't operate grocery stores, car dealerships, electronics stores, etc. Government bureaucrats do not operate by the profit motive and therefore don't feel the need to satisfy their customer.
Moreover, since government has the ability to cover losses with tax revenues, they can afford to run the toll road less efficiently than private operators.
For a private toll operator, there is every incentive to provide more and better service, while also using less capital to do so. This frees up the nations capital to be invested in other businesses.
As to your point about gas taxes being able to substitute for tolls, what about people who consume gas for non road driving uses. Farmers, boaters, lawn maintenance firms, etc, would end up paying for roads they're not using.
Tolls only target actual drivers and as such are the most precise way of pricing road use.
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