The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Public Goods and Externalities: The Case of Roads 145
THE HISTORY OF PRIVATE ROADS
Perhaps the most telling argument against the externality and
collective goods thesis as applied to the provision of roads is the
sheer weight of historical experience to the contrary. Roads are
nowadays generally considered a paradigm case of public goods,
for the very possibility of privately operated roads is dismissed.
Yet, prior to the latter part of the nineteenth century, private
roads, highways, turnpikes, etc., played an important role in
world commerce.
Privately owned and operated turnpikes were the backbone
of the highway network in England in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Exact statistics for this time period are unfortunately
difficult to come by. However, since the formation of each
new turnpike required a specific Act of Parliament, the number
of such acts provides “a fairly reliable, though rough, estimate of
the progress that was taking place.” 62 According to Jackman, the
number of such parliamentary acts throughout England in the
two decades from 1751 to 1770 was twice as great as the number
passed during the previous fifty years. In the north midland counties,
the number rose from 55 in the earlier time period, to 189 in
the latter. And from the first half of the eighteenth century to the
forty-year period after the mid-century mark, there was a 388 percent
increase in the number of such acts passed. 63 And if the percentage
increase figures are impressive, the base is no less so. Says
Sir Alker Tripp, “it is computed that more than a thousand Turnpike
Acts were passed between 1785 and 1810, and that in all there
were more than four thousand acts of this character.” 64
62 Jackman, The Development of Transportation in Modern England, p. 233.
63Ibid., pp. 233–34.
64Sir Alker Tripp, “The History of the Modern Highway in England,” in
Highways in Our National Life: A Symposium, Jean Labatut and Wheaton J.
Lane, eds. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1950), p. 43. According
to Sidney and Beatrice Webb, English Local Government (New York: