The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

242 The Privatization of Roads and Highways
property. Insofar as this is true, we have another set of candidates
for street ownership: those whose property abuts the street.
Would this apply, as well, to the tenants of these buildings?
Not a bit of it. Tenants are not residual income claimants; they
have no right to the real estate in question, per se. Their rights are
limited to the use of these amenities for a certain, specified time.
They could not possibly be entitled to the property in question, let
alone ownership to it from centuries, decades, or even years ago.
What of the fact that these properties may have changed
hands dozens of times throughout the years since the streets
were first laid out and built? The rights survive. For the new
owner(s) purchase the entire rights to the property, those recognized
in law at the time, and, also, those that were not, e.g., that
ownership of contiguous property would confer a claim over the
abutting street.
Another way to discern who is entitled to street ownership is
based on homesteading. Again, as it would take us too far afield
to explain or justify such a procedure, we shall content ourselves
with merely applying it. A modicum of entitlement is automatically
captured by those who “mix their labor” with an unowned
(or in this case, illegitimately or improperly owned—by the state)
piece of property. Thus, all of those who have traveled on the
street by that token alone thereby obtain a claim of ownership
over it. It is here that tenants of contiguous buildings can make
their claim: not as tenants per se, but, rather, as commuters
between their homes and places of work.
At first glance, this creates more problems than it solves. For
there are many, many people who have walked, ridden cars,
taxis, horse drawn vehicles, bicycles, motorcycles, etc., on the
streets of Manhattan, for example. It would be a real “dog’s
breakfast” to determine who has a legitimate claim and who does
not on this basis. People don’t save their bus transfers, or taxi-cab
bills, which, even on the best of assumptions, would only be the
veritable tip of the iceberg of evidence of road use. Bills for gasoline
in Manhattan, or in the surrounding boroughs, would also