The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

314 The Privatization of Roads and Highways
Note the road could be, as in fact the road to my house is,
owned by a private association which works exactly like a village.
I discussed this at some length in my The New Federalist. 2
Although the Sunshine Mountain Ridge Homeowners Association,
in which I live, was set up by a private real estate firm, it
behaves just like a government. There are many similar cases in
the United States. This is actually collective ownership rather
than an individual ownership, and functions by holding elections
among the individual owners.
In general, with respect to privately owned roads, first we
cannot give them full title, and the Blocks don’t as they introduce
their own idea of titles. This is an important problem but one that
is easy to deal with. We just compel owners of roads to permit
people to cross them.
The other problem which I think is harder but which I am not
sure is impossible is generating a competitive system of roads. I
take it not even the Blocks would favor a monopoly owning all of
the roads in the near vicinity of their homes. In essence, they
would be converted into renters or their landlord would be.
I am very much interested in experimentation in this area,
and in particular the devices available now under which people
can be charged for the use of the roads in terms of how much and
when they use them. But the roads should be collective entities
unless my problem given above of designing a competing road
network is solved.
2 Gordon Tullock, The New Federalist (Vancouver, B.C.: Fraser Institute,
1994), esp. pp. 9–16.