The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Free-Market Transportation: Denationalizing the Roads 37
it might be thought that here, no competition is possible. For the
best route is obviously right up Avenue D from First to Ninth
Street. Even though this is true, there is still potential competition
from Avenues C and E (and even from B and F). If the Avenue D
Corporation charges outrageous prices, the customer can use the
alternative paths of C or E (or, in a pinch, to B or F, or even A or
G, if need be). A second source of potential competition derives,
as we have seen, from the possibility of building another road
above the road in question, or tunneling beneath it. Consider
again the management of Avenue D, which is charging an outrageously
high price. In addition to the competition provided by
nearby roads, competition may also be provided by double,
triple, or quadruple decking the road.
The transportation literature is not unaware of the possibility
of double decking roads, tunneling, or adding overhead ramps.
For example, Wilfred Owen tells us:
The Port of New York Authority Bus Terminal helps relieve
mid-Manhattan traffic congestion. Approximately 90% of intercity
bus departures and intercity bus passengers from mid-
Manhattan originate at this terminal. The diversion of this traffic
on overhead ramps from the terminal to the Lincoln Tunnel
has been equivalent to adding three cross-town streets. 25
John Burchard lauds double decking as follows:
On one short span of East River Drive [in New York City] there
are grassed terraces carried over the traffic lanes right out to the
edge of the East River, a special boon for nearby apartment
dwellers. The solution was perhaps triggered by the fact that
space between the established building lines and the river was
so narrow as to force the superposition of the north and south lanes.
But this did not do more than suggest the opportunity.
Applause goes to those who grasped it, but none to those who
25 Wilfred Owen, The Metropolitan Transportation Problem (Washington,
D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1956), p. 119.