The Privatization of Roads and Highways - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Congestion and Road Pricing 59
owned and operated highway system is the answer to the congestion
problem.
(a) Increased use of government rules. The first of the nonpricing
solutions to be considered is the increased use of governmental
rules. A general justification of this procedure is offered by
Smerk, who opines that “some (governmental) rules are needed
to preserve us all from the costly and painful chaos of transport
anarchy.” One problem with this argument is that, at least insofar
as congestion is concerned, we are presently suffering from
“transport anarchy” of the worst sort—and this, in the midst of a
great number of government rules indeed. Second, while it may
be readily conceded that traffic rules of some sort are a prerequisite
of any order in transport, it by no means follows that government
is uniquely suited for the task of prescribing them.
One governmental initiative that stands as a perennial
favorite is a call for staggered work hours. 21 Usually dependent
on a “moral suasion,” the solution of staggered hours is popular
for several reasons. The government need do nothing: action is
called for on the part of the employer, who, along with recalcitrant
employees, can be made into a scapegoat for congestion
during rush hours. Recommending that “employers stagger their
starting and leaving times in order to reduce and spread out the
rush hour peaks” 22 seems, moreover, to be the height of common
21See Smerk, Urban Transportation, p. 200; Wilfred Owen, The Metropolitan
Transportation Problem (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1956), pp.
245–48; Robert A. Olmsted, “Response to [William Vickrey’s] Improving
New York’s Transit Service—An Economist’s View,” City Almanac 8 (April,
1974): 11; Thompson, A Preface to Urban Economics, p. 354; James C. Plewes
and Maurice H. Yeates, “The Urban Rush Hour: An Analysis of the Yonge
Street, Toronto Subway System,” Traffic Quarterly 26 (April 1972): 218; Wohl,
“Must Something Be Done About Traffic Congestion?,” 404; and David M.
Winch, The Economics of Highway Planning (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1963), p. 80.
22Plewes and Yeates, “The Urban Rush Hour: An Analysis of the Yonge
Street, Toronto Subway System,” p. 218.