I can think of a few ways:Toll roads, obviously.Renting the property next to the road to hotels, gas stations, etc.Billboard advertising.Don't charge for the roads at all. Make the roads be a loss leader, as they say in business parlance. For example, FTL gives away MP3s of their shows, and their entire website content for free. They take a small loss in the short run, for a greater profit in the long run.Also, in a recent discussion I had with someone about roads, he asked about rest areas. If the roads are operated for a profit, there wouldn't be any rest areas, because they are unprofitable. My obvious retort was something like 'If you are operating a road for profit, wouldn't you want to provide a better product so that you can beat out your competition? Indeed (I probably didn't say 'indeed') wouldn't you want to provide a safer product, and aren't sleepy drivers a hazard to themselves and other drivers? Wouldn't you want your customers to be well rested, so that they are safer?'He actually agreed with me about that, but disagreed with me on the entire concept.
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In old olden times, cities and staes paved their roads with lotteries. I hadn't been aware of it until recently, but the idea is intriguing. A city would announce a lotto to pave Maple Street or whatever. The well-to-do and the business comunity would all clamour to show their civic pride by buying in adn stand a chance to win big bucks.
If you really think about it, roads and police aren't that expensive. Roads should cost about 0.2%-0.5% of your income. Police should cost about 0.5% of your income.
The State monopoly really overcharges for these "services".
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In Castilla-La Mancha, farmers generally pay for roads to their different plots of land. The State has certain highways that understandably go through the countryside, and when a farmer can use them the farmer does (as it's cheaper than paying out of pocket). But, many times these State highways do not go through the right place, and so the farmers must pay for their own. Sometimes these are dirt and other times they are paved. The farmers do not charge for usage. But, on the other hand, there is no loss. The farmers found it valuable to have a paved private highway because it's faster for them to travel on with their tractors, or for whatever reason; the point is that it made their business more profitable, which is why they paved certain roads into highways. The profit is in the money gained in their agricultural business. The deal is the same with anything else, including residential districts (although, a real estate agency which is selling the housing may find it pertinent to pave the roads before the houses were bought, because perhaps the majority of customers prefer it like that): the residential roads can be made for watever reason. First of all, they are necessary. Second of all, it allows the person living in that house to get to work. Whether it is paved or not is up to the person that owns the house, at whatever point in time (and thereafter, maintenance also depends on the person living in that house, or if a neighbor finds it subjectively valuable for him himself to pay for the maintanance then he will do it).
Toll roads would probably be reserved for highways with high non-industrial traffic, or even for highways with high trucker traffic. They would probably be built specifically to maximize toll profits, as opposed for any other reason (although, each customer would have a different reason for using that toll road).
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It would vary, depending on the type of road we are talking about. A major highway would most likely be funded by tolls. Roads in a housing development would most likely be paid for by the residents who live there. The difference being that a private company would be taking care of the services, not the state.
jmorris84: It would vary, depending on the type of road we are talking about. A major highway would most likely be funded by tolls. Roads in a housing development would most likely be paid for by the residents who live there. The difference being that a private company would be taking care of the services, not the state.
I don't think so. I think tolls would be important, but would be about the same as a newspaper charging you 25 cents to procure a copy. I think that side-of-the-road billboard advertising and side-of-the-road property rentals would be, by far, the larger source of income.
Asking how roads would paid for in a free market is like asking how windows would be paid for.
They would be paid for during construction.
Microsecession as a strategy for revolution | Challenge to minarchist | How would a private road system work?
The issues of funding roads is quite simple. It can be any one of these individual techniques or a number of them in combination:
1. Tolls and/or subscriptions.2. Advertisement.3. Local businesses wishing to increase traffic (nobody can buy your product if they can't get to your store).4. Rest areas - essentially an extension of number 3, where highways could fund themselves by leasing out land next to them or building their own rest areas and churning a profit from businesses in "rest areas."
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McDuffie: I don't think so. I think tolls would be important, but would be about the same as a newspaper charging you 25 cents to procure a copy. I think that side-of-the-road billboard advertising and side-of-the-road property rentals would be, by far, the larger source of income.
I'm sure that the private owners would find other ways of funding. I was just keeping it simple and gave an opinion on what I thought would most likely be the major source of funding, among other possible solutions.
McDuffie: jmorris84: It would vary, depending on the type of road we are talking about. A major highway would most likely be funded by tolls. Roads in a housing development would most likely be paid for by the residents who live there. The difference being that a private company would be taking care of the services, not the state. I don't think so. I think tolls would be important, but would be about the same as a newspaper charging you 25 cents to procure a copy. I think that side-of-the-road billboard advertising and side-of-the-road property rentals would be, by far, the larger source of income.
There are many local newspapers which are funded completely through advertisements. I know one such major newspaper is the Washington Examiner. I do not think that advertising could be the sole source of revenue for a road, however. I see for-profit rest areas, leasing areas around a road, and payments from businesses which wish to keep the road free in order to increase traffic to their business locations as the primary methods to keep a free market road operating.
Highways, I believe, fall more in line with your example of small tolls subsidized by advertising and, say, for-profit rest areas. Local roads, however, I see as being funded by homeowner associations and businesses which own and rely on the use of local roads.
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