ManusJustus said:
ssj12 said:
you do realize that all construction companies hired to pave roads are private companies right? And there is no fundamental difference between paving a road and paving a driveway past length?
I have a limerock road next to my house, guess what, the DOT constantly hires a paving company to pave the road several times a year to grate it. Due to the piss-poor money management of the DOT the road could have been paved 5 years ago and included minor repair work if needed and saved money. The government is inefficient at making market decisions.
Yes, we all have the option to hire a paving company to come in and pave the road for a fee. It is a high fee, but we are considering the cost. This is an example of the private sector discussing and considering paving a road (properly mind you). If we do this it means the private sector built a road that was controlled by the actions of the people and not the government. But this isn't all. Think about communities that are built by housing construction firms. All the roads built within the community are privately funded roads. The government has nothing to do with it past selling the land to the developers.
Paving an interstate highway or city block is easily managed by people and companies willing to fund the projects similar to the paving of the limerock road next to me. If we as residents feel like paying a few thousand each to have the entire road paved, since the DOT is to stupid to figure out they would save millions a year by doing this, we can. If two cities want a road placed between them or a road upgraded to more lanes, they can fund it both by the individual budgets, public, and private funding. Both cities then would price out multiple routes and make offers for the land for the roads, versus the worthless "lets just buy homes and land out and hope someone isn't a dick and jack up their asking price because they are one of the last people that needs to be bought out" that the DOT is notorious for doing. Once all offers from one route is accepted, than you buy the land to build it.
Did you even bother taking sometime out to listen that episode of Free Talk Live at all? Its not all about this topic we are discussing, but maybe you will understand different views on things. But if its "to long" for you I guess I could go edit the audio for you and give you just the part on roads if you want.
edit: I edited the audio anyway. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=J7OOK9DE 11mbs, 12 minutes long.
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First of all, I'm an engineer and I have a good understanding of economics and construction.
The cost of paving your road with asphalt (which is cheaper than a concrete alternative) is $10 per square foot, and thats a very cheap engineer's estimate. If 200 ft of your property were connected to the road and you were to pay for the construction of a regular 25 ft two lane road, the cost would come out to $50,000. In the completely free market world you argue for, you would be 'obliged' to pay $50,000 every 10 to 20 years to maintain the road in front of your house.
Now consider that in order for the road you live on to be usuable, by that I mean that the road is upkept so that vehicles can effectively operate on it at all times, everyone who lives along the road would have to freely agree to pay $50,000 every decade or so maintain the road. They'd also have to freely agree on design standards such as superelevations, spiral curves, and so forth. Not going to happen.
The only thing that works is to have the government tax everyone and then provide funding for roads. And for the record, the DOT is saving themselves and taxpayers a lot of money by putting gravel road in front of your house, though I'm sure if you contact them and offer to donate a few million to cover the cost of paving the road with asphalt they'd accept it.
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lol, $50k for like 30 people plus others that build on the road amounts to what $1400- per person? That is actually really cheap.
And its not a fing gravel road, its limerock! Gravel would be acceptable! It is obvious that you aren't even reading what I am saying and just flashing lalalalallalalallaa infront of your eyes to cover the truth. And several people on my road plans on suing the county because of the road. It is killing people here because the dust is effecting our lungs.
Seriously, how did Roman create roads? The Roman government didn't, the people did. And the roads on trade routes? the traders guilds made them. Roman taxed their citizens for being in Roman, nothing more.
