Using Competition to Break the U.S. Road Monopoly

Abstract:

The competition of the marketplace drives private firms to improve efficiency in delivering products or risk losing customers to rivals who do. Americans recognize this in general, yet road transportation depends on a system that is managed in a socialistic manner. Cut off from the powerful incentive of profit seeking as a spur to efficiency and innovation, the system undermines the public agency's ability to make the right decisions on resource deployment. It is time that Congress employs for U.S. roads the same formula that works so well in most other sectors of the economy--private ownership and operation.