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Useage (thus maiteneance) makes up a small part the costs of a road. Eventualy, use becomes so voluminous that it needs rebuilding. The relevant pricing is whatever people are willing to pay, under free competition. Do developers view the cost of building an apartment building as a sunk cost when determining what sale or rental prices they can get, whilst they are in the planning of the building? There are always objections about monopoly. But naturally emerging monoplies price competitively if the market they exist in have no barriers to entry. What stops the Government from using road revenues as general revenue, pork barreling or only keeping roads up to a minimally accepted standard? Deadweight loss ensures Government building of roads is more costly than privately, and environmental regulation ensures there is no competition. Surely this is both allocatively and productively inefficient? TN, you say that competition might keep prices down, but this will be wasteful. So the Govenrment needs to allocate the roads. How will they build needed infrastructure with no incentive to maximise traffic flow and quality of road maitenance. I'll bet you that marginal seats get the most road funding per capita, with the least needed infrastrucure. How can the Govenrment possibly know it's wasteful when they don't let people build or freely buy access to the roads? You mention the Barton/Federal triangle, and call it wasteful, because you don't see it as useful. This is a Govenrment creation [partly delapidated and dangerous, despite high volume, a victim of Federal-State and State-Territory buck passing, you simply don't see in private markets]. Furthermore, if you live in Canberra and travel to Sydney and Adelaide, on seperate trips, it is definitely useful. So why would it be wasteful if a highway went directly from Adelaide to Canberra, if it was viable in a market?
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