Thus when picturing a free system of roads, the question becomes: what will we as drivers be happy to pay for?
Certainly we will pay for safety, which we currently do not receive. We get jolting and wasteful traffic lights instead of gentle and fluid roundabouts. We get endless predatory ticketing instead of road systems that promote safety. We get endless construction that does not take place in the dark of night, but rather in the agonizing slow motion of rush hour. We get a sagging expansion of our cities, because developers do not have to pay for the costs of the roads that lead to their houses, office buildings, factories and shopping malls. We get eighteen-wheeler trucks blaring and rocketing beside small passenger cars. We do not see businesses adapting to the monetary and social costs of rush hour, because they do not face increased demand in wages because traveling in rush-hour costs more. Thus everyone has to start at nine a.m. or thereabouts. Like every other government program, roads and traffic control are run for the profit of special interests – construction companies, unions, bu
