[whoknowsidont]

Necessary public infrastructure that is paid for with tax dollars is not a public good?

And just in case this fact is being lost / forgotten: Toll roads are primarily, originally funded through tax dollars but are disingenuously structured in a way these bozos can go "see, it's not actually tax dollars" (it is). The same exact dollars that should be used to build fully public, free roads are instead used to privatize public infrastructure.

There has never been a time where a toll raid has failed and the losses were treated as private. The bonds magically get repaid (to the right people, of course).

It's all tax dollars in the end, one way or another.

[silotis]

"Public good" is a term of art in economics which means a good is both non-excludable (it is impractical to control who benefits from it) and non-rivalrous (one person benefiting does not prevent others from also benefiting).

Roads are clearly rivalrous and while it's often impractical to prevent non-payers from entering a toll road, one can certainly record them and met penalties after the fact to discourage it.

So no, roads are not a public good.

[JumpCrisscross]

> roads are not a public good

You’re both right. Roads can be an impure public good.

At low traffic loading, they are not rivalrous and can be modelled as a public good. At high traffic loading they become rivalrous and thus closer to a common-pool resource.

If roads are made excludable, they resemble a club or even private group.

[DangitBobby]

If roads are "rivalrous" then so is literally everything else.

[vel0city]

> Toll roads are primarily, originally funded through tax dollars

This is untrue of all the toll roads I've regularly driven in multiple cities in the US. Their construction was funded through bonds which are paid back from the toll revenues.

[whoknowsidont]

why did you ignore my other statements that expressly address this "viewpoint."

The bonds are issued either by the authority itself or some other agency expressly delegated to issue those bonds.

The accounting is done EXPRESSLY with the knowledge of the states general fund, even though there's a "wink wink" don't use the tax dollars to """directly""" pay for these bonds.

Don't believe me? Look at the financial reports yourself.

There is zero point in the fuzzy accounting other than to make something that simply should be public, private, and allow grifters to make a buck or two off it.

In EVERY CASE of a failed toll road the major bond holders have all been made whole through the state directly or indirectly.

If you have the money, investing in a toll road is the easiest way to make lots of money with 0 risk.

But you can only do that if the entity issues those bonds "knows" and "selects" you. :)