Apr
30
So, to liberate economy, roads need to be privatized. Is that possible?
Private roads, how valid are the idea behind that?
As per general point of view, public roads provides consistent standards; unhindered right of entry; Cost-free right to use (though there are road taxes); collective access to an essential resource; they provides safety and efficient allotment of scant resources.
Actually, it is very difficult even to imagine about private roadways. After all, it is the major work for which governments are set. But the reality is, without private roads, market cannot remain free. If government owns all roads, then basically it rules whole market. As there cannot be any transport without roads which are governmental.
People believe that administration is a necessary evil, because without administration things cannot work. And solving the roads problem is major issue about it.
As a matter of fact, sooner or later, roads will be privatized, because the idea is valid and workable.
We all are using internet, we all use it freely, it is worldwide free process. There are so vast resources and information’s on internet which we use almost free of charge everyday. There are proper ways by which we reach to what we search for on internet, but we pay nothing for those search engines and private administrators of internet, like google or yahoo or AOL. Government has no role in it. Yet, in absence of any governmental intervention, Internet provides enormous intentional content producers and it provides considerable income creators too. And it keeps increasing and improving with various innovations and ideas everyday. It is a free, self-sustained market.
Before 1995, radio was under governmental authority, did any common man believe then that radio will be privatized? Now we enjoy radio mirchi, FM91 and various other private bands. Do we pay for that? So are those private bodies doing charity? No, they are earning big money. Radio and Internet are examples of free-market, where anybody, who wants to earn, can try his luck and if sensible, he will earn. While people who just want to take proper profits of the free radio and internet, enjoys it totally free of cost. Just like radio frequencies, if India privatize television frequencies too, then we will smoothly enjoy better broadcast channels free of charge on TV, since it is not yet done, we pay for cable operators, which actually loots us, and even don’t provides efficient services.
So, there is no charge or tax on internet or radio.
Who pay for it? How is it self-sustained and how is it thriving and flourishing day by day? In a free-market, every commercial, economic sector will be similarly self-sustained. It is very pragmatic and workable. The common belief that man cannot not be Independent to invent his personal ways and means of livelihood, trade, production and practice his own happiness because that will harm the greater good of society makes this illusion, that administration is necessary, which actually is not.
One may question, will roads reach to villages? Actually yes, if roads are privatized, even the remote places will be connected with roads. Why do banks, and private telecommunication companies’ keeps trying to reach to place farthest? Why there are Maruti service stations even in Ladakh where even the government failed to provide efficient road systems?
Roads are the life line of economy. Have you ever considered why all electric poles or cable wires, or water pipelines goes alongside the roads? Basically, roads provide the easiest and shortest way to let the pipelines or cable lines reach from one place to other.
The road possessors will generate their revenues from these utility providers (water, electricity, telephone, cable wires, oil pipe lines etc) {remember the supposed Oil pipeline deal between Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India?} on the other hand, the road owners will see that such tunnels, pipe lines, wire lines, cable lines etc. are laid swiftly, professionally, and properly without damaging the road and beauty of it so that the value of their property and nearby area may not depreciate.
Will the road owners, allow the street vendors? It will depend on the road owners’ criteria, he won’t let any looter or cheater to use his ways, yet the enterprises, and residential areas may demand proper sophisticated street hawkers to sustain in the area to increase the value. As for example, lets say there’s an amusement park alongside a road, the owner will definite allow the balloons and ice-cream hawkers and others with particular usage. The vegetable and fruit vendors will surely be allowed to reach the needy in the residential and industrial areas. Thus even street vendors will be organized.
Can there be vandalism, road blockage, public-protests on streets, and unwanted jams on private roads? The owners and the shops, corporations and enterprises will make it sure, that there may remain no vandalism or crime on the roads reaching their territory as to provide better services for the customers to attract them. They won’t let such hooligans to hurt their brand names. These private enterprises will threaten to withdraw advertising revenues and file a case against the road owners if safety won’t be ensured. So the road owners will provide better road operator system to make the roads free of all vandalism and hooliganism. There won’t remain any robbery or sexual harassment or eve-teasing on roads, because that will affect the market of the enterprises and shops, and malls located alongside those roads or leading to them. Encroachment on roadsides won’t be possible.
Yet, all roads are not situated in vicinity of enterprises and shops and markets or residential areas. So how the highways and expressways will be maintained?
Transportation services will pay for the usage of roads to the private owners. And even that will be vastly subsidized by the competition to gain more and more reach to the consumers’, advertisers, mid-way food and petrol stores, and other services.
Well-equipped roads will increase the price of property along the roadsides, with high rates for residential and business land, which will make the property owners richer. And hence the road business will flourish by itself and will gather more competition; the competition will make the usage of roads by anyone as cheap as it can be just like radios or internet, all self-sustained.
Update: Let us discuss some of the major objections on the idea of private roads here again.
The first argument put forth against private road system is, private road system will deny a poor man to use it freely. Would this mean that all roads become toll roads?
Actually, Private Roads will be as cheap as possible for the common users and pedestrians and there will not be road taxes. Corporations and businesses and shops located alongside these roads will make it a point to have their admission roads in good condition with abundant parking space, they will maintain the roads in good shape whole round the town, city or village. (Read above)
Second argument is, private roads will make it monopoly of the owner. What if there is only one road from a town to other city, will the owner of that road not have monopoly on that road?
So why will one go to live in a town which is not connected with another towns and cities by roads?
First situation is there was no road to a town until the owner of this owner of the road came and built road obviously, it is good to have a road rather than having no road. Second situation is, there is only one road from a town to a city and someone buys it. Will it affect the people of the town? The buyer may be an enemy of the whole town people and want them to punish, what if it so?
The abuse of monopoly will hurt the owner of the road alone.
Firstly, if the road owner increases the charges of road abruptly, people of the town will use it less and less, that will decrease the revenues for the owner, it will be his loss. Moreover, it will provide a demand of new road and hence competition for the road owner and hence ending any situation of monopoly. Third, people may just leave the town, leaving the road operator with a worthless road. That is, in any case, if the road owner abuses the monopoly, he will be in loss.
There can be no reason for a road owner to want as much user as he can get to use his road.
The third argument against private roads is, what if the owner of a major highway wanted to prevent some arbitrary group, say, Kakusa people, from using the highway, and felt so strongly that he went to great lengths to make sure no Kakusa people drove on his road? Is there anything to stop him?
It is highly improbable for a road owner to ban any one or any group from using the road he owns. It would be very expensive way for him to show his anger or opposition to Kakusa people, why will he not want to earn from the potential Kakusa user of his road? The situation would be just like the town situation, if the road owner restricts Kakusa people using his road, Kakusa people will move away, and the competitive road owner/maker will succeed in market.
About Monopoly, the only way one can have a monopoly is if there is blocked entry to a market. Therefore the only way the owner of this road could have a monopoly is if the government does not allow anyone else to construct a road through this area. So, if the government does not forbid others from constructing roads through this area, there is no monopoly. There would be no reason for the owner of a road to discriminate against a certain group of people, because he would not make money off of them. Instead, by discriminating he would be creating an opportunity for someone else to come in and construct a road that would be more tolerant. Then, the prejudiced road owner would lose the business of the people he would not allow, and other people who would rather support a moral, ethical business.
Related Posts
1 views16 Responses to “Private Roads”
Leave a Reply
jinxykid Says:
April 30th, 2008 at 4:21 pmi always complain about the roads in india….
perhaps private sector roads may be the next big thing
C R D Says:
April 30th, 2008 at 4:31 pmthe idea wudve worked elsewhr.
unfotunately in our country, maintenance of roads is a tuff ask, wat wid ppl making a mess of it in no time..the pvt parties in such a scenario wud want to hike the toll, but wudnt be allowed to.
unpretentious_diva Says:
April 30th, 2008 at 5:16 pm@CRD
every new idea seems tough, but it takes very swiftly and easily the shape of action plan.
who could have thought that telecommunications (telephones) will be privatised?
Now every second hand has a mobile.
The thing is simple, it may take time, but it is inevitable. and it will be beneficial.
about toll, when government will have no force on the system, it will do nothing.
Yet the private companies won’t hike toll, they will increase security to maintain good roads.
ust like inspite of all frauds and dissolved bills, reliance or airtel cannot hike prices.
Government dont stop it, the customers stops it.
If they increase prices, their profits will go down, people will use the company which will provide least prices, and it will gain success too.
Market competition keeps the prices low.
gopi Says:
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:48 amfirstly, let me apologize for posting my comments in the wrong place.now that we have basic courtesy out of our way,let me pick out the explanations u hav given for de previos argumnets..
“So why will one go to live in a town which is not connected with another towns and cities by roads?”
it wud b connected by other roads.. but taking those other roundabout roads wud mean spending more on fuel..and thats very uneconomical for me.
“It is highly improbable for a road owner to ban any one or any group from using the road he owns. It would be very expensive way for him to show his anger or opposition to Kakusa people”
True.. highly improbable and expensive to ban a whole class of people; but what if his personal conflict/anger is concentrated on me as an individual? and he finds sadistic pleasure in denying access to me inspite of the marginal increase in revenue i wud hav generated for him. Does my right to movement have no value in such an ideal libertian setup? (worse still, if he builds all de roads near to my home,i’ll b under house arrest!!)
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:52 amGopi,
Mentioning same baseless argument won’t make it any good argument.
I have already discussed that situation.
The abuse of monopoly will hurt the owner of the road alone.- not
Firstly, if the road owner increases the charges of road abruptly, people of the town will use it less and less, that will decrease the revenues for the owner, it will be his loss. Moreover, it will provide a demand of new road and hence competition for the road owner and hence ending any situation of monopoly. Third, people may just leave the town, leaving the road operator with a worthless road. That is, in any case, if the road owner abuses the monopoly, he will be in loss.
There can be no reason for a road owner to
want as much user as he can get to use his road.
gopi Says:
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:01 amoh for pete’s sake… plz read my comments carefully b4 commenting on it. i said “THE ROAD OWNER HAS PERSONAL ISSUES WITH ME ONLY”… he is generating enuf and more profits from all the other users in de town and they r very happy wid his service.
he is NOT increasing the toll (which u initially said won’t b there) on de roads and hence NOT hurting his monopoly by inviting competition thru public demand.he’s merely refusing me to go thru his roads by guarding it with big hefty guys who can overpower me.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:02 amYet, I guess you do not understand what Monopoly is.
Monopoly is that situation where you have no option but to follow the available option, you cannot deny it, you cannot leave it.
Government is always monopolistic.
Lets consider your house. it is a private property, you live on it. You can rent it to anybody. You can deny any one to enter in your house without your permission and consent or approval.
Can you stop police entering your house with a search warrant which can be obtained by any magistrate bribing him some bucks? No you cannot stop police entering your own house. Can you stop police implanting fake evidence of say “illegal” guns, or RDX or drugs etc and catch you up “red-handed” and fix you in jail under the newly announced UAPA or the old MACOKA or TADA or POTA?
No, you cannot stop government police. That is monopoly. No other option left.
Monopoly is of government in road systems too. Government makes roads, you may complain against the quality of roads, extreme road taxes, ditched, pitches and pits in roads, but you can get no other option for the useless unusable worn and torn roads. You have to bear them. It is government monopoly, you cannot hope any other body, (private) to provide you better road at cheaper charges. You are bound to use government roads. This is monopoly.
if roads are privatized, there can never be any monopoly because, if the owner of roads act rouge and disturbs people anyhow, it will provide a demand of new road and hence competition for the road owner and hence ending any situation of only one road under a rouge person.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:04 amthe only way one can have a monopoly is if there is blocked entry to a market. Therefore the only way the owner of this road could have a monopoly is if the government does not allow anyone else to construct a road through this area. So, if the government does not forbid others from constructing roads through this area, there is no monopoly. There would be no reason for the owner of a road to discriminate against a certain group of people, because he would not make money off of them. Instead, by discriminating he would be creating an opportunity for someone else to come in and construct a road that would be more tolerant. Then, the prejudiced road owner would lose the business of the people he would not allow, and other people who would rather support a moral, ethical business.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:09 amLol Gopi, why did you raped the road owners 3 years old daughter and killed her?
And then you bribed the police and judge and jury too to not to let the road owner get justice against your crime?
How can you be so anti-road-owner that not only you raped and killed his daughter, but you raped his 86 year old mother too and burnt her alive after rape. Not only that, you abducted the poor-road-owner’s wife and forced-selles her to a sheikh in middle east to be a sex-slave and prostitute.
Ohh well if then road-owner do not want you to use his roads, what can you do? yes he is monopolistic *******, and if you had a government he might not have disturbed you this much.
Anyways that is all joke.
lets say the road owner is simply anti-gopi alone,. and he fixes two guard on road to just to see that gopi may never use the road.
Leave the place.
You cannot force a man to let you enter in his home even now.
renegade_division Says:
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:21 am@Gopi Said:
First of all you don’t have any “right to move”, just because its called “Libertarian Movement” it doesn’t mean “Liberty to create any kind of positive right”. You are not guaranteed any positive right in a Libertarian society.
Positive right being, “Right to provide someone with something”, like Right to education, health care, books, equal service, vote, right to property, right to food etc etc.
Negative right being “right to not be prevented from enjoying something”, like right of not to be prevented from enjoying your own property.
There is no right to food, in a Libertarian society though there you have a right to not to be devoid of your food. Right to movement does not exist, I mean this is a simple difference between a socialist and a Capitalist society, in latter nobody promises you any rights. You just have a negative right of not to be aggressed against your property.
Now if a property owner wants to refuse you entry to his property, its his right. I can refuse you entry to my house(in today’s society), have you devoid you of your “right to enter a house”?? Enjoying property rights over your property, the power to exclude other people from using your property is what Libertarianism is all about, I am sorry if someone promised you “right to movement” under the umbrella of Libertarian movement.
About the question of being in a house arrest, yes that question already came into my mind, well, that is like buying a house with no doors in it. I mean yes technically a house like that might exist in today’s society, but the thing is, nobody builds it, nor anybody seeks it. Similarly, when you buy a property, you gotta ensure that there is a road to that property, you also have to negotiate and purchase access to it. Its like owning a car and living in a flat in a building in Manhattan, you also get a Parking space in the basement parking lot with the flat.
Lets say you settled down in a totally unclaimed part of nature(the whole area belongs to nobody), so when you build a hut in the middle of the forest, you homestead that unclaimed part of nature so it becomes your property. Now someone else comes to that area, and homesteads all the surrounding area of your property, well technically its not possible, I mean do you have a pathway from your house towards say till the river, or to another village etc? If yes then that pathway is your property, nobody can homestead it(and thereby own it).
Lets say not that you purchased a pre-owned land from someone, and all the surrounding area is also pre-owned by someone else, of course there is a road right next to your property, otherwise how will you reach to that property. Later, some other guy buys that road and now he refuses you access to that road unless you pay him some really really HUGE amount of money, well this problem cannot be solved post-facto, its an easily predictable situation, and with the purchase agreement of the property there must be an access agreement. I mean today when you buy a house, the sewage line goes through someone’s property, you always ensure that there is electricity and water access to the house too. Technically today a person CAN buy an house without water, electricity or sewage system, but then it will be his stupidity, can you really blame it on the system?
Anyways interesting questions, keep on bringing them and I will throw them as a post on the blog. I mean sure I don’t wanna support a system with major holes in it, as far as I see, there are none, so feel free to point.
renegade_division Says:
January 23rd, 2009 at 6:31 am@Gopi said:
Sure that’s a possible situation, but can you please point out to me that how many businesses do you know which prohibit accesses to people on individual basis? There are clubs, and pubs which do that, some businesses where people are thrown out for bad credit history, but the problem is, most of the businesses, irrespective of their personal grudge with you do not restricts people on personal issues, I mean they are getting your money, right, so even if I have a family feud with you, I don’t deny people who bring business to me, especially when I know that they can always go to someone else for those services, thereby harming my business.
The reason why business owners don’t do that because its a slippery road, they wanna keep their establishment open for all, people aren’t individually rejected over personal issues. This is why you never get rejected a ticket in an airplane for having a personal grudge with Airline owner, that’s why you never get rejected from any business establishment whatsoever, except in rare cases.
If lets say there is only a road to a village and a rich guy owns it, and he is not allowing lower caste people to use his road, the people will travel through farms, they will pay some farmer to allow a road from his farm. If these lower caste people have SUVs and trucks which can’t travel through the farm then the farmer will make a road through his far because now these SUV owning lower caste people are in a much better position to pay for the road. The main point is, if there are so many having a businesses and only one road which does not serve all the customers then someone will make a parallel road to it providing access to all the people because there is a profit opportunity up there.
I hope it clears it up.
gopi Says:
January 24th, 2009 at 6:39 pm@ diva
what if that person owns a majority of the roads in my country? shud i leave the country too because he doesn’t like me? i hope he doesnt own roads abroad too…
@ renegade division
i’d like to comment on it. i thank you both for clarifying that there is no “right to movement” in a libertian society through de “home” example. however, i have some other issues wid privatisation of roads (it’s a great idea,but i cannot advocate it to others unless i’m fully convinced).
earlier in de article,diva said ” There will be no charge on usage of roads” and followed it up wid excellent examples of radio and internet… but while discussing,it has become obvious that ppl would need to, like renegade said, ” ensure that there is a road to that property, you also have to negotiate and PURCHASE access to it”.now, here is my argument :
suppose there r 2 private road constructors (PRC) - PRC #1 is a friend to 70% of the residents of a town (read as charges no “access price”) whereas PRC #2 is a friend to de rest 30% of residents. now, who decides which PRC shud get de road project for the town? is it a collective decision (in which case at least 30% of residents would be unhappy wid the decision) to choose one PRC for the town or an individual one? if it is an individual one,how would the actual execution be done?de road in front of my house would be laid by PRC#1 and that in front of my neighbour’s house would be laid by PRC#2?i’ll have to pay for using certain parts of the road?plz clear my doubt. OR is there any other parameter by which the whole town would chose one PRC?
PS : I hope i do not get an answer that “the rule of the majority would be imposed on the minority by employing PRC#1 for de whole town”… (that’s not ‘liberty’ for de 30% since the majority is choosing something unfavourable for them)
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 24th, 2009 at 7:49 pmGopi, I answered that. The situation you are suggesting is possible only IF GOVERNMENT BANS ANY other PERSON from making roads other than that person who is against you for any reason.
If government won’t interfere in market, some other or many other person will surely try to own and ultimately own/make new roads.
Why only those two, namely PRC1 and PRC2?
Why not me, or you?
Lets say I live in your town, and I see that there is a scope of making roads.
I start making dealings to buy land to make roads on them. its voluntary free dealing. If i gain proper land, I am making the roads.
Lets say you have a pice of land which is necessary for me to buy to complete the road, and it is necessary for other person competent in road making too.
He who provides best deal and maximum profit (profit can be in any sense be it monetary profit or satisfaction by other means) will get your land and will make the road.
Also if you deny selling the land, no one can force you. Than I or other constructors like PRC1 or PRC2 will try to get a different path or something else. But they can’t force you.
Plus, let me clear out this situation too before you put it forth in other comment.
Lets consider your home is at a typical situation where all around place is bought by me. And I am against you.
So can I make roads on the land neighboring your house and deny you using my roads too?
that is, can I make you imprisoned in your house by circumventing your house with my Roads and then denying you to use my roads?
NO, I cannot do so. the property laws suggests that I cannot make anything which restricts your usage of your property freely. You will be able to get an Easement. check wiki link for Easement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easement
About your talk of majority/minority. he will make the road who will get the land in free voluntary deal to make the road. he may be supported by 99% people or may be 99% can be simply against him. But if he wins the land in free voluntary dealing, he makes the road.
renegade_division Says:
January 25th, 2009 at 9:55 pm@Gopi Said:
What Unpretentious meant by “no charge” was for inner city roads, that is you will rarely have to pay for driving through a market street, why? because it will be in the business interest of the business owners to bear the cost of maintaining the cost of the roads to their businesses.
Take for example if you own a wal-mart style mall on a road, and the road owner charges some fees for the usage of the road from the people, then it might deter some people from coming to your store, so it will be best if you pay for the road yourself, or pay the fees for the specific customers of the road who come to your shop.
Another example is MG Road, in Bangalore, its quite famous road with high class showrooms and malls on both sides of the road. That road can never be paid, it will always be free, unless by charging for the road MG Road businesses achieve some sort of gating of what kind of people come in.
I don’t think highways can be free, because usually the cost of maintaining a highway will always be greater than the commercial benefits achieved out of it. Although it is possible in future that business models develop which can make a highway free.
BTW not all the Radio is free and not all the Internet is free. Radio is ad supported, but if you wanna listen to commercial-free high quality radio(like Satellite radio) you will have to pay for that.
Well there is a problem with the given example, and that is you are still thinking that there can be only one road to a town, or one set of roads, or it has to be given to one contractor, or even the part where you are presuming that roads have to be contracted.
In fact your example isn’t even about private roads, its about public roads like what we have today. Today govt gives contract to a private contractor to build a road. “A town wants a road to be built, and 70% want this guy, 30% want that guy.” There is no such thing as “town wants” in Capitalism. A town is a non-existent entity, it cannot have wishes. What you are talking about already exists, govt gives contract to a road contractor depending upon the bidding they do. Its called Tender.
In an actual example of private roads, an entrepreneur looks at the demand of a road, buys the land, builds the road on it and does business like that. If 70% of the people want PRC 1’s roads, they will use his roads, if 30% of the people want PRC2’s roads they will use his roads.
The question of what if the half the town is friends with PRC1 and other half is friends with PRC 2 then whom should get the road contract of the town is as stupid as the question, “Suppose Reliance Telecom is friends with 50% of the town and Airtel is friends with remaining 50% of the town then whom should get the cell phone service contract of the town”. IF you can understand the problem with the above question, you can understand the problem with the question you asked.
Well the exact details are purely dependent upon what develops into the Market. For example in back when Indian govt was thinking of privatizing the telecom market, people were asking similar questions “if my neighbor has company A’s telephone, and I have company B’s telephone, how will we communciate with each other, do I have to buy two phone connections? Do I have to pay to my company for my charges, and his company for his charges, how will they communicate with each other?, isn’t it much better to leave everyting under govt’s DoT?”.
But of course now you know you don’t have to worry about those things, the companies find their own ways to stadnardize things to reduce the costs. They don’t want you to go through a LOT of trouble to do things. You pay only your own company for services and that takes care of paying to other networks or whatever.
Similarly, there is no way you will have to negotiate with N different road owners to travel from point A to point B. There will be standardized subscription services where you purchase a travel plan from point A to point B, you pay one combined fee, and travel on their route and they will take care of negotating with the various owners and paying them.
There could also be a post paid service for using the roads in the same network, for example, you install their GPS device and it will measure the distance, also guide you to the roads of their network, and you will get a bill from the subscription company.
I don’t wanna give a major technological solution, but installing tolls at every junction of one road company to other is clearly not feasible, in fact it could happen that 100 different property owners are providing you their property to build a road, so you will pay 100 different people the toll you collect(the profit).
Market only troubles you as much as its needed to lower the costs to you. That is, you go through the trouble fo connecting flights because its the money you save is worth the effort of changing the flights.
gopi Says:
March 31st, 2009 at 12:56 pm@ renegade who said - “you are still thinking that there can be only one road to a town, or one set of roads, or it has to be given to one contractor” and ”If 70% of the people want PRC 1’s roads, they will use his roads, if 30% of the people want PRC2’s roads they will use his roads.” - let me get this straight first. do u mean to say :
there’ll be more than 1 contractor for the town and each of the contractors would build roads from EVERY PLACE TO EVERY OTHER PLACE. woww!! just imagine the number of roads in 1 town (and the amount of resources it wud take).
and u havent answered the last question satisfactorily. “exact details are purely dependent upon what develops into the Market”. whatever develops into the market, me and my neighbour will have only 1 road passing in front of our homes and it will b owned by only 1 person, with whom one of us (me or my neighbour) is not comfortable with.
it is true that good ideas hav always been ridiculed at first b4 they r accepted.. and i sincerely believe private roads is a good idea. my only intention is to ponder over the probable difficulties of implementing such a good idea.like how we r taught in mgmt schools - there’s a lot of diff b/w strategy formulation and strategy implementation.
renegade_division Says:
March 31st, 2009 at 1:29 pm@Gopi Said
I see a pattern here in your comments its called a “straw man’s argument”, you are greatly distorting my argument to make a point.
I never said that every contractor will make 1 road from every town to every other town.
Free Market works on profit, so if making an additional road will get a person profit then he will make that road.
Profit also means another thing and that is that there is a more requirement of the roads here but the requirements aren’t fully met with existing roads.
So I am not saying that there will be n number of roads from every place to every other place, but there will be a lot of roads between high traffic areas like between New Delhi an d Mumbai, or between Mumbai and Pune or between Indore and Bhopal.
On the other hand a road between Alwar and Seeker would be owned by at max 1 or two people.
Another thing is the road owners will become a franchise of a larger road networks too, like a Reliance Road Networks or Tata Roadways Ltd or something like that.
I mean if you go back to 1980s in a time machine and tell people that by 1990s the govt will relieve its monopoly in telecom sector and any individual can provide phone services to the people, won’t people laugh at you? Wouldn’t they ask “won’t there by 100 different phone service providers in a town, and how will these phone service providers communicate with each other? If my neighbor has company A’s phone and I have company B, how will we call each other?? What if I have a problem with company A, wouldn’t company A refuse to connect me to his network”.
Think why the above said problems don’t appear in today’s network, the same reason applies to private road networks. All the above things don’t happen because you cannot make profits by taking grudges against people like that,not everybody can invest into a road infrastructure.
No Road company will give you rights to exclude individuals at will if they are going to lease your property for making a road, they will patch all those holes. If you wanna keep that right then your road will not be connected to their network unless you own a huge tract of land.
If you buy a piece of land, your road access provider cannot exclude you from using his road just because he has a grudge with you because you will also start buying road accesses with the property. I mean it could happen once that someone didn’t buy water and electricity access to a house, but once he got his lesson, how many of the other people are buying houses without water and electricity these days??