Governing: King of the Road

Why do conservative and libertarian-oriented think tanks see road building as an expression of the free market, while attacking mass transit spending?

In April's issue of Governing, Alex Marshall writes that building a road is a manifestation of power, particularly state power, and makes the work of these think tanks suspect.

Marshall says that much of these groups' thinking, particularly from people such as Randal O'Toole and Wendell Cox, is built around the autonomy provided by the personal automobile, glossing over the government-built roads these cars require.

Robert Poole, the founder and past president of the Reason Foundation, says that his organization's general premise is that "transportation infrastructure would work better if it were market-driven" and "should be run in a business-like manner with users paying full cost."

But because governments have spent trillions of dollars on roads over the past century, Marshall argues that "the national road system is one of the most successful examples of pure socialism to be found: a comprehensive public system, well-used, almost entirely paid for with tax dollars".