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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

Depends on where you on how "toll" is being used. In Texas, the "tolls" are most definitely not taxes. Taxes mean the government is the recepient of that money. In Texas, the toll roads are owned by private companies. When the gov't ran the tollways, the tolling was removed when enough money from tolls was raised to cover the cost of building the road. Now, they are privatized, and the toll will never be removed.

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Do you have evidence (or even a reason to believe) that the costs are misrepresented such that the government allowed a higher ongoing toll than is appropriate?

Because otherwise ... yeah? Private toll roads can be a good solution.

Before they were private, once enough tolls were collected to offset the cost of construction, the tool booths were removed. Those roads are now free to drive, ex: I-30 through DFW. The current roads under NTTA will never be free to drive, ex: George Bush Turn Pike, N.Dallas Tollway, Sam Rayburn Tollway,etc

The fact that an unnecessary middleman is in the equation is evidence that the costs will be higher, since the middleman wouldn’t be interested otherwise.

That doesn't follow - I save money by hiring a plumber, who makes money from being hired.

The city simply made an analysis of the number of roads they'd build over the years and the cost of being a capable engineering organization versus the premium of getting existing experts to build it. They probably don't generate their own electricity either, for the same reasons.

Hiring contractors to build roads and having staff to do routine maintenance of roads is part of every city/state/federal government’s core competencies that I’ve ever lived in.

The only reason they sell it off is to make cash now for whatever political reason at the expense of future taxpayers.

The delivery of electricity is also handled by governments, or companies that are basically government since they have to run everything by governments first like price increases. Just like water lines and sewer lines. Electricity generation does not need to be government operated since it can come from multiple sources, but the delivery is just like roads since you can’t have multiple options to each destination.

When you hire a contractor, you pay for the work done and that's it. The state has allowed NTTA to have a lifetime contract of earning tolls on the roads even past the cost of building those roads. The contractor does not keep sending you bills after the fees have been paid for effectively creating mailbox money for the contractor at your expense.

> When you hire a contractor, you pay for the work done and that's it

Generally, but I could plan to have that contractor back for each repair as long as they do a good job.

> The state has allowed NTTA to have a lifetime contract of earning tolls on the roads even past the cost of building those roads

Presumably they're responsible for maintaining the roads. We've simply decided to call them for repairs as long as they do a good job.

> The contractor does not keep sending you bills after the fees have been paid

If I defer up-front costs in trade for maintenance costs then they do. This is really handy some times.

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