I share your feeling. However

> pay whatever the market rate

would only work if there is a market. And infrastructures like roads are a natural monopoly[0], so there could be no market.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

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dbdr 15 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I don't think the idea is to have a market of roads to chose from. It is to make the existing car market more efficient by fixing the externality of other people paying for the damage you do to the roads by your choice of (heavy) vehicule.

	▲	citrin_ru 3 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Heavy semi-trailer trucks disproportionally damage the roads, if they'll pay a fair share groceries could become unaffordable.

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mothballed 29 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

That's weird because there's no public road near me for miles and I can get 90% of the way to "town" without them.

I've also connected my private roads to a couple other private roads so no one has a monopoly on my way to town.

As for the "barriers to entry" mentioned in that article, is absolutely wild. My road and most the ones in our grid network were made with little more than a dude and a tractor (I think you can get suitable one for $10k off craigslist). I initially made mine with an axe, a light truck, and a rope (to rip out small trees) and there's nothing stopping anyone adjacent from doing the same if I'd block the road.

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dmurray 16 minutes ago | parent [-]

Do you understand why this isn't a workable solution for everyone, and likely not even for the last 10% of your journey?

	▲	mothballed 15 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It would work beautifully for the last 10% of my journey. The only reason why there are no private roads for the las 10% is the county tax funds that road, and only a complete and utter moron would build a road when their "competitor" has a price of zero at the point of use. People commonly ask why the public road has a monopoly; it's not that they are a natural monopoly but rather that it's literally impossible to compete with someone with zero costs (tax costs already sunk) so places with public roads have ~no competition. The second that road gets defunded by the public coffers, guy with tractor would show back up.