Basically because every time this happens the burden of debt is passed towards the tax payers. They just built a long toll lane in my city in what was a 2 lane highway. Adding another lane or two would have alleviated traffic immensely. The company that built it owns all profits for approx 50 years. What could have been a 5 lane highway is still two except now you have the option of paying a ridiculous amount of money to not have to deal with the traffic. This is money that could have been spent on improving the city's other methods of transportation, trains, bicycles, etc.

It doesn't affect me personally. I ride a motorcycle every day. It's just painful to see how private interests are almost never in line with what's best for constituents

[–] bjornsno@lemm.ee 7 points 1 month ago

This is slightly off topic but adding lanes does not alleviate traffic in the long term at all. The effect diminishes quickly and vanishes after just five years.

[–] CableMonster@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

I think this is a seperate issue when private corporations build and own roads. I dont know enough about that sort of thing, I was more referring to how the government hires out private companies to create infrastructure instead of having government employees do it.

[–] uis@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

To be fair not building literal highways in the city is good result

[–] meowMix2525@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Doesn't sound like they avoided adding or widening a highway, just that what they did add is only accessible if you pay a toll.

[–] uis@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago

Oh. That's bad.