Given a vacuum in transportation, who will build the roads?

[Atlas]

[myrkul]

Your concerns are unfounded. When the Zombie Apocalypse happens, Anarcho-Libertarians will volunteer to build new roads.

They will start small - carting gravel in wheel barrows. Then they will jump out from behind bushes and demand payment from trespassers. The payments will pay for expansion of their empire, until eventually they have high-speed motorways that are monitored using tanks and heat-seeking missiles.

Did'ja read the sign?

[hashman]

OK so maybe some roads will be built, but who will bring in millions of tons of salt to rust our wheelchairs and destroy our land?  Who will encourage inefficient dead end infrastructure destined for oblivion?  Who will systematically divide and cut off smaller and smaller pieces of our living ecosystem ensuring rapid isolation and die-offs for many land animals essential to our ecology? 

[Rassah]

The first mistake is the belief that our transportation will continue to depend on roads.

[JoelKatz]

The first mistake is the belief that our transportation will continue to depend on roads.

You mean there's a better way than covering our country with the remains of deceased dinosaurs?

[MoonShadow]

The first mistake is the belief that our transportation will continue to depend on roads.

You mean there's a better way than covering our country with the remains of deceased dinosaurs?

Yup

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTran

[Rassah]

The first mistake is the belief that our transportation will continue to depend on roads.

You mean there's a better way than covering our country with the remains of deceased dinosaurs?

Yup

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTran

Just wana say, as someone dabbling in Maglev tech, fuck that guy. He's one of MANY who have come up with "unique" "maglev" inventions that are "maglev" only because the description says "this will use maglev technology." They use "maglev" as a buzzword just to make their system sound cool and more technical, but in reality have no understanding of any maglev tech out there, instead just saying, "I invented this cool system, as for what actual maglev tech we'll use, that's up to the engineers; plenty to choose from out there." And, actually, there isn't any maglev tech that would work with SkyTran. None. It would be way cheaper and more effective for that thing to use steel wheels.

[MoonShadow]

The first mistake is the belief that our transportation will continue to depend on roads.

You mean there's a better way than covering our country with the remains of deceased dinosaurs?

Yup

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTran

Just wana say, as someone dabbling in Maglev tech, fuck that guy. He's one of MANY who have come up with "unique" "maglev" inventions that are "maglev" only because the description says "this will use maglev technology." They use "maglev" as a buzzword just to make their system sound cool and more technical, but in reality have no understanding of any maglev tech out there, instead just saying, "I invented this cool system, as for what actual maglev tech we'll use, that's up to the engineers; plenty to choose from out there." And, actually, there isn't any maglev tech that would work with SkyTran. None. It would be way cheaper and more effective for that thing to use steel wheels.

I didn't post it over hypted up tech.  I posted it because 1) I've studied the system, because it was one proposal for a transit system connecting downtown Cincinnati to parts of northern Kentucky (it lost to light rail, and that still isn't built yet) and 2) whether it primarily uses maglev @ 100 mph or steel skates on roller bearings @ 50 mph it would work; and it would work quite well.  Near zero lateral loads; due to crosswinds, turn forces, whatever; simply because the car hangs below the track with a 15 degree pivot joint.  Unobtrusive in urban settings.  Requires zero skill to use, so a child in 2nd grade could use it to go to school alone as effectively as grandma after she loses her license & is wheelchair bound.  Most of the time it would follow existing rights-of-way, but it doesn't need to.  It could cross over private farmland, with contract consessions from the owners, with no more interference to the rancher's work or way of life than a powerline; which also happens to be the only way that the system could reasonablely ever hit 100mph, which would require some rather straight track.  Most of an urban network would really be limited to about 30mph (+-5mph) due to the turn radiuses that exiting city intersections place upon the practical grid track network.  It would be a truly electric system, though.

[MoonShadow]

http://freedomfeens.com/blog/2012/09/25/talking-to-statists-2/

Yes, Sir; I am laughing while western "civilization" collapses.

[greyhawk]

The first mistake is the belief that our transportation will continue to depend on roads.

"Where we're going, we don't need roads!"

[myrkul]

Your concerns are unfounded. When the Zombie Apocalypse happens, Anarcho-Libertarians will volunteer to build new roads.

They will start small - carting gravel in wheel barrows. Then they will jump out from behind bushes and demand payment from trespassers. The payments will pay for expansion of their empire, until eventually they have high-speed motorways that are monitored using tanks and heat-seeking missiles.

Did'ja read the sign?

I must've missed the awesome revelation. Governments commission private contractors to build roads all the time. Even France, a poster-child of modern-day Socialism, has toll roads all over the place.

Yes, I'd say you did... still have, apparently. The "awesome revelation" is that government didn't commission this road. It was set up 100% private, start to finish.

[myrkul]

Did'ja read the sign?

I must've missed the awesome revelation. Governments commission private contractors to build roads all the time. Even France, a poster-child of modern-day Socialism, has toll roads all over the place.

Yes, I'd say you did... still have, apparently. The "awesome revelation" is that government didn't commission this road. It was set up 100% private, start to finish.

Oh right, so they were basically pirates?

Did they own the land that the roads were built on? Was there some kind of community consensus on what to do with "unowned" land? What about environmental considerations such as the effect of splitting forests in two? If there was farm land in the way, how that issue dealt with? And presumably the Indians were kicked out long before then, too?

Here, this should help:

www.google.com/search?q=first+new+hampshire+turnpike

[myrkul]

Did'ja read the sign?

I must've missed the awesome revelation. Governments commission private contractors to build roads all the time. Even France, a poster-child of modern-day Socialism, has toll roads all over the place.

Yes, I'd say you did... still have, apparently. The "awesome revelation" is that government didn't commission this road. It was set up 100% private, start to finish.

Oh right, so they were basically pirates?

Did they own the land that the roads were built on? Was there some kind of community consensus on what to do with "unowned" land? What about environmental considerations such as the effect of splitting forests in two? If there was farm land in the way, how that issue dealt with? And presumably the Indians were kicked out long before then, too?

Here, this should help:

www.google.com/search?q=first+new+hampshire+turnpike

<sarcasm>Oh hahaa. Very funny. </sarcasm>

They were still pirates. Providing a patronising google link doesn't change anything. It's basically the same attitude that the US government has today with their foreign policy -- "f**k the rest of the world because we've got the biggest guns".

I don't  think "pirate" means what you think it means. Pirate is not the word you're looking for. Probably "highwayman" is a better fit. But even that doesn't work. After all, these roads started out as toll roads. The land was either unowned or legitimately bought. The money to build it was raised voluntarily. So where's the "piracy"?

Let's compare, shall we? When a government wants to build a road, they use "Eminent domain" or similar methods of expropriation to get the land. And they don't take no for an answer. And the money to build it? Yeah... they don't take no for an answer on that one, either. Now that's highway robbery.

[stochastic]

Did'ja read the sign?

I must've missed the awesome revelation. Governments commission private contractors to build roads all the time. Even France, a poster-child of modern-day Socialism, has toll roads all over the place.

Yes, I'd say you did... still have, apparently. The "awesome revelation" is that government didn't commission this road. It was set up 100% private, start to finish.

Oh right, so they were basically pirates?

Did they own the land that the roads were built on? Was there some kind of community consensus on what to do with "unowned" land? What about environmental considerations such as the effect of splitting forests in two? If there was farm land in the way, how that issue dealt with? And presumably the Indians were kicked out long before then, too?

Here, this should help:

www.google.com/search?q=first+new+hampshire+turnpike

<sarcasm>Oh hahaa. Very funny. </sarcasm>

They were still pirates. Providing a patronising google link doesn't change anything. It's basically the same attitude that the US government has today with their foreign policy -- "f**k the rest of the world because we've got the biggest guns".

I don't  think "pirate" means what you think it means. Pirate is not the word you're looking for. Probably "highwayman" is a better fit. But even that doesn't work. After all, these roads started out as toll roads. The land was either unowned or legitimately bought. The money to build it was raised voluntarily. So where's the "piracy"?

Let's compare, shall we? When a government wants to build a road, they use "Eminent domain" or similar methods of expropriation to get the land. And they don't take no for an answer. And the money to build it? Yeah... they don't take no for an answer on that one, either. Now that's highway robbery.

Those Native Americans could not show title to the property, so why not take just take the land?

[MoonShadow]

They were still pirates. Providing a patronising google link doesn't change anything. It's basically the same attitude that the US government has today with their foreign policy -- "f**k the rest of the world because we've got the biggest guns".

I don't  think "pirate" means what you think it means. Pirate is not the word you're looking for. Probably "highwayman" is a better fit. But even that doesn't work. After all, these roads started out as toll roads. The land was either unowned or legitimately bought. The money to build it was raised voluntarily. So where's the "piracy"?

Let's compare, shall we? When a government wants to build a road, they use "Eminent domain" or similar methods of expropriation to get the land. And they don't take no for an answer. And the money to build it? Yeah... they don't take no for an answer on that one, either. Now that's highway robbery.

Those Native Americans could not show title to the property, so why not take just take the land?

I'm part-Native, and it never really worked that way.  It's not rational to consider ALL of the early American wilderness to be "owned" by the tribes that hunted it or lived nearby.  Even if it were, there were a number of different tribes that could have competing claims to ownership of thousands of arces of unmolested wilderness, and they resolved their competing claims in exactly the same manner.  The Eastern/coastal tribes were (generally speaking) no more nomadic than the white Europeans, and built wooden clan sized homes & farmed.  There is little evidence that the early colonists did not respect an "indian" claim to ownership of an obviously cultivated area.  Those tribes did not believe that a natural & undeveloped area could be "owned", so in a sense they defaulted naturally to the ancap theory of ownership in the sense that it was the labor involed in clearing the forest & constructing the highway that made that real estate "ownable" to begin with.  The concept of 'homesteading' a wild area that has no obvious (living) prior claim to ownership is based upon a similar theory, and led to conflict with the western (nomadic) tribes; who generally believed that property is owned collectively & that a tribe could possess an extended & exclusive territory well beyond the region immediately near any improved areas.  So even by their own concept of ownership (which is obviously different than our own today, and different than those of the Western tribes) the Eastern tribes had no practical complaint concerning this highway or any other until they were denied safe passage upon those roads.  But that was a completely different issue.