Ode To Capitalism

Winston visions “privatizing and deregulating the vast majority of the transportation system - via Wikipedia

Economist Clifford Winston has for many years argued that the American transportation system could use a major overhaul. He introduces additional reasons in his latest book  - Last Exit: Privatization and Deregulation of the U.S. Transportation System. Both economists and consumers can recognize the complaints addressed the current inadequate system: “In-flight delays and earlier airport arrivals for security screening were estimated to cost passengers and airlines in the United States at least $40 billion in 2005,” and “poor highway design and road conditions are a major contributor to accidents and fatalities that cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions.”

“At this point, Mr. Winston is calling only for experiments, but if they are successful, he envisions “privatizing and deregulating the vast majority of the transportation system” and “reducing the government’s primary role in this sector to mitigating externalities, such as emissions, and to enforcing the antitrust laws.”

His vision is breathtaking, and to make his ideas less overwhelming, Mr. Winston begins by reminding us that roads, rails and airports were not always a public affair.

America’s early 19th century road network was built by turnpike entrepreneurs; airports and streetcar systems often began in private hands. More than a tenth of the people listed in Harvard Business School’s “Great American Business Leaders of the Twentieth Century” had something to do with transportation.

Mr. Winston justifies his call for experimentation and reform with a series of scathing critiques of the status quo.

Other criticisms are more nuanced: “Urban bus and rail systems tend to use standardized vehicles, instead of a mixed-vehicle fleet that could enable transit managers to adjust seat capacity to variations in passenger demand by time of day and route,” he writes.

Gilles Duranton and Matthew Turner’s “Fundamental Law of Traffic Congestion: Evidence From the U.S.” states that vehicle-miles-traveled increases roughly one-for-one with miles of roads built. More highways mean more drivers, so we are never going to build our way out of traffic congestion. People will keep on driving until they are made to pay for that privilege.

Private road operators or airports will charge higher fees during peak periods to cut down on congestion, and they have incentives to innovate technologically to attract customers and cut costs. Mr. Winston notes that capsule, or pod, hotels, “which enable fliers to nap between flights,” happen to be “available in private airports, but none is available in the United States.”

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Tags: Airline, Clifford Winston, Economic, Economy of the United States, Federal Aviation Administration, Harvard Business School, New York City, Privatization, Traffic congestion, Transport, Transportation, United States