Classic Stossel: Free Market Roads

In Britain, a local highway was damaged by heavy rains. When government said it would take a year to repair it, entrepreneur Mike Watts built a “private road” in just 12 days.

The road cost him about $250,000 to build. He put his house up as collateral. He charges $3 to cross, less for locals.

A Classic Stossel from 2015

[Mas]

Amazing how they tried to slow him down to invalidate his effort while picking up the pace to not be completely embarrassed. Had he done nothing that road would still be 2-3 years away and further over budget.

[wrongthinker]

Government standard is: take as long as possible to do the cheapest job possible at the highest cost possible so you can get the most kickbacks possible.

[TheRiverPirate]

Glad he at least broke even! Government hates competition!

[EGarrett]

Great video. A key point is that the road cost 1/10th of what the government was going to spend. That's a lesson for anyone who thinks taxes are some kind of necessary price to have infrastructure. The overwhelming majority of the money goes to nonsense.

[toddmichael]

Bureaucrats always need to feel important. If you’re doing something without their approval, they’ll object to everything until their narcissistic mind is satisfied. That’s government around the world.

[jackson]

Ah, John Stossel, the guy who made me become a Libertarian. Thanks, John, you're doing God's work!!

[alexsam]

In usa here. Good show man. The world needs more people like him. If all the politics were gone it would be hard but we.d survive. If all the free thinkers were gone we.d have nothing left. Government is necessary however to much and it destroys it self

[cajun]

Endless regulation, it’s one reason they’ve managed to double the price of fuel in less than a year n a half.

[douglasmcneil]

The telling sentence is when Mike started doing interviews, the public road got done faster.

[junedhussain]

I do remember this story a few years back and I'm glad John Stossel did this story. The person who created this road (length was 400 yards) did something what the councils or another government agency couldn't do and that's the beauty of the free market.

[NathanSaor]

Me and my mum used this toll to get to wales. Massive time saver! Even after the road opened again sometimes due to traffic that route is quicker

[FishGutzz]

Stossel watching your videos is like brewing coffee that just been roasted. Keep them coming. Big fan.

[SV-krfu]

The people of Honolulu, Hawaii need this guy to come and take over the railroad project on the Island of Oahu.

The project/formal studies started in late-2006, the construction was scheduled to start in December, 2009, and the costs of the project was estimated to be about $5.3 billion.

So far (as of May, 2022), the City and County of Honolulu has already spent over $12.5 billion and the Island of Oahu still does not have a running train (and we do not know when we will have it).

[warrenmcdonald]

Thank you for our daily reminder that the government is the worst possible "solution" for any problem.
We ban monopolies. Why? Because they are unquestionably bad for the consumer. And yet people continue to support the largest and most anti-consumer monopoly of all: government.

"The scariest words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help" - Ronald Reagan

[DanSpotYT]

As a kid in the early 80s the news ran a story of how a hammer cost the US govt $400. I asked mum why when they only cost $5 (or whatever it was then) in the store. Her answer in short - red tape. Early lesson that stuck with me.

[fraydnot]

Thanks Mr. Stossel for showing us one of your classic videos that reminds us of your impressive career.

[AinsleyHarriott]

"I hope the bloke makes a million quid out of it" - now THAT is the right attitude.

[drugsarebad]

The biggest issue with government roads is that they are obligated by contracts to hire specific companies for the job, who are unionized and demand outrages payouts, while doing minimal work.

[teerexness]

Because the government is so good at doing things, they shouldn't be allowed to touch anything.

[ajsorensen]

Amazing! Couldn't agree more, regulation and cronyism cause this! Here they paved a section of the Merritt Parkway, it was nicely done. Six months later they start cutting random slots in this same section, this has been going on for years and the traffic is absolutely insane. It often takes a hour to go a mile, I can ride 20mph on my bicycle.

Bridgeport on the other hand paved an entire main road in about 1-2 days, AMAZING, it was really well done no bumps! The parkway and i95 are all chopped up and bumpy. I don't know how you could do such a bad job filling all the holes and I'm sure hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on this work, sometimes it actually improves the road like with the Q bridge (just took 20 years..) most of the time it just creates traffic for years and the road is a mess, I think they are doing such a bad job in some spots it's very dangerous to drive through these spots, and they're major routes! Insanity.