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Here's my attempt: Companies build private roads. To drive on those roads, they install a toll-booth at each entrance onto the road (like your house, office,
by will_hughes 10y ago
Here's my attempt:
Companies build private roads.
To drive on those roads, they install a toll-booth at each entrance onto the road (like your house, office, warehouse, shops, etc) - every vehicle gets charged to enter the road network.
Large road companies usually come to some agreement that they'll join their roads at large intersections, but don't install toll-booths there, because it's good for each of them - after all, they still bill every car entering their road network, and better connections between road networks means more users of the road (and thus more revenue).
Usually when roads get congested, they make them wider, and where two road networks meet - each company pays to upgrade it's side of the road network.
This is how things have worked until recently.
Some road companies have decided that instead of upgrading their network, they'll make many of the lanes reserved for 'preferred road network users'.
Now, if you order from a store affiliated with the road company - things will work like they used to. But if you order from an unaffiliated store - that delivery will take much longer (or maybe not happen at all, if the road is too congested and the driver turns around and goes home)
- carlisle_ 10y agoIt's not that this isn't hard to understand, it's that it's too long of an explanation. There needs to be a concise and succinct point that can be expounded if people are interested in learning. There is some merit in trying to attract your listener and keep them engaged.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ddddddddq 10y agoHow would you respond if someone replied with: Yeah, but isn't it in the private roads' owners benefit to reduce congestion, so they create HOV lanes? And what if they want to promote certain kinds of cars like electric and hybrid and therefore allow them to drive in the HOV lanes? Shouldn't they be allowed to? Edit: Not that I necessarily agree, but this seems like a flaw in the analogy.
- nkassis 10y agoThat's more about advantaging certain type of traffic vs same type of traffic from different sources.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- AnthonyMouse 10y agoFWIW HOV lanes actually increase congestion in practice, because the benefit from getting a small number of additional people to carpool is less than the efficiency loss from operating the lane at less than its carrying capacity during congestion. And the correct analogy for what they want to do is that the road company also owns a car company and is restricting the lanes you can use and charging higher tolls for not buying one of their cars, because they want to monopolize the car market.