Freedom is so overrated in Young Mr. Yglesias' world.

You and I seem to be the only ones who learned that lesson from his argument.

Just a crazy idea. In the meantime, it would help if they would run trains more frequently all the time, and particularly at certain intervals.

Consequently, by definition roads are not public goods.

It's true that roads can be private goods, although most aren't. I don't mind toll roads as an adjunct to public "free" ones. I'm not at all a fan of making normal roads toll roads, though. Even Adam Smith thought roads should be public goods, publicly financed.

A public good is not synonymous with government benefit.

What many transportation planners forget is that we already pay for using the roads during peak hours. We pay with the currency of our valuable time. When that cost gets high enough we either forgo the trip or perhaps choose an alternate route.

The problem with congestion pricing from this conservatives viewpoint is simply putting government in charge of more money and decision making. That politicizing will eventually create more problems that it could ever solve.

Well, health care isn't a public good.

Well, I think Matt believes health care is a public good, but that is where my (non-serious) suggestion that Matt is an uber-conservative breaks down. But it still strikes me that Matt is taking a line of argument primarily because he doesn't value urban-suburban transportation and he wouldn't use similar arguments for something he values like health-care.

e've had publicly funded interstates since the Eisenhower administration, and federal highways well before that.

That's true. The provision of the new breed of suburban commuter highways by taxing everybody, especially urban drivers and non-drivers, though, is a different story entirely - not precisely a public good in the old sense, and definitely something for which not charging has led to inefficient consumption.

Shorter James: Matt is an elitist.

Hell, I'm an elitist. I think Matt's just being a wonk while ignoring obvious consequences.

Let's imagine this train of thought: Health care is a public good. Unfortunately the demand for health care can outstrip supply. We don't want to increase the supply of health care because it would generate more demand. Instead, we charge a fee for those health care services that are in highest demand.

Well, health care isn't a public good.

And charging more for high demand services would generally be a disaster. If you want to ration by price, much better to charge more for elective surgeries (facelifts, liposuction, etc.)and for futile procedures at the end of life.

Me: Matt is an uber-conservative. Let's imagine this train of thought: Health care is a public good. Unfortunately the demand for health care can outstrip supply. We don't want to increase the supply of health care because it would generate more demand. Instead, we charge a fee for those health care services that are in highest demand.

Somebody who espouses conservatism ought to be skeptical of a road-pricing scheme that emulates the Soviet Union (provide as much as we can; ration access via queueing).

Very few conservatives consider roads other than a public good. We've had publicly funded interstates since the Eisenhower administration, and federal highways well before that.

Road pricing (and transit pricing) is a great thing - it encourages people to value their time and, possibly even more importantly, the time of others.

Not really. I've been on traffic jams on the Dulles Greenway, which is outrageously priced during peak periods. It's just a way to extract money from people for something they need to do. Even at $5 a pop, though, only very poor people are going to waste 2 hours on each side of their daily commute -- twice a day! -- in order to save money.

(The "rush hour" in DC is from roughly 6 to 10:30 in the morning and 3:30 to 7:30 in the evening.)

Road pricing (and transit pricing) is a great thing - it encourages people to value their time and, possibly even more importantly, the time of others.

On the road example, if the people of Frederick and Washington, DC want to finance a road between the two I have no objection to their doing it nor do I much care whether they charge tolls or finance it completely through taxes. I do care if they want the people of Chicago to pay for the road. The argument that Chicagoans would benefit from the road is pretty sketchy and we've got road problems of our own which I don't see anybody clamoring to solve for us.

Similarly with public transportation. I don't much care what the terms are for it unless it's public transportation that I might conceivably use.

From an economic standpoint I think user fees make the most sense for a lot of services including transportation. If you want to ameliorate the effects on the poor, figure out a way to rebate their expenses to them every month.