>>2024766
>Yes, governments are supposed to supplement the interests of the population, they're not our parents making us eat vegetables.
that doesn't explain at all how a place can exist with both high car usage and no government-funded highways?
>Google "toll road" and get back to us.
fair but those toll roads only make up a tiny fraction of all highways, and roads also, in just about every civilized country and they still have to be approved by the government

also just to nitpick your original point that
>Cars were commercially successful before highways were even a idea.
is wrong on multiple accounts because highways have existed for thousands of years to transport goods via horses and carts/wagons, the first cars being "commercially successful" (which is easy because there were so few of them as explained here) had more to do with the fact that they were exclusively built for the very wealthy and a unique novelty more than anything else

the general conclusion is that if governments completely stopped building highways, which they will never do unless they are usurped by giga-corporations which by that point they essentially ARE governments but that's an entirely different topic, it will be because they are no longer viable for one of two reasons:
1. so few people drive cars in the future that most of them will walk, cycle or take public transport which will eliminate the need for most current highways as city sizes would shrink dramatically due to density increase
2. governments can no longer afford to build highways, which will lead to one of the two above scenarios

i also find it infuriating and laughable at the same time that some people still believe in "the market" - what are you talking about? surely not the free market, that thing which supposedly exists but is also surrounded by tariffs, government-incentives, tax breaks, etc. by governments and special interest groups?

how many cars do you think can exist in a solely private highway market?

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Conservatively estimating the US has spent around $20T on cars, fuel for cars and car related infrastructure, mostly on fuel for cars which only…