Thomas Frank writes today against proposals to privatize roads and bridges:

At worst it will effectively close those roads to the part of the population that can’t afford the revolutionary tolls that private ownership will surely bring. The cost of, well, just about everything will start to rise as more pieces of the transportation system embrace their for-profit destiny and start charging whatever the desperate commuter will bear. Wear and tear on the remaining public-sector roads will certainly increase as traffic is driven off the tollways.

These conclusions are presented as though they follow deductively; but surely there are empirical questions here. Have market reforms actually had these results when they have been applied? Or have private road operators been able, for example, to use congestion pricing more creatively than the public sector, thus increasing efficiency and lowering transit costs? I don’t know the answers, but it does not seem as though Frank is even interested in the questions.