Everybody wins? Take a look at Bangkok's tollways. The one to the airport was one of those public-private projects designed to try to alleviate congestion on a major surface highway yet get as close to self-paying as possible. But in order to do that, they had to set the toll at what turned out to be too much for local drivers. They missed the revenue projection with bills due, so what could they do? The only way to get more money was to raise the toll even more.

Result: The tollway is way underutilized and the old, "free" road running right underneath it is jammed. Foreigners arriving at BKK airport and wealthy Thais may feel like they have it as their own private expressway (and sometimes drive at speeds reflecting that!) but as a means to alleviate congestion and serve oridinary Thais it has been a real failure. Ditto the eastern motorway to Chon Buri...it's great if you can drive it, but the economics cause it to be way underutilized even while the old road is still crowded. It's all a good lesson in toll-road economics and why they're so unpopular.

Closer to home, in Atlanta we got our first toll road as the Georgia 400 extension some years ago. The state pols promised there would be tolls only as long as needed to pay off the road. Hah! They've already uncovered diversions of that money for other purposes and very few people expect the tolls ever to be eliminated. They were supposed to be used only to pay for the road but will be pinched as a source of revenue for other things long after the road is paid for.