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magicalhippotoday at 12:40 AM0 repliesview on HN

Here in Norway we have funded the vast majority of new highways and similar by turing them into toll roads. The government might chip in but some fraction is covered by toll.

An issue is that it's set up as a regular loan, which the collected toll repays. So over the lifetime of the loan, often more than half is interest. Add administration costs and in some cases the actual money spent on the road is a small fraction of the total toll paid.

That said, in principle I think it's fair to have some use-based pricing. Same goes for public transportation. Studies have shown it's not ideal to have free public transportation, but rather a low fare.