Around campus, bumper-to-bumper traffic and continuous roadwork aren’t just daily hassles — they’re ceremonial ways of life.Louisiana spent more than $2.1 billion maintaining roads and highways in 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Baton Rouge recently proposed more than $760 million in “shovel ready” public works projects aimed at ameliorating traffic congestion, according to Stimulus Watch.Even with slews of publicly funded roadwork projects popping up all around, many students have subconsciously accepted that expensive state projects will never actually fix anything. But according to Loyola economics professor Walter Block, we don’t have to tolerate the government’s broken system any longer. In his latest novel, “The Privatization of Roads and Highways,” Block makes a strong case for privately managed throughways by offering a logical, free-market alternative to the ongoing epidemic of government road ownership and regulation. Speeding up traffic and illuminating government mismanagement was one integral factor that inspired Block’s research. But traffic congestion is a mere triviality compared to the real tragedy Americans often overlook.More than 41,000 Americans died in traffic-related accidents in 2008. There have been more than 375,000 deaths and millions of critical injuries since 2000, according to the Fatality Analysis Reporting System.”If the highways were now commercial ventures, as once in our history they were, and upward of 40,000 people were killed on them annually, you can bet your bottom dollar that Ted Kennedy and his ilk would be holding Senate hearings on the matter,” Block wrote on Lewrockwell.com. Under private management, Block projects competition between different road owners would directly reduce the death toll from 40,000 a year to as low as 10,000.Block also explained how privatized roads would utilize the wisdom only offered by the free market to drastically improve safety and reduce traffic congestion through more efficient methods like peak load pricing and universal product coding. He also demonstrates how private road owners could successfully manage without excessive tolls or eminent domain simply by allowing the market to operate under the concept of laissez-faire. “Markets are the best regulator, not government,” Block concluded. “The same logic holds true for shoes, candy and bicycles. Should we nationalize all these things? Have we learned nothing from the economic failure of the Soviets?”For years our transportation system has been stuck sitting bumper-to-bumper in innovation-restricting traffic, calling only for more of the same failed central planning. But what our society needs is more seminal thinkers, like Block, who can help pave new avenues of innovation and thought. Science and history clearly show the greatest successes of our society take place under private control, not public regulation. Our nation’s greatest success stories are prime examples of how private minds allocate and direct resources much more effectively than intellectually deprived central authorities.As Block suggested, if we continue allowing central planners to run our roads, we can expect more of the same failure and disappointment. That is why now is the time to demand the end of the government’s failed monopoly on transportation. Once we dispel the socialistic myth that roads are somehow an exception to economic law, there’s no limit to what the unfettered free market can accomplish for everyone’s benefit.Ultimately, if private corporations can put a satellite into orbit and assimilate thousands of sounds and lectures and podcasts into a tiny, palm-sized electronic device, they can most certainly pour asphalt over sand and determine more efficient ways to manage our roads.Scott Burns is a 19-year-old political science and business sophomore from Baton Rouge.–Contact Scott Burns at [email protected]