Sources and Sinks

[ken]

James A. Donald wrote:
>     --
> On 3 Jan 2004 at 8:09, Michael Kalus wrote:
> 
>>Yes, the way this usually works is that the government builds
>>the road, then sells it to a private company for some money
>>and then the upkeep is handled by the company.
>>
>>It is rather seldom that someone builds a road for a business
>>venture.
> 
> 
> Used to happen all the time, before governments became so
> intrusive. 

Not that often.  The usual way of making & fixing roads before the 
  late 19th century was - and had been for centuries - collective. 
At best some charity or other got people together to help out. At 
worst the local lord of the manor or big landowner forced a 
sufficiently large number of peasants to do the job.

In lots of places landowners had the duty to maintain roads across 
their property, and the government would force them to do it. 
There are lots - many thousands I think - of legal records in 
England way back to the middle ages

A bit different in the western parts of USA if only because so 
many roads there are new, but even then the vast majority either 
were started by government (or some other non-commercial 
organisation) or else taken over by government after built.

Canals and railways were mostly built by private business - and 
mostly came into public ownership when they went broke, often 
bailing out the failed investors. In both Europe and North America.