Originally Posted by
tandempower
Do you mean by putting the public right-of-way of all roads up for bid to corporate investors who would transform them into either toll roads, rail lines, or both?
If you did that, you'd have to regulate the sale to prevent automotive interests from pooling their money for the sake of creating roads with low enough tolls (or free of charge) that promote driving over trains, etc.
MV sales, service, and insurance makes a lot more money than train ticket sales so if you allow business competition to control road right-of-way, the car companies will use their market position to exclude rail and promote driving by lowering the tolls, as they have done with the interstate highway system.
They will even pay smart marketing minds to spin it as a benefit to consumers and commerce to have big business pay for the highways and allow private individuals to use them for free.
I don't know any quick way to implement a truer costing of transportation. There is such a massive web of cost perversities and network externalities and vested interests that you can probably only nudge things in the right direction very slowly with modest policy changes and infrastructure choices. Personally I think carbon taxing would go a long way. It will incentivise people and businesss to seek the most energy efficient ways of operating, and to lobby for the most energy efficient infrastructure. If a company (or a family) discovers it takes a lot more fuel and thus a lot more money, to send staff or goods to Houston by truck or air than by rail, then they will start to use rail if it is available and demand it if it isn't.