This is the kind of thinking that enables this cancer of public-private corruption. The agility offered by the private sector would have been during the build out. Privatizing a monopoly after having used public authority to carve it out and after having suffered the bureaucratic red tape to build it is exactly backwards. Frankly, we'd be better off letting the high-speed road surface fall apart rather than giving up the public right of way!

The sensible public-private synergy would be to retain public control of the monopoly while applying market freedom to what gets funded, so politicians could no longer play chicken with services. Let individual taxpayers choose between funding roads repairs and traffic police, between national parks and the NSA.