But you run into the risk that people don't use your new expensive toll road and you're left with a big pile of debt...
That is the problem with them in the Netherlands. Building and maintaining roads is so frighteningly expensive that you can't price them to even cover the cost!
So you mean if we dont socialize the up-front cost plus the ongoing externalities, roads aren't economically sensible choice? That seems less like a problem and more like the beginning of a nice reflection...
I think perhaps my professor was talking about adding tolls explicitly as a traffic congestion relief mechanism rather than a way to recoup cost of maintaining the roadway
That is the problem with them in the Netherlands. Building and maintaining roads is so frighteningly expensive that you can't price them to even cover the cost!