Southern Florida experienced a category 5 hurricane as
Irma reached its coasts. With predictions of incredible wind speeds and storm
surge, millions of Floridians were urged to evacuate. 31,000 people alone evacuated
the Florida Keys last Wednesday on U.S. Route 1, a public good maintained by
the Florida Department of Transportation. Normally, the highway has no rival risk
since the presence of additional drivers does not usually affect the utility of
consumption for another driver. U.S. Route 1 is also a non-excludable good
since anyone may use the road, and there are not tolls on the road in the Florida
Keys which would create a monetary barrier to consumption.
Last Wednesday was not a normal day of driving consumption
in the Florida Keys. The high volumes of traffic caused by the evacuation created
a rival risk for the highway. As more people entered the highway to evacuate,
the utilities of other drivers lowered. The thousands of drivers on U.S. Route
1 brought traffic to a standstill, hindering the evacuation of each person. The
optimal number of people to share the road in a single day was exceeded, and
this all displayed Buchanan’s theory that there is no such thing as a purely
public good. U.S. Route 1 is subject to great rival risk and indeed has an
optimal number of drivers for the road to be shared with, especially in the State
of Emergency Hurricane Irma caused.
1 comment:
I referenced this post while talking with my friends this weekend about the shooting in Las Vegas, specifically regarding hospitals roles as first responders. Similarly to how it is not allocatively efficient for Florida to have ten lane highways in order to accommodate the optimal number of drivers during a hurricane evacuation, it is not allocatively efficient for emergency departments to be able to accommodate as many patients as necessary during something as rare and tragic as a mass shooting. Las Vegas hospitals were able to triage patients in the hallways, etc. which they are prepared to do; but sustaining 500+ beds, etc. is not an optimal bundle of public goods because of the lack of consumption outside of these horrific mass hospitalizations.
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