As in the case of a shopping mall or proprietary community, the entire arrangement exists within the ambit of private property and private contract. Just as we do not observe interloping problems at Disneyland, we do not find interloping problems at warehouses or private distribution centers. The distribution center employs security guards and the like, because it recognizes that otherwise shippers will take their business elsewhere. Like the concept of litter, the concept of interloping seems to be predicated on the existence of a public commons. In American cities today the sidewalks, passenger shelters, curbs, streets, roads, and highways are a public commons.
Access is free and husbandry is fragmentary, clumsy, and lackluster.
There is no one with both the flexibility and authority to manage the resource and motivation to do so. There is no private owner. The authority to take action would depend on the concerted action of several inflexible and inert public offices. The Hayekian proposal for urban transit would be to bring the problem fully within the ambit of private property and freedom of contract. That means privatization of the sidewalks, shelters, streets, and highways.