By letting the government build and own the infrastructure, then lease the exploitation of it to private companies, and have other companies do the maintenance. This has its own challenges too, but at least the monopoly is in the hands of people who can be voted out.<p>This model was used regularly for rail and power networks in Europe, but these have all been privatised in the past few decades citing &quot;cost reductions&quot;. The net result is that our infrastructure is deteriorating, consumer prices are rising way faster than inflation, and critical infrastructure is now in the hands of a few international power brokers (e.g. the Dutch national telephone grid is owned by Carlos Slim).