Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

strongtowns.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 324 posts

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#11

Post by azernik »

ryanar wrote: post #2

I feel like I am missing something here, a mile of road in a rural area costs $1,500,000 to reconstruct? How do small towns afford to maintain their roads?? Perhaps there are many costs that don't inflate as the number of miles increases, like the equipment needed to break down and repave the roads?

> How do small towns afford to maintain their roads??

Often, they don't. Examples:

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2010/1/11/the-cost-of-de...

https://www.sdnewswatch.org/stories/small-s-d-towns-struggle...

https://www.wpr.org/small-wisconsin-towns-paved-roads-return...

Many places in the US spent and borrowed to build infrastructure without budgeting for long-term maintenance; they also encouraged development patterns (e.g. suburban sprawl) that are cheap to build, but quite expensive when you take into account the long-term maintenance requirements.

This is a problem even in more urban areas, which is why lots of urbanists (including Strong Towns) advocate cutting back on new road construction, and taking into account the local tax base before building out infrastructure.

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/1/22/paved-with-goo...

https://www.strongtowns.org/nonewroads

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#12

Post by dillonmckay »

ryanar wrote: post #2

I feel like I am missing something here, a mile of road in a rural area costs $1,500,000 to reconstruct? How do small towns afford to maintain their roads?? Perhaps there are many costs that don't inflate as the number of miles increases, like the equipment needed to break down and repave the roads?

So, first it depends if the area ever experiences freezing temperatures.

Living in a small town, our roads are in poor shape.

Additionally, we have a US highway that cuts through the center of town.

The state administers the maintenance of that particular road, so we have had incidents where the state will hire contractors to modify the sidewalks along the highway, to make them ADA compliant, but not coordinate w the city.

So, the city winds up ripping up the sidewalks, because of an infrastructure upgrade for the water system.

So, short answer, we don’t maintain our roads.

Unless you have a really good tax base, the money just is not there.

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#13

Post by [deleted] »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #6
ryanar wrote: post #2

I feel like I am missing something here, a mile of road in a rural area costs $1,500,000 to reconstruct? How do small towns afford to maintain their roads?? Perhaps there are many costs that don't inflate as the number of miles increases, like the equipment needed to break down and repave the roads?

Seems public infrastructure in the US is run like health care. Very expensive, lots of hidden middlemen, not so great results.

[deleted]

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#14

Post by Eric_WVGG »

dougweltman wrote: post #7

This does not address a larger question: how much does a mile of road cost to keep ? This is the installed base question. Consider the amount of road that has been built out in the US relative to the populations that road is serving. Maintenance and expansion is paid out mainly from state and local taxes. That's an enormous civilizational overhead the US contends with, not to mention the economic cost of a large port…

This reminds me of a blog post about the unsustainability of suburbs — https://mikethemadbiologist.com/2017/03/20/the-fiscal-unsust...

Even if this $1.5m figure is wildly inflated, calculate how few people live on a given mile in the suburbs, a conservative estimate on how much it costs to maintain a road, and the numbers just don't add up.

The suburbs were a ponzi scheme and the bottom is about to fall out.

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#15

Post by melling »

Major urbanized is incredibly expensive. Tens of millions...

I read somewhere that China spends $30 million per mile of high-speed rail. 22,000 miles and counting.

The US is going to bankrupt itself trying to modernize its aging infrastructure.

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#16

Post by dillonmckay »

davideous wrote: post #9
ryanar wrote: post #2

I feel like I am missing something here, a mile of road in a rural area costs $1,500,000 to reconstruct? How do small towns afford to maintain their roads?? Perhaps there are many costs that don't inflate as the number of miles increases, like the equipment needed to break down and repave the roads?

My small town resurfaced (grinding and re-paving) 5/12ths of a mile for about $100,000. That's about $240,000 per mile. Or actually $120,000 per "lane-mile". However, we could only afford it because we got a grant from the state. Our annual town budget could not afford the road maintenance.

What is your town’s population size?

Do you experience freezing temperatures?

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#17

Post by wiredfool »

oneplane wrote: post #8

I wonder what the numbers are like in west EU as a comparison.

That would be an interesting question. My experience is that there's a lot more chip seal on smaller roads as a refurbishment (tar + a thin layer of gravel) rather than hot asphalt paving. It's a lot cheaper, but doesn't last as long.

Motorways in France and Germany seem to be repaved more often, and billiard table smooth in a lot of cases.

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#18

Post by zdragnar »

ryanar wrote: post #2

I feel like I am missing something here, a mile of road in a rural area costs $1,500,000 to reconstruct? How do small towns afford to maintain their roads?? Perhaps there are many costs that don't inflate as the number of miles increases, like the equipment needed to break down and repave the roads?

Since rural roads get significantly less traffic, they require less maintenance (Though get similar amounts of frost heave damage). Maintenance is often just filling in potholes and cracks, with occasional resurfacing.

Of course, there are a ton of non-local funding that gets drawn from:

- federal and state gas taxes

- state vehicle registration fees (varying by type and weight of vehicle)

- state, county and municipal specific property, income and / or sales taxes

As for highways, there is the federal highway trust, and grants and loans can be taken out to pay for them, but that typically does not fall on the town's shoulders alone (if at all).

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#19

Post by redis_mlc »

burlesona wrote: post #10
ryanar wrote: post #2

I feel like I am missing something here, a mile of road in a rural area costs $1,500,000 to reconstruct? How do small towns afford to maintain their roads?? Perhaps there are many costs that don't inflate as the number of miles increases, like the equipment needed to break down and repave the roads?

You're not missing something: they can't afford it, which is why roads are increasingly in poor condition. The trick is, communities can usually get outside subsidy (state and federal) for _expansion_ projects. So when the road breaks down and they don't have local money to fix it, one of the strategies is to go to the higher level government for an "economic development" project to get outside money to pay for the r…

In more detail, the old suburb requiring maintenance tries to raise taxes for it, so buyers skip it and buy in the newest suburb.

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#20

Post by Polylactic_acid »

I'm planning to live a car free life soon. I'll be moving in to the city so almost everything is within walking distance and just about everything is accessable via public transport. The only thing I haven't been able work out is how I will continue to go mtn biking since bikes aren't allowed on the bus. But I just can't justify the massive expense of owning a car and a car park for one activity.
Post reply on HN