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How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

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Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#181

Post by asdff »

slowhand09 wrote: post #57

I think of this as I drive 30ish miles each way to work. 5 miles of surface roads, 19 miles of interstate (2 lanes each way), and 6 miles of surface (2 lanes each way). One cause for increased construction is the need for more capacity. My frequent lament is poor driving habits. We have regular instances of sub-optimal speeds in both lanes. A 65 mph limit and vehicles driving 55mph in both lanes, frequently with 1/4…

It depends on the state. In Ohio you will actually get pulled over all the time for hanging out in the left lane. Not so in California in my experience so far.

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#183

Post by fulafel »

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #20

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.

Taxi?

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#184

Post by asdff »

redis_mlc wrote: post #19
burlesona wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Cleveland is a model for this, but it fits probably all but 4 cities in the U.S.. The city population has been in decline for 50 years while the metro population has been stagnant for 50 years. People just move around to the latest sub division cleared out of the raw forest when the last one starts to get rough around the edges or the school district numbers waiver, then wonder why the city is so anemic and degenerate.

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#185

Post by asdff »

davideous wrote: post #68
Retric wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not that expensive, as long as it’s a planned expense. An acre of land which is large for a town is 43,560 square feet or 208’ x 208’ though you can get significantly narrower along a road. A mile is 5280’ so ballpark that’s 25 per side or 50 properties = 4,800$ per property every say 20 years or 240$ per year.

That stretch of road serves 40 houses. So paving every 20 years works out to $125/year/house. Median home value is $105,000 so that costs 0.12% of home value per year. Not unreasonable if planned for and if other expenses are not chewing up all property tax revenue.

If it winters, you are going to want to pave more often than that. My parents suburban street has similar traffic (read: 40 people driving their car out then back in every day and that's it), and just from the warming and contraction over the course of the year the asphalt starts buckling and falling apart in less than 5 years.

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#186

Post by Stevvo »

habosa wrote: post #178
slowhand09 wrote: post #57

I think of this as I drive 30ish miles each way to work. 5 miles of surface roads, 19 miles of interstate (2 lanes each way), and 6 miles of surface (2 lanes each way). One cause for increased construction is the need for more capacity. My frequent lament is poor driving habits. We have regular instances of sub-optimal speeds in both lanes. A 65 mph limit and vehicles driving 55mph in both lanes, frequently with 1/4…

I recently drove around Spain for 2 weeks. My first significant international driving experience. I was shocked at how seriously they took the rule of only passing on the left. Every single car in the right line was driving slower than every single car in the left. It made driving so much better. The behavior of every car was basically predictable. I've never seen anyone pay much attention to their lane here.

In all of Europe, undertaking is illegal. When we come to the US, driving feels like you are in a third world country.

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#187

Post by asdff »

burfog wrote: post #32
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?

With property lines being about 100 feet apart, that comes to 100 houses. It's just $15,000 per house. The road should last 50 years without heavy truck traffic, making it $3000 per year per house.

If there are winters, a road with zero traffic won't last 10 years. The weather does more damage than traffic for roads in the suburbs of the midwest and northeast.

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#188

Post by asdff »

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #20

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.

You should see if the bus has racks for bikes on the front. Most do in the U.S. at least. Keep the wheel locked to the frame so if someone ambushes the bus for your bike they won't get very far.

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#189

Post by asdff »

AcerbicZero wrote: post #91
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…

Look all you want, but road maintenance costs are primarily a subsidy for the trucking industry, and by extension the businesses that rely on them. Businesses that are primarily located in.....cities. If Middletown USA didn't have to worry about 80,000 lbs trucks hauling kombucha to your local bodega tearing up their roads, perhaps road costs would be a bit more in-line with reality. More importantly if we focused mo…

Traffic on roads could stop tomorrow and you'd still need to resurface the entirety of the road network anywhere with a winter season every 5-10 years. Thermal expansion and contraction are serious forces for infrastructure, outweighing traffic in most places I imagine (if most places aren't large cities). Didn't matter much back when we used brick or dirt.

Re: How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

#190

Post by inferiorhuman »

rayiner wrote: post #86
inferiorhuman wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously this is a very back-of-the-napkin calculation, but it puts things into perspective. You're comparing an all-inclusive capital budget versus simply repaving roads. How much does DC Metro spend on track maintenance annually? How much does Cedar Rapids spend on lighting and signage? How much do Cedar Rapids residents spend on their cars? The average used car payment runs in excess of $4,800 annually. New cars…

Good point--I forgot WMATA is in the middle of major rail car purchases. The 6-year plan for rail systems, track rehabilitation, and stations is $600 million annually. I've updated my numbers above accordingly.

Again you're making an apples to oranges comparison. The metro budget also includes expenditures for bus and paratransit service, station improvements, fare collection modernization, fire alarm upgrades, information technology projects, police services, and so-called "business support investments".

Per the budget the plan is to spend at most $249 million annually (less for most years) on track and structures rehabilitation. That's the closest you'll get to a repaving budget and includes things beyond track maintenance and replacement.

With that in mind the six year plan would call for per-capita spending of between $335 and $620 annually, cheaper than repaving the roads.

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