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The premise of the argument is that Collin county needs to spend $12.6 billion on roads over the next 30 years, but no citation is provided for that number. The

The premise of the argument is that Collin county needs to spend $12.6 billion on roads over the next 30 years, but no citation is provided for that number. The authors managed to have found citations for most of the other numbers. I suspect the $12.6 billion figure was not calculated using the same set of assumptions about inflation as the other numbers. Edit: Over 30 years, $230 million / year with a 4% annual escalator is about $12.9 billion in total spending. Lets assume that Plano's $343 million / year in spending for 30% of county residents is consistent with other cities and add in the $381 million / year spent by the county. Then the required local highway spending is about 15% of the total ~1.5 billion spent by all local governments. Perhaps it is a large amount of money, but spending 15% of the local budget on highways does not seem like an insurmountable burden on local taxpayers.

secabeen 8y ago
It's in the linked Dallas News article: > County Commissioner Duncan Webb told business leaders at a forum Wednesday that the county will need $13 billion for roads over the next three or four decades. Later Wednesday, former Commissioner Mark Reid, during a presentation to the Frisco Tea Party, said the figure is $12.6 billion. So not malicious or misleading at all. ST is using the commissioners own numbers.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  So is it 30 or 40 years? Constant or future dollars? Capital or operational spending? Local or Federal expense? It’s a dumb number to quote and was cherry picked to make a point. All local governments in New York combined spent around $3B in 2009 ( https://www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/pubs/research/snapshot/highwayspending.pdf https://www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/pubs/research/snapshot/... ) as a comparison.
  - xyzzyz 8y ago
    $3B a year is $90B over 30 years, in constant dollars. Your point is?
- denormalfloat 8y ago
  Using arithmetic average of $420 million a year is incorrect, because inflation is exponential. Conservatively estimating 2% inflation and holding all else equal, that comes out to about $312 million for year 1, $318m for year two, etc. This comes out to about $12.6 billion over 30 years. bmurray7jhu is right to call out this mistake, because TFA says $381m is the current yearly budget, which is actually enough to fund it. (other issues not withstanding). Messing this calculation up makes me question the rest of the TFA's integrity.
pmorici 8y ago
The $12.6 billion number was stated by government officials and is cited in the Dallas News article[0] linked on that page. "County Commissioner Duncan Webb told business leaders at a forum Wednesday that the county will need $13 billion for roads over the next three or four decades. Later Wednesday, former Commissioner Mark Reid, during a presentation to the Frisco Tea Party, said the figure is $12.6 billion." [0] https://www.dallasnews.com/news/collin-county/2018/09/13/transportation-bonds-small-bite-collin-countys-13-billion-future-highway-needs-officials-say https://www.dallasnews.com/news/collin-county/2018/09/13/tra...

secabeen 8y ago

It's in the linked Dallas News article: > County Commissioner Duncan Webb told business leaders at a forum Wednesday that the county will need $13 billion for roads over the next three or four decades. Later Wednesday, former Commissioner Mark Reid, during a presentation to the Frisco Tea Party, said the figure is $12.6 billion. So not malicious or misleading at all. ST is using the commissioners own numbers.

Spooky23 8y ago
So is it 30 or 40 years? Constant or future dollars? Capital or operational spending? Local or Federal expense? It’s a dumb number to quote and was cherry picked to make a point. All local governments in New York combined spent around $3B in 2009 ( https://www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/pubs/research/snapshot/highwayspending.pdf https://www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/pubs/research/snapshot/... ) as a comparison.
- xyzzyz 8y ago
  $3B a year is $90B over 30 years, in constant dollars. Your point is?
denormalfloat 8y ago
Using arithmetic average of $420 million a year is incorrect, because inflation is exponential. Conservatively estimating 2% inflation and holding all else equal, that comes out to about $312 million for year 1, $318m for year two, etc. This comes out to about $12.6 billion over 30 years. bmurray7jhu is right to call out this mistake, because TFA says $381m is the current yearly budget, which is actually enough to fund it. (other issues not withstanding). Messing this calculation up makes me question the rest of the TFA's integrity.

pmorici 8y ago

The $12.6 billion number was stated by government officials and is cited in the Dallas News article[0] linked on that page. "County Commissioner Duncan Webb told business leaders at a forum Wednesday that the county will need $13 billion for roads over the next three or four decades. Later Wednesday, former Commissioner Mark Reid, during a presentation to the Frisco Tea Party, said the figure is $12.6 billion." [0] https://www.dallasnews.com/news/collin-county/2018/09/13/transportation-bonds-small-bite-collin-countys-13-billion-future-highway-needs-officials-say https://www.dallasnews.com/news/collin-county/2018/09/13/tra...