> $12.6 billion: The amount Collin County says it needs to spend on new roads in the next 30 years. Why should we accept that roads should be that expensive? [

> $12.6 billion: The amount Collin County says it needs to spend on new roads in the next 30 years. Why should we accept that roads should be that expensive? [1] is an article that provides a good overview of the rise in construction costs that eventually stalled new highway construction projects. One can imagine this trend in costs being reversed: in particular, 1) we should be able to reduce labor requirements through relaxation of work rules, 2) streamline community and environmental review to reduce administrative costs of construction, and 3) raise revenues with direct usage fees instead of relying on increasingly precarious fuel taxation, decreasing the amount of highway funding that needs to come from the general budget. I feel like a lot of people are too eager to declare that new roads are no longer feasible and that we should adapt society to the degraded transit infrastructure of the future, but this attitude is defeatist and will impose a burden that will fall on everyone in society. Roads are good. Transportation is good. We should be devoting our energies to making roads cheaper, not finding elaborate ways to justify inaction. [1] https://www.accessmagazine.org/fall-1993/why-california-stopped-building-freeways/ https://www.accessmagazine.org/fall-1993/why-california-stop...