19 ms·

How Much Does a Mile of Road Cost?

• ryanar 7y ago
  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?
  • epicureanideal 7y ago
    I would be very interested to see the breakdown of raw materials, equipment, labor, and various fees.
    • prawn 7y ago
      Same here. And from that, are there likely to be improvements in the future by automating processes and cutting labour, or finding cheaper materials, or saving on planning or re-routing traffic.
    • beerandt 7y ago
      Most states transportation departments publish spreadsheets with itemized costs for recent bid lettings, as well as quarterly summaries with stats by item number. You need to be familiar with the items specs to know exactly what's included (ie installed cost vs material provided cost, etc), but it's a start.
  • pchristensen 7y ago
    They generally patch the worst spots rather than reconstruct, and accept generally lower quality.
  • bobthepanda 7y ago
    Part of the "ponzi scheme" that Strong Towns likes to talk about is that a lot of the funding comes from state and federal levels. Because the locality no longer is completely tied to the cost of actually building the road, the incentive to cut costs is removed and roads funding is something that local politicians "win" to bring back to their area and show that they've done a good job.
  • Ididntdothis 7y ago
    Seems public infrastructure in the US is run like health care. Very expensive, lots of hidden middlemen, not so great results.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  • davideous 7y ago
    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.
    • dillonmckay 7y ago
      What is your town’s population size? Do you experience freezing temperatures?
      • topspin 7y ago
        Those numbers are inline with my development where we maintain .9 miles of private road with HOA dues; the quotes we've received all orbit around $250-300k for the last several years. Yes we have hard winters. What we don't have is frequent heavy vehicles at speed. The state actually bans certain types of commercial vehicles on specific roads in the spring when road beds are soft. The figures cited in this story seem high. Or maybe they're normal in Illinois or some other state where costs are extraordinary. Their not in line with what I see.
        • dillonmckay 7y ago
          Are you replying to a different comment?
          • topspin 7y ago
            Nope.
      • davideous 7y ago
        Population was 277 at the last census. Yes, we experience freezing temperatures.
    • Retric 7y ago
      That’s not that expensive, as long as it’s a planned expense. An acre of land which is large for a town is 43,560 square feet or 208’ x 208’ though you can get significantly narrower along a road. A mile is 5280’ so ballpark that’s 25 per side or 50 properties = 4,800$ per property every say 20 years or 240$ per year.
  • burlesona 7y ago
    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 road to be widened / expanded. This is true even when the added capacity isn't needed.
    • redis_mlc 7y ago
      In more detail, the old suburb requiring maintenance tries to raise taxes for it, so buyers skip it and buy in the newest suburb.
      • asdff 7y ago
        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.
    • jzwinck 7y ago
      Thereby doubling the cost next time repaving is needed. Oh well, just double the lanes each time the road wears out. In a few generations the problem will go away.
      • wtallis 7y ago
        I can see it playing out as one or two subsidized rounds of widening, and then a subsidy to "modernize" to fewer lanes, but with on-street parking or bike lanes or something like that.
    • dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      Some people see poor condition. I see a municipality that's smart enough not to spend money it doesn't have.
  • azernik 7y ago
    > 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-development-local-roads-edition.html https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2010/1/11/the-cost-of-de... https://www.sdnewswatch.org/stories/small-s-d-towns-struggle-to-fix-aging-streets/ https://www.sdnewswatch.org/stories/small-s-d-towns-struggle... https://www.wpr.org/small-wisconsin-towns-paved-roads-return-gravel 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-good-intentions https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/1/22/paved-with-goo... https://www.strongtowns.org/nonewroads https://www.strongtowns.org/nonewroads
  • dillonmckay 7y ago
    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.
  • zdragnar 7y ago
    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).
    • tomrod 7y ago
      Having lived in the midwest and the south, frost heave has a _major_ impact! Seems like the cycle is 12 years or so on road repavement, but that's anecdotal. Also note there are a _lot_ of grading options available, some as simple as gravel and tar.
      • ryanar 7y ago
        Around where I live they call it stone and oil, and if it is the same thing as gravel and tar, that is the absolute worst way to regrade a road for the consumer. The sound of oil and stones smacking against your car when you unwittingly turned down a road that was recently stone and oiled is awful.
        • timw4mail 7y ago
          Chip-sealing is what I've heard it called
  • rayiner 7y ago
    The relevant number here is the cost to repave, not reconstruct, which is about $330,000-$350,000 per mile for a minor arterial road in a rural or urban area. As to how small towns afford it--you don't repave that often, and you focus efforts on what to repave. For example, Cedar Rapids, Iowa calculated it would cost $500 million over 10 years to repave everything that needs to be repaved: https://www.kcrg.com/content/news/Annual-road-repaving-to-start-next-week-in-Cedar-Rapids-507227201.html https://www.kcrg.com/content/news/Annual-road-repaving-to-st.... Cedar Rapids has about 53,000 households, so that's about $943 per household per year. To put that into perspective, we can do a calculation. 18% of DC metro area commuters use Metrorail. If you take 18% of the 2.2 million DC metro households, that's about 400,000 households (roughly) using Metrorail. The rail capital budget is about $1 billion annually, so about $2,500 per household per year. Excluding the cost of new rail cars, its about $1,500 per household. (Obviously this is a very back-of-the-napkin calculation, but it puts things into perspective.) [1] https://www.wmata.com/initiatives/budget/upload/FY19-Proposed-Budget.pdf https://www.wmata.com/initiatives/budget/upload/FY19-Propose... (p. 76)
    • notatoad 7y ago
      the "$2,5000" typo is an extra 0, not a comma in the wrong place. $1b/400k = $2500 per household for more perspective, cedar rapids average income is $54,465 per household, compared to $99,669 for the DC metro area.
      • rayiner 7y ago
        Thanks, yes, the extra zero was a typo.
    • Drunk_Engineer 7y ago
      That's a very apples-oranges comparison. DC commuters benefit from Metrorail even if they don't use it. And the Metrorail capital budget is for much more than just trackway (i.e. railcars, buses, parking garages, etc).
      • zaroth 7y ago
  • burfog 7y ago
    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.
    • ip26 7y ago
      $3000 per year per house In other words completely out of reach of the kind of town we're talking about?
      • redis_mlc 7y ago
        In other words, a complete change of the town council in the next election. :)
      • njarboe 7y ago
        $300 per year per house, I believe.
      • Dylan16807 7y ago
        Look at the math again, it's $300 and they made a typo. That's affordable.
    • projektfu 7y ago
      You’re not discounting properly. It’s more like $500-600 per year because of the time value of money and inflation. Replacement costs are $300 this year, but initial construction is $500 this year because it’s on a bond. Maintenance isn’t included. The surface isn’t really going to last 50 years without looking like Fallout 2. So tack on another hundred. All of this becomes expensive for single family homes to support. The revenue per area is just so low.
    • asdff 7y ago
      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.
  • vkou 7y ago
    > How do small towns afford to maintain their roads? They make developers build them on the developer's dime, and then the roads don't need maintenance for a decade. As long as your suburb keeps growing, the pain of maintaining decade-old roads can be offset by the increase in your tax base. Once your suburb stops growing, you find yourself a mile down crap creek with no shovel.
  • ip26 7y ago
    There's always the humble dirt road, perhaps with a little crushed gravel. Regrading it periodically is not free but with low traffic levels dirt can be cheaper.
    • einpoklum 7y ago
      So, you're saying it can really be dirt cheap? (... sorry, I couldn't pass up on that one.)
  • not_kurt_godel 7y ago
    Cities pay for rural areas, hand over fist: https://www.brookings.edu/research/why-rural-america-needs-cities/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/why-rural-america-needs-c... That's how.
  • peter303 7y ago
    In the US road costs are split among the three levels of government. Unfortunately road/fuel taxes at the federal and state level have not increased this century, resulting in a huge maintenance backlog.
  • imtringued 7y ago
    Unmaintained asphalt roads are still better than unmaintained dirt roads.
• dougweltman 7y ago
  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 portion of household capital being tied up in rapidly depreciating assets: cars. I'm looking at you, suburbia.
  • maxerickson 7y ago
    Yeah, my town resurfaces streets either when they qualify for federal funds or when it is an emergency.
  • Eric_WVGG 7y ago
    This reminds me of a blog post about the unsustainability of suburbs — https://mikethemadbiologist.com/2017/03/20/the-fiscal-unsustainability-of-sprawl/ 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.
    • kazinator 7y ago
      Or maybe how much road costs in the USA is a bit of a strawman version of how much road costs. Come on, some remote villages in the third world have paved roads to them.
      • Retric 7y ago
        The third world has a lot more miles of dirt roads than paved roads. The slightly more expencive gravel roads are fine for suburban cul-de-sac‘a / side streets that don’t get that much traffic.
        • 7y ago
• oneplane 7y ago
  I wonder what the numbers are like in west EU as a comparison.
  • wiredfool 7y ago
    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.
    • nickik 7y ago
      France has private-ish roads that are quite expensive. So does italy, there you have to often literally pay a human everytime you get of the highway. This leads to many people driving on small roads, polluting and wearing down those roads. Not sure about Germany, but they just have a super strong car lobby in general, and its one of their national pride things, so they tend to find money for that. Here in Switzerland we have a very high gas price, but that leads to many people going for gas outside of Switzerland and we have no idea what to do when EVy really take off. The true cost of those roads is hidden in the 'normality' of the high gas prices. Roads are a tricky problem, not just for libertarians.
  • donjoe 7y ago
    In Germany, a km of Autobahn costs ~10M € which is around 16M €/mile [0]. An Autobahn built in/towards a city tend to get way more expensive. [0] https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/bundesregierung-plant-teuersten-autobahnabschnitt-aller-zeiten-a-1087460.html https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/bundesregierung-p...
  • jaclaz 7y ago
    The rule of thumb in Western EU (mind you it is only an order of magnitude and may vary) for a 10 meter wide road (think one way highway two lanes+emergency lane 2x3.75+2.50=10 or an extraurban road 2x3.50+2x1.50=10) is usually considered: plain road (on terrain) € 10,000,000 x km viaduct/bridges € 20,000,000 x km tunnel € 30,000,000 x km with a variation of up to -15% or -20% in countries where workmanship and materials are cheaper and + 15% or + 20% in the more expensive ones.
• melling 7y ago
  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.
  • gbrown 7y ago
    Not if we bankrupt ourselves cutting taxes for the rich first!
  • Polylactic_acid 7y ago
    The price of rail is pretty good when you consider the capacity. That single rail line is replacing at least 6 lanes of highway and would get people to their destination safer and faster with less air pollution which is a major issue they are trying to tackle.
    • MiracleUser 7y ago
      (ime) Trains only get you to your destination faster if your destination is a train station
      • Polylactic_acid 7y ago
        In a high density area like a city its basically always faster. Also faster if you are going long distances and can benefit from the 200km/h+ speeds. Probably doesn't work in some urban sprawl American suburb but for more sensible layouts its the best option. Also the best for the environment.
        • MiracleUser 7y ago
          >Probably doesn't work in some urban sprawl American suburb yep, hi. It's also the same kind of area where road maintenance is the highest problem. Lot's of road wear and tear, and not enough funding to maintain properly
      • 7y ago
• Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  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.
  • nickik 7y ago
    You can rent a car for a one day trip.
  • jedberg 7y ago
    I know lots of car free people in the city who just rent a car for weekend trips. Still cheaper than owning a car.
    • Polylactic_acid 7y ago
      That actually sounds like a really good idea for camping trips and such.
    • nightfly 7y ago
      Living car-free for about 5 years I _dreaded_ whenever I'd need to rent a car. Cars that were good enough for rural driving were $$$ and often not available, so I was stuck with super compact cars for $$. Plus the whole experience of renting cars is awful. And that was with renting a car ~3 times per year. If I wanted even monthly trips it would have been cheaper to buy a car and park it the rest of the time.
    • _jal 7y ago
      Also less stress. I use Zipcar for random errands and rent one for overnight trips. Last year I think I spent around $1500 on cars, all in. Zipcars are parked nearby, probably closer than I'd find a parking spot on average and basically always available. The rental place I use is 1/4 mile away. They know me by name. I never move a car for street cleaning, deal with a busted window, or pay tickets. If you don't need one for work, or have mobility issues or kids, they're entirely optional and (at least to me) life is better without them.
• glangdale 7y ago
  This is interesting information, but from the perspective of a high-value urban area, even these fairly eye-watering numbers are a understatement. The capital represented both as infrastructure and forgone real estate usage (i.e. yes, we need roads, but building more roads than we need diverts incredibly valuable real estate from other purposes) is huge. I'm always amused here in Australia when governments like to make the spending on roads and the amount raised through petrol taxes and registration fees "balance out". Uhhh, ok, you're sitting on billions of dollars worth of capital and you're patting yourselves on the back that it's "breaking even".
  • nightski 7y ago
    Sure it's breaking even if you consider the utility of the roads to be equal to the taxed value of petrol. But it's likely far greater than that.
    • lmm 7y ago
      The point is that the value created and not captured by the government (at a cost of billions of dollars of what could otherwise be working capital, so effectively being paid for by taxpayers) is effectively a subsidy, and this particular subsidy may not be fairly distributed.
  • asdff 7y ago
    When they built the harbor freeway alone (a half a block wide and 20 miles long), LA razed nearly 100,000 of some of the most affordable homes in the city in the process.
  • beerandt 7y ago
    I'm not sure what you're gunning for here. Spending road money on other projects? Or that real estate used for roads is somehow removed from the overall real estate market (in the active commerce sense, not active listing sense)? If it's a new project, even if land is behind expropriated, the market value is being paid. (I assume, bring Australia) So it does balance out, even in land value. For appreciated value, it doesn't occur in a vacuum. The local transportation is factored in to the market rates for property. So I'm not sure in what sense you don't see it as balanced out. Or what you'd like to see as the alternative.
• WhompingWindows 7y ago
  Are expensive roads really needed? What if we see a gradual decline in roadway expenditures in the USA, transitioning our economy to involve less driving and more work from home, deliveries via drone/efficient vehicle, promote self-sufficiency, not to mention biking, walking, trains, etc...my point is maybe we won't need/use roads as much as we do now. One would hope so, but it seems our VMT is going up over time whilst people are locking in very expensive, long-term car purchases.
  • markbnj 7y ago
    There are roads in our county in New Jersey that have been transitioned from paved back to gravel, presumably based on usage and the anticipated savings from maintaining gravel over asphalt. I'm not a civil engineer and I don't know what all the tradeoffs are, but it seems to me that we're either going to have to admit we can't afford so much paving, or we're going to have to agree to pay higher taxes.
    • toast0 7y ago
      The primary downside of gravel is reduced speed, additional downsides are probably some additional vehicle wear, and lower suitability for heavy vehicle. Also, it's louder, and flung gravel can be a hazard, and it's not great for bikes. The upsides are reduced cost of building, maintenance, and equipment, and better water permiability. Reduced speeds can be a benefit depending on the application.
    • nemo44x 7y ago
      What’s interesting about this is NJ is the most densely populated state and has a high income level generally speaking. And some of the highest taxes in the country, especially property tax. I suspect NJ loses a lot of tax dollars from commuters that work in NYC or Philadelphia and pay income tax in those states. Regardless the state brings in a lot of revenue. I suspect the pension obligations are the real killer here.
    • prawn 7y ago
      Or find a cheaper way to create/maintain roads?
• dillonmckay 7y ago
  Are there any sustainable road construction technologies and materials that do not rely on petrochemicals?
  • Polylactic_acid 7y ago
    Cobblestone.
  • lukasm 7y ago
    Concrete is pretty much the only alternative that can handle 40+ tonnes trucks and be cost effective. It will last longer, but it's more expensive to build - could be cheaper on the long run. You get a bit more tire noise and less traction than on the asphalt.
    • ip26 7y ago
      Less repairable as well.
      • jankiehodgpodge 7y ago
        Terrible in the rain too.
    • jhloa2 7y ago
      Freeze/thaw cycles seem to absolutely destroy the few segments of concrete roads we have around here. They don't seem to last more than 2 winters.
      • jdsully 7y ago
        Many freeways around Toronto use concrete and according to the MTO it is cheaper. But the deciding factor appears to be the number of trucks passing the stretch of road. Concretes durability under weight more than offsets the decay from weather.
        • jhloa2 7y ago
• slowhand09 7y ago
  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 of open lane ahead. Vehicles behind begin to crowd and we experience the slinky effect. After 3 years we add another lane. And the cycle continues. Driver education used to emphasize keeping right except to pass. I think this isn't taught anymore.
  • rahimnathwani 7y ago
    I was surprised to read this in the California DMV driver handbook: "If you can choose among three lanes, pick the middle lane for the smoothest driving." When I learned to drive (in the UK), the official guidance was to stay in the left-most lane except when overtaking. And then, after overtaking, to immediately return to the left lane.
    • skybrian 7y ago
      That's still mostly true in the US for the more rural areas. Interstate highways often have two lanes in each direction. For denser areas with multilane highways that are entirely in use, the best you can say is that the people in the passing lane probably want to go faster. :-)
    • shaftway 7y ago
      That feels pretty legit to me. I don't remember reading that, but when I drive a car and I've got more than 2 lanes to choose from, I usually end up in the middle. The right lane always has people merging, either to enter or exit, or trucks lumbering along at 45. The left lane always has someone wanting to do 90 in a 55. Middle is the smoothest, from a traffic flow perspective. On a motorcycle it's all about riding between the left-most and its neighbor. More cars expect you there because most motorcycles ride there, so they make more room. The next lane-line is a death trap, from cars in the second lane moving over for a motorcyclist over there.
• lifeisstillgood 7y ago
  Is there a Primer / tldr for Strong Towns? I kind of get the basic idea (maintaining town infrastructure sometimes exceeds revenue) but I was looking for "start here" but don't seem to be able to find it
  • greenonions 7y ago
    https://www.strongtowns.org/mission https://www.strongtowns.org/mission This is a pretty good wrap up of what the Strong Towns thing is about.
  • burlesona 7y ago
    If you're genuinely interested, the recently published book "Strong Towns" is the best possible primer. It's not long, and covers the core ideas behind the movement in enough detail to understand how it all hangs together.
  • guynamedloren 7y ago
    https://www.strongtowns.org/newcomers https://www.strongtowns.org/newcomers
• basicplus2 7y ago
  Depends upon if the work has been privitised or is in government hands
• TomMckenny 7y ago
  It would also be interesting to know how many dollars per man hour.
• hamilyon2 7y ago
  I was always puzzled by how do English-speaking folk communicate such matter clearly? I mean the word "cost". It has two meanings: basically all expenditure that is associated with something or it might mean agreed upon price of product. That was interesting data set, and here by "cost" I guess "price" is meant. How much margin/profits is included in it?
  • asdff 7y ago
    > How much margin/profits is included in it? That's where it starts getting dubious. Technically, all roads and transit are built at a great loss on paper. However, connecting locations connects people and enables economic activity, so there is definitely a 'profit' per se but it would be difficult to quantify precisely.
• fulafel 7y ago
  This table doesn't include the land cost which dominates in places where land is scarce.
• alpb 7y ago
  USA is definitely a high labor cost market. The throughput per unit time from each worker is probably much lower compared to developing countries. I am actually more interested in seeing highway cost/mi. stats for each developed and developing country. If anyone got links, I appreciate.
• __m 7y ago
  Elon will do it for 10% of the cost, it will have the size of a sidewalk /s