7 ms·
Just some back-of-the-envelope calculations: Louisiana population 4.65M Lafayette population 126k Miles of road in Lousiana: 130k (https://blog.cubitplanning
by vannevar 6y ago
Just some back-of-the-envelope calculations:
Louisiana population 4.65M
Lafayette population 126k
Miles of road in Lousiana: 130k (https://blog.cubitplanning.com/2010/02/road-miles-by-state/ https://blog.cubitplanning.com/2010/02/road-miles-by-state/)
Assume Lafayette's share of road miles is proportional to population, and you get around 3500 miles of roadway around Lafayette. Minimum paved road construction cost is ~$2M/mile, according to https://www.artba.org/about/faq/#:~:text=Construct%20a%20new%202%2Dlane,per%20mile%20in%20urban%20areas https://www.artba.org/about/faq/#:~:text=Construct%20a%20new....
So a very conservative road replacement estimate for Lafayette is about $7B, and that's just the roads. The Strongtowns figure may be off, but it's likely the right order of magnitude.
- xyzzyz 6y agoFor existing roads, you will not be reconstructing them from scratch. Instead, you will be repaving them, leaving subgrade as is. This brings a cost down order of magnitude below what Strong Towns claims.
- treis 6y agoNo, it's obviously wrong. 7 billion is spending the entire city budget on just roads for 12 years. Stretching that to a 40 year timeline means that Lafayette would have had to spend ~25% of their budget on building roads alone for your figure to be accurate. They didn't so your number is wrong.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- vannevar 6y agoYou're assuming that the city had to pay for the roads entirely themselves, which of course they didn't. My intent was not to explain how Lafayette paid for their roads, it was only to say that the $32B replacement figure was plausible.