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There's a road near me that's been replaced by a large 4 lane state route. There's almost no reason to drive it as there are no houses or farm access. The bridg

There's a road near me that's been replaced by a large 4 lane state route. There's almost no reason to drive it as there are no houses or farm access. The bridge is being completely replaced. The road is closed during construction, and I think the only people impacted by it are the recreational bikers. A boondoggle while other bridges around the country are in dangerous disrepair. I wish we knew there was a sensible prioritization that was published for review by we the taxpayers.

erikaww 2y ago
Yes! I want a cost benefit analysis and to ask every stakeholder imaginable for any sort of road repair or expansion. The fact that not every repair or expansion has a single improvement for non car users is pitiful. We need to hold road infrastructure to the same consideration as we do transit and rail. If we didn’t give it unlimited funding, then it would already be doing this. We are wasting trillions and losing so much economic growth by doubling down on a bad investment year after year for decades. Imagine if this money was put into education or healthcare or transit. We’d actually have a net benefit!
- gottorf 2y ago
  > Imagine if this money was put into education or healthcare or transit. We’d actually have a net benefit! Based on the evidence, it's hard to imagine that lack of money is the problem with those three things. K-12 education in particular has seen more and more money spent over the decades while the number of students, teachers, and student outcomes have stayed more or less constant (the extra money mostly goes to administrators to administrate the extra money). Higher ed has gotten famously more expensive while delivering a poorer product, with grade inflation and recently a focus on worthless social activism diluting what it means to have a college degree at all. On healthcare, the US already spends close to one-fifth of its GDP on it. Its per capita spend is over 50% higher than the next-highest country, Switzerland. And what do we have to show for this, other than an obesity rate exceeding one-third the population and diminishing life expectancies? I don't know how more money could possibly help this situation. Transit only makes sense in a few cities (largely due to idiotic zoning that prevents the kind of densities that would enable transit) and even then, if you look at things like NYC's East Side Access project, it would be hard-pressed for a public works project to spend taxpayer money less efficiently. And to truly improve the transit experience would require a concomitant improvement in the social fabric, which is its own set of problems.
bombcar 2y ago
A big part of that is who pays - state and federal dollars that are unused go away, so they often find a program that can use it, even if it's not the best use of funds locally. Local roads often don't qualify, but state and federal highways do.

erikaww 2y ago

Yes! I want a cost benefit analysis and to ask every stakeholder imaginable for any sort of road repair or expansion. The fact that not every repair or expansion has a single improvement for non car users is pitiful. We need to hold road infrastructure to the same consideration as we do transit and rail. If we didn’t give it unlimited funding, then it would already be doing this. We are wasting trillions and losing so much economic growth by doubling down on a bad investment year after year for decades. Imagine if this money was put into education or healthcare or transit. We’d actually have a net benefit!

gottorf 2y ago
> Imagine if this money was put into education or healthcare or transit. We’d actually have a net benefit! Based on the evidence, it's hard to imagine that lack of money is the problem with those three things. K-12 education in particular has seen more and more money spent over the decades while the number of students, teachers, and student outcomes have stayed more or less constant (the extra money mostly goes to administrators to administrate the extra money). Higher ed has gotten famously more expensive while delivering a poorer product, with grade inflation and recently a focus on worthless social activism diluting what it means to have a college degree at all. On healthcare, the US already spends close to one-fifth of its GDP on it. Its per capita spend is over 50% higher than the next-highest country, Switzerland. And what do we have to show for this, other than an obesity rate exceeding one-third the population and diminishing life expectancies? I don't know how more money could possibly help this situation. Transit only makes sense in a few cities (largely due to idiotic zoning that prevents the kind of densities that would enable transit) and even then, if you look at things like NYC's East Side Access project, it would be hard-pressed for a public works project to spend taxpayer money less efficiently. And to truly improve the transit experience would require a concomitant improvement in the social fabric, which is its own set of problems.

bombcar 2y ago

A big part of that is who pays - state and federal dollars that are unused go away, so they often find a program that can use it, even if it's not the best use of funds locally. Local roads often don't qualify, but state and federal highways do.