report: "highway boondoggles"

[johndoe]

This is an interesting read whether or not you agree with everything in it:

http://www.uspirg.org/reports/usp/highway-boondoggles

Thought some of you would enjoy.  I didn't see it posted previously.

[Brandon]

I call bullshit.  They list the Illiana even though the road is meant for the increasing numbers of trucks to and from two very large and growing intermodal centers.

It's more like a list of what they don't like.

[pianocello]

It looks like the writer's main beef basically boils down to this:

U.S. federal, state and local governments spent roughly as much money on highway expansion projects in 2010 as they did a decade earlier, despite a dramatic change in anticipated future growth in driving.

I don't see a problem with this, though. What if the projections are wrong? It's impossible to accurately project the amount of driving that takes place, so condemning projects that will make more sense in the future than it does now just doesn't make sense.

As far as the individual projects go, the ones that I know of are definitely needed. These writers have clearly never been on the current Alaskan Way Viaduct, US 93 in Arizona, or tried to merge off of the Borman Expressway in NW Indiana.

[DevalDragon]

The Illiana Expressway is going to be a boondoggle. No truck driver would ever go out of their way to get on a toll road.

If they were to connect the Illiana to I-94 and the Indiana Toll Road it could work. But if a trucker has to fight to get through Lake Station, they'll just take the cheaper way and stay on 80/94.

A longer route with more expensive tolls? Makes no sense.

I call bullshit.  They list the Illiana even though the road is meant for the increasing numbers of trucks to and from two very large and growing intermodal centers.

It's more like a list of what they don't like.

[SteveG1988]

The Illiana Expressway is going to be a boondoggle. No truck driver would ever go out of their way to get on a toll road.

If they were to connect the Illiana to I-94 and the Indiana Toll Road it could work. But if a trucker has to fight to get through Lake Station, they'll just take the cheaper way and stay on 80/94.

A longer route with more expensive tolls? Makes no sense.

I call bullshit.  They list the Illiana even though the road is meant for the increasing numbers of trucks to and from two very large and growing intermodal centers.

It's more like a list of what they don't like.

Sometimes if you're coming up from the south it would make sense. For example i went from Lima OH to Joliet IL, US30 to I-65 and then 80 was the most "efficent" route in terms of miles. My company doesn't want me to go 10% over what they say for miles. When a truck gets 6-8 mpg it matters if one way is 30 mi shorter, or bypasses major traffic. I would use this if i were connecting to the Indiana Toll Road, as it would bypass the city. Normally i'd be taking I-57 though.

[jeffandnicole]

While they stress that transportation departments should work on fixing existing bridges and roads, some of these construction projects assist with that work anyway, while adding additional capacity.

Also note that while they talk about the driving boom that occurred 6 or so years ago, they would've been promoting mass transit options at the time anyway.  And they don't say traffic volumes have gone down since then, but rather leveled off, so many of the projects are still needed regardless.

[mukade]

I call bullshit.  They list the Illiana even though the road is meant for the increasing numbers of trucks to and from two very large and growing intermodal centers.

It's more like a list of what they don't like.

As a former resident of Northwest Indiana, I had hoped the original plans where it would have been routed several miles north would have come to fruition. As it stands, this current proposed route will have a tough time getting sufficient traffic volume, IMO. First, unlike the majority of other Chicago area tollways, this will not carry any commuters. It is an exurban bypass for intercity traffic. I am assuming the tolls would be quite high because of lower volume.

I now live in Central Indiana and travel to Chicago's western, northwestern, and north shore suburbs from time to time and hate driving the Borman. I still would never use it unless: 1) I was on expense account, 2) heard there were major backups (construction or accident), 3) was running late to an appointment, or 4) to avoid lake effect snow.

I can understand that from a Will County economy perspective, it sounds good, but that does not justify to overall project to me. I think Illinois likes it because it would serve the even bigger boondoggle - the Peotone Airport. I am not sure why INDOT likes it. I'd like to see something done on the south end of Lake Michigan, but not the current Illiana plan. It seems to me that an Illinois 394 extension southward to a better east-west route to I-65 would be ideal to improve the chokepoint south of Lake Michigan.

Others on the list:
Widening I-94 through Detroit, Michigan, $2.7 billion: I don't know what the plans are - perhaps there are some extravagant features, but the road does need to be re-designed and re-built. I know Michigan does tend to do unnecessary projects (like the wholesale move to Clearview signage and I thought I saw illustrations of the project showing unnecessary ornate features) so I would guess there might be some fluff in there.

Interstate 11, Arizona and Nevada, $2.5 billion: Looking at a map, I cannot see how this need to be a freeway for the full length. I have driven some desert highways around Las Vegas, and they did not seem to be crying out for full freeway upgrades. I can see incremental upgrades in key areas as needed. This really seems to be another manifestation of people wanting the magical Interstate designation - as far as I can tell, the proponents want that more. To me, you should not always need a full freeway standard to get an Interstate designation. It does seem like a waste.

I don't know enough about the rest, but s do suspect they are generally over-priced at least. I am surprised I-69 from Memphis to Shreveport and the wasteful three southern legs aren't listed.

[triplemultiplex]

Big focus on urban projects for sure.  The superfluous existing plans for I-69 probably didn't make the cut because it's all chopped up into pieces, many of which are stagnant or unfunded.

While we can debate the merits of individual projects to our hearts content, I can't help but focus on the plateauing statistics about how much Americans are actually driving.  Some of that is rising prices of petroleum, some of it was the recession, but some of it has got to be a shift in lifestyle.  The models DOT's have been using to forecast traffic volumes are going to have to adapt.  The curves are changing.

At the same time, however, there is aging infrastructure in need of replacement.  Safety expectations demand that some of those freeways be redesigned to modern standards.  So it's not a simply matter of cancelling some of these projects or rebuilding as-is.

For the record, here's my opinion of the 11 projects singled out by the article:

Alaska Way: Big Dig west, only less useful

Tesoro thing in SoCal: never heard of it

I-11: Useful in the long term, but there's no rush.

Trinity Pkwy: Don't know anything about it.

HOT lanes on CO 470: Don't know enough.

Double-Decking I-94 in MKE: They've got an option for squeezing 8 substandard lanes in that gap so do that if we want to save some cash.

Widening I-94 through Detroit: Do they really need to widen a freeway in a city that's hemorrhaging population?

The Illiana: Completely useless unless it serves an I-80 bypass.

Opportunity Corridor:  Not even a freeway so I don't know why it made the list.

Effingham Pkwy:  Is this that "Interstate-Dale Earnhart" nonsense?  I don't know this.

I-26:  Is the existing situation that untenable in Asheville?  The geometrics of that interchange are better than almost every system interchange in New England.

[roadman]

Biggest highway boondoggle that didn't make the list but should have - sound barriers on existing roads where no other major work such as widening is being done.  Nearly a million dollars per half-mile to install, and they don't give drivers a single benefit - yet they are paid for out of state and Federal highway funds.

Just another example of the legalized extortion that's called "mitigation".

[oscar]

Biggest highway boondoggle that didn't make the list but should have - sound barriers.  Nearly a million dollars per half-mile to install, and they don't give drivers a single benefit - yet they are paid for out of state and Federal highway funds.

Just another example of the legalized extortion that's called "mitigation".

So you'd rather not build the road at all, if the annoyed neighbors get the road blocked, or force the state/etc. to spend more money than it can afford to buy out the neighbors whose properties would become unusable or fall a lot in value once the freeway is opened?

ISTM sound barriers are a small price to pay, to squeeze a new or widened freeway into a crowded urban/suburban space, while minimizing ROW acquisition costs.

I don't care for the barriers' cutting off drivers' views of their surroundings, but they can't have it all.

[roadman]

I was referring to cases where sound barriers are being installed for the sake of installing them, with no other changes to the adjacent road - and where abutters have lived next to that same road for years or decades.  That is nothing but a WASTE of money, which IMHO qualifies as a boondoggle.

Have updated my original post.

[cpzilliacus]

It looks like the writer's main beef basically boils down to this:

U.S. federal, state and local governments spent roughly as much money on highway expansion projects in 2010 as they did a decade earlier, despite a dramatic change in anticipated future growth in driving.

I don't see a problem with this, though. What if the projections are wrong? It's impossible to accurately project the amount of driving that takes place, so condemning projects that will make more sense in the future than it does now just doesn't make sense.

There are plenty of metropolitan areas that need added highway capacity, as measured by severe highway traffic congestion.

[hm insulators]

I was referring to cases where sound barriers are being installed for the sake of installing them, with no other changes to the adjacent road - and where abutters have lived next to that same road for years or decades.  That is nothing but a WASTE of money, which IMHO qualifies as a boondoggle.

Have updated my original post.

I agree! Such sound walls were built for the people who buy a house close (sometimes right next to) the freeway--a freeway that had been there for years, if not decades, and then they complain about the noise. It's like the ding-a-lings who buy a house close to the airport and then whine about the racket from the planes.

[sdmichael]

Tesoro thing in SoCal: never heard of it

This the State 241 Foothill Transportation Corridor (South Orange County) extension from Oso Pkwy to not quite reaching State 74 (Ortega Highway). This will only really serve a brand new development, not through traffic, nor State 74.

[Duke87]

I-26:  Is the existing situation that untenable in Asheville?  The geometrics of that interchange are better than almost every system interchange in New England.

The existing interchange works just fine except that the single lane TOTSOs and tight curves on such mean that FHWA will not allow North Carolina to sign I-26 through there unless they build a new road that meets more modern design standards for an interstate.

Basically this project is $500M that has to be spent for utterly bureaucratic reasons, because the magic red white and blue shield will not be granted otherwise. The authors of the article are right to criticize it.



As for the more general question of "if VMT has stagnated, why are we still building new roads?" I would argue that in many places there remains a lot of catch-up to be done. Just because traffic volumes aren't growing doesn't mean the current infrastructure does a satisfactory job of handling them as they are. The level of congestion which occurs in most major metros begs to differ with the assertion of "our highways are fine as is".

I understand and agree that maintaining existing infrastructure should be the first priority since new bridges don't help if old ones fall down, but that doesn't mean we can't also afford to build new stuff. It just means we need to have some hard conversations about why construction costs are so much higher in the US than they are in other countries, and find ways to remedy that.

[vdeane]

Basically this project is $500M that has to be spent for utterly bureaucratic reasons, because the magic red white and blue shield will not be granted otherwise. The authors of the article are right to criticize it.

This is why bureaucrats should not be allowed to work in government.

As for the more general question of "if VMT has stagnated, why are we still building new roads?" I would argue that in many places there remains a lot of catch-up to be done. Just because traffic volumes aren't growing doesn't mean the current infrastructure does a satisfactory job of handling them as they are. The level of congestion which occurs in most major metros begs to differ with the assertion of "our highways are fine as is".

Trouble is, most urbanists LIKE congestion because, without it, they can't cover up the fact that nobody wants to take the bus - not even them.

[hbelkins]

Basically this project is $500M that has to be spent for utterly bureaucratic reasons, because the magic red white and blue shield will not be granted otherwise. The authors of the article are right to criticize it.

This is why bureaucrats should not be allowed to work in government.

Not a bureaucratic decision, but an engineering one. It can't be an interstate unless certain engineering criteria are met.

I think it's a shame that the work has to be done to qualify it as an interstate, same as the work that's being done on the Kentucky parkways to turn them into I-69, but that's what the engineers at FHWA have decreed.

[lepidopteran]

One possible boondoggle involving sound walls, is when an expensive wall is built while widening plans are on the drawing board, and they'll only have to be torn down and rebuilt further out.  I'm reminded of some of the noise barriers on the Capital Beltway in MD which are (or seem to be) only a few feet beyond the shoulder's edge.  If express lanes are ever built on that side of the Potomac...

I'm also reminded of the classic complaint about city streets, where first the phone company digs it up, then the power company, then the water supply, etc.  That's a lot of wasted pavement.  Sometimes there are co-ordinated programs where all the utilities can do their work at once while totally rebuilding the roadway. 

[andy3175]

Trinity Pkwy: Don't know anything about it.

Here's a link ... it's a proposed toll road in Dallas:

https://www.ntta.org/roadsprojects/futproj/trihwy/Pages/default.aspx

The proposed Trinity Parkway will connect Interstate 35E to U.S. 175, providing a new, approximately 9-mile relief route around the west and south sides of Dallas' central business district. The Trinity Parkway would be a six-lane, tolled bypass around downtown Dallas, which would provide traffic relief for the I-30 and I-35E corridors.