Comparative DOT spending

[Sub-Urbanite]

Does any one know of any resource that compares how much various DOTs spend compared to other DOTs?

Some of the metrics I'm thinking of are DOT expenditure per lane mile, DOT expenditure per hour driven, DOT expenditure per capita, DOT employees per capita, gas tax collected per lane mile... etc.

I know every state is different but, surely, someone has tried to apples-to-apples this?

[Rothman]

With the varied fund sources available to state DOTs, such a comparison is much more complicated than it seems.  Add in the fact that federal funds are first-instanced and you end up in a conundrum between what "spent" means (AC'd?  Obligated?  Expended?  By which system?).  And then you have grants which sway expenses one way or another given how much a particular state gets in a year, which can be boom or bust.

I'm sure someone's given a comparison a try, but there will always be cries of why one state is more special than other when the stats are collected.

[architect77]

I know these 3 for 2024:

Florida $20 billion
Georgia $4 billion......in..2025 will be $5.5 billion
NC $7.72 billion

[Rothman]

I know these 3 for 2024:

Florida $20 billion
Georgia $4 billion......in..2025 will be $5.5 billion
NC $7.72 billion

Hm.  Something seems off with these numbers.

[wxfree]

TxDOT's 2024 budget is $22,341,803,924.

That's $732.44 per capita (30,503,301), $111,306.65 per lane mile (207,723), and $36.59 per daily vehicle mile (610,631,201).

That's 2,939.64 vehicle miles per day per lane mile.  I'd never looked at that before.  It's an interesting perspective.  The lane and vehicle miles include frontage roads.  Some of the budget dollars go to off-system roads.  The state will sometimes build a decent concrete bridge on a gravel road when the county can't afford one.  A little over a million went to "Gulf Waterway," a quarter-billion went to aviation services, and 54 million went to rail.

[Rothman]

My suspicion is that transportation expenditures and budgets are very easy to confuse depending on their definition.  States love to obfuscate the public numbers.  Are they just federal?  Are they just construction?  Are they the amount spent?  Do they include transit agencies?  Do they include local entities?

Gets so state numbers can sway in the matter of billions depending on how these questions are answered.

(personal opinion strongly emphasized)

[oscar]

Also depends on differences in the scope of DOTs' missions. For example, Hawaii DOT has separate divisions for airports and harbors, as may Alaska's. At the other extreme, Nunavut's DOT is all about airports and harbors, with all of the territory's few public roads maintained locally, or by the territorial parks department.

In Alaska, as well as for example Virginia and North Carolina, the state-maintained systems include what in other jurisdictions would be county roads. Per-mile comparisons would help there.

[Sub-Urbanite]

So what I've come up with, and someone can correct me if I'm wrong:

O(R)DOT - 19,005 state highway lane miles.
O&M and capital budget - $3.06b per year
$161,010 per lane-mile, $50.85 per VMT

WSDOT - 18,759 state highway lane miles.
O&M and capital budget - $3.25b per year
$173,055 per lane-mile, $33.70 per VMT

[Bitmapped]

In Alaska, as well as for example Virginia and North Carolina, the state-maintained systems include what in other jurisdictions would be county roads. Per-mile comparisons would help there.

I don't know if per-mile comparisons would be that useful, either, in some of the states where everything is state-maintained. There are many miles on WVDOH's books as county routes that are functionally abandoned. You'd need to set some threshold for comparisons, like per paved mile.

[Icyhot1111]

FY2025:
Colorado DOT: $1.7B - 23k lane miles
Utah DOT: $2.4B - 16k lane miles
Wyo DOT: $818M - 6800 lane miles