Largest waste of money for roads in your state?

[Gnutella]

The Mon-Fayette Expressway and the South Beltway aren't what I would consider high-priority highway projects, but there is at least a little bit of justification for them. The road network in Pittsburgh's southern suburbs and the Monongahela River Valley is piss poor, and I'm putting that mildly. It shouldn't take 45 minutes to get from McKeesport to Canonsburg in normal traffic conditions, but it does because there's literally no direct east/west connection between Pittsburgh and I-70. And the Monongahela River Valley is served primarily by two-lane back roads, which aren't conducive to redeveloping old industrial sites. Construction of the South Beltway is justified for three reasons:


1. It gives the Monongahela River Valley better connections to the regional highway system.

2. It connects the Monongahela River Valley to Pittsburgh International Airport, and also to an emerging employment hub at Southpointe.

3. It improves east/west mobility across Pittsburgh's southern suburbs.


As for the Mon-Fayette Expressway, I support building the segment to Monroeville, but oppose building the segment into the city of Pittsburgh. The segment to Monroeville needs to end at the Pennsylvania Turnpike, though, not I-376. Extend the northern terminus north to the Turnpike somewhere between the Allegheny Valley and Monroeville interchanges, and that'll give Pittsburgh a three-quarters beltway incorporating a segment of the Turnpike, with the only missing link being between Pittsburgh International Airport and Cranberry. This will make the Monongahela River Valley more accessible from the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and improve north/south traffic flow in the valley itself. There's no need to build into the city of Pittsburgh, though, because the lower valley is ripe for redevelopment, and the path of the highway passes through a lot of real estate that developers have plans for.

If you want to talk about wasting money in the Pittsburgh area, the "improvements" coming to the Parkway West qualify, because they're about to spend $72M adding capacity near the I-79 interchange but still not improving it to modern Interstate standards. They plan to add a fourth lane in each direction there, but they're going to eliminate the exterior shoulders to do so. Why even bother? I'd rather they not spend the money if they're not going to do it right. PennDOT District 11 needs to grow some balls and upgrade the Parkway West properly to modern standards.   

[GCrites]

Ohio 32 east of Batavia. Running a four-lane across the entire state has done little for economic development. I think a Gold Star opened up in Seaman.

[triplemultiplex]

The bypass of Burlington, WI, was a big waste of money in my opinion.  Very little thru traffic going from one side of Burlington to the other.  It has expensive jughandle interchanges at little county roads but the major junctions are at-grade with traffic signals.

I'm sure there are some who would consider the I-41 promotion to be low on the reward for the money spent on new signs, but I am cool with it.

[NE2]

It has expensive jughandle interchanges at little county roads but the major junctions are at-grade with traffic signals.

Folded diamonds, not jughandles.

[getemngo]

In Michigan? Arguably, the current Zilwaukee Bridge. It was built because of the massive backups caused by the existing drawbridge - it was raised 984 times in 1978. But as soon as the new bridge was proposed, GM largely stopped using ships to bring in steel, and shipping traffic fell. In 2011, the Saginaw River saw 138 passages - that's less than 0.4 ships per day. You could have argued for a more sophisticated system to redirect traffic onto I-675 when a ship is coming, closing the river to shipping altogether, or compromising and building a lower clearance bridge that lets some, but not all, vessels through.

M-6 received some protests for being totally unnecessary, in part because "Holland to Lansing is not a major corridor." However, it has done wonders for local traffic, and it came in way ahead of schedule and under budget, so ha! 

Other contenders:

• The enormously overbuilt interchange between I-696 and Mound Rd, which is probably one of the ten highest capacity interchanges in the state. Mound Rd was supposed to become a freeway as a relocated M-53, but it never happened.
• MDOT taking over and reconstructing the Davison Freeway (M-8) instead of converting it back to surface street. Not like it's ever going to reach I-96 or I-94.
• M-231. While not expensive per se, it is supposed to eventually serve as a much needed bypass of US 31 between Holland and Grand Haven, which is still not a freeway. However, right now there is only funding to built the northern half of it, and only as a super-2 expressway, which helps about five people. There are so many projects that deserve to get built ahead of this. It's gonna be Michigan's I-180.
• The proposal to eliminate I-375, which unlike M-8, is definitely needed.
• The proposal to build a second Portage Lake bridge in the Keweenaw Peninsula, connecting Chassell to Jacobsville. Bridge to Nowhere, indeed.

But the original Mackinac Bridge proposal, starting in Cheboygan and hopping over several islands on its way to St. Ignace, is hilarious.

[roadfro]

The biggest waste of money in California has got to be the new SF-Oakland Bay Bridge. There is no argument that the bridge needed replacing after the 1989 Loma-Prieta Earthquake, but the cost was massively increased due to the locals desire to have a "showcase bridge". A couple of billion later, and the bridge has problems.

I'd say the massive cost increases for the Bay Bridge were due more to contractor errors and insufficient quality control practices, not as much the design of the bridge itself.

[roadfro]

I'd say for Nevada, the biggest waste of money in recent memory is I-15's F-Street Underpass in Las Vegas. [Discussed briefly in this Pacific Southwest thread.]

Background: As I-15 was built through a historically black neighborhood in the 60's, residents cried foul to the freeway segregating them from downtown. A few streets in this area got underpasses as a result. As NDOT recently widened I-15, they closed F-Street (supposedly without notifying the neighborhood, but that claim is dubious). People cried foul again saying the state was cutting them off from downtown (despite two existing underpasses within walking distance still providing access). State legislature intervenes and passes a bill ordering NDOT to reopen F Street, which ended up costing something like $26 million (estimated $56 million when bill was passed--recession helped this one!). The kicker: F Street is a 2-lane residential street that probably sees less than 200 vehicles a day.

Granted, the new underpass is a beautiful piece of work with artwork paying homage and tribute to the Historic Westside neighborhood. But the cost/benefit factor on this was not enough to justify the expense.


I would wager that many southern Nevadans would consider the I-580 extension (from SR 431 in south Reno to old US 395 just north of Carson City) in northern Nevada as the biggest waste of money and completely unnecessary. Granted, that project currently stands as the most expensive in NDOT history (~$550 million). This was in part due to the decision to build in mountainous terrain and in geothermal activity areas which necessitated several bridges (including the long/tall Galena Creek Bridge), and also construction problems with the first bridge subcontractor. However, the project was necessary since old route had way too much traffic and too many accidents for what is really a rural route.

People up north will probably think the same thing of the future Boulder City Bypass, as the selected routing for that is driving up the construction cost significantly as well.

[hbelkins]

Ohio 32 east of Batavia. Running a four-lane across the entire state has done little for economic development. I think a Gold Star opened up in Seaman.

First mention of an Appalachian Development Corridor I've seen. I figured SPUI would have chimed in with "Corridor H!" by now.

[NE2]

First mention of an Appalachian Development Corridor I've seen.

Actually Sippy Kook mentioned Corridor D in WV.

[The Nature Boy]

I-73/74

</thread>

[Lyon Wonder]

The largest waste of highway funding in recent years in IL is probably IL-336 between Quincy and Macomb since it's lightly used for a 4-lane and the money spent on it should have gone to upgrading US 67.

[SP Cook]

OH 32's problem is that it just ends at the Cincy Beltway, which there is still farm land inside the Beltway on the east side of the metro area.  They need to build an expressway from the JCT of 32 to US 50.

H is hardly a waste.

[kurumi]

For CT, I can't think of any highway projects that are of themselves grandiose and actually getting built. Most of the money seems to go into maintenance, little fixups and a few big in-place projects.

The Q-bridge project in New Haven may be expensive, but you can't argue that it's unnecessary.

I do wish so much spending wasn't happening for the following:
* fixing past mistakes. Yes, hindsight etc. etc.; but while the rest of you would use your time machines to kill Hitler, I would crash engineering meetings in the 1940s, '50s and '60s saying "No! Don't do that! We're just going to have to spend billions later fixing that!" Specifically: elevated I-91 along river in Hartford (ugly and under-capacity); left exit at 2/17 (could have fixed that in 1964 when CT 2 was extended); I-84/CT 8 interchange; most other left exits
* major rebuilds without adding capacity. Example: Moses Wheeler Bridge, I-95, $300 million rebuild, no additional lanes. On CT 2 in say, Bozrah, adding 2 lanes for a bridge might be silly. But everyone wishes 95 could be widened without costing something like $10¹⁰.
* improvements that become ironic in greater context. There's a nice new directional ramp from I-95 to CT 34 in New Haven. Cost $100M. But 34 is getting torn up. Maybe there's a cheaper way to dump traffic into the middle of downtown.
* general Nutmeg meterological hostility. Everything freezes and rusts and salts up and washes away because the weather sucks. Can't avoid maintenance, though. (Edit: CT did, but shouldn't have)

[kphoger]

All Texas toll roads.  They are overpriced and few drive on them.

Agreed. Some of the newer ones also seem too far away from the areas they supposedly serve in order to be meeting the needs they're supposed to be meeting: Toll 45, Toll 49, Toll 130, and Toll 255 in particular.

I just used TX-130 for the first time in June, from Georgetown to Seguin, and it totally rocked.  It served our needs perfectly well, avoiding Austin and the worst half of San Antonio traffic on the way south towards Laredo.  The only problem, IMO, is that it doesn't go nearly far enough north:  what we really need is a bypass that goes all the way up to Sanger!  That, and the fact that I had to do pay-by-mail, at which point TxTag found a bunch of tolls I'd never been billed for from my CCTR day pass account (due to changing vehicles and license plates on the account every year), but that's more or less my own fault.

Seriously, though...  We didn't see a whole lot of traffic on the highway, but a sufficient amount to make me think it wasn't a total waste of money.  For such a fancy-schmancy highway with an 85-mph speed limit, you might think they'd have done a better of job of smoothing out the dips and bumps, but I know the soil in that part of the state isn't the easiest to work with.

BUT–and this is a big but for me–Fort Worth traffic has now actually made me swear off I-35 in Texas entirely.  For this year's México trip, I intend to take US-277 all the way from I-44 to Del Rio; 85-mph speed limit or not, it simply doesn't make up for the headache of Fort Worth traffic jams/accidents/construction/crap.

As for TX-255, that toll road made perfect sense before Texas went and built the commercial crossing at Loop-20 instead.  Before that, TX-255 was supposed to connect to the new forthcoming bypass around Nuevo Laredo, and commercial traffic would be encouraged to use that route around the city to and from México.  Instead, the state changed its mind and put the commercial crossing at Loop-20, México understandably built its bypass to connect to that point rather than TX-255, and the CCTR went bankrupt because (go figure!) truckers found little use for it.  TX-255 is still a perfectly acceptable bypass around the Laredos, connecting to the Mexican bypass by way of highway 2 (I've used it six times in each direction), but it is certainly underutilized compared to what it was meant to be.  If they would bring back and expand the cross-border trucking program, then TX-255 might see more use, depending on how busy the Loop-20 crossing gets for truckers; but, as it is now, all long-distance cross-border cargo has to be unloaded at a trailer lot, shuttled by a drayage driver across the border, then picked up by another truck on the other side.  Those lots are located closer in to the city, so most trucks see no need to swing too far out around the city.

[NE2]

As for TX-255, that toll road made perfect sense before Texas went and built the commercial crossing at Loop-20 instead.  Before that, TX-255 was supposed to connect to the new forthcoming bypass around Nuevo Laredo, and commercial traffic would be encouraged to use that route around the city to and from México.  Instead, the state changed its mind and put the commercial crossing at Loop-20, México understandably built its bypass to connect to that point rather than TX-255, and the CCTR went bankrupt because (go figure!) truckers found little use for it.  TX-255 is still a perfectly acceptable bypass around the Laredos, connecting to the Mexican bypass by way of highway 2 (I've used it six times in each direction), but it is certainly underutilized compared to what it was meant to be.

I suppose the spur from NL 1 to the bridge also qualifies, unless going to Monterrey via Anáhuac is actually reasonable.

[kphoger]

As for TX-255, that toll road made perfect sense before Texas went and built the commercial crossing at Loop-20 instead.  Before that, TX-255 was supposed to connect to the new forthcoming bypass around Nuevo Laredo, and commercial traffic would be encouraged to use that route around the city to and from México.  Instead, the state changed its mind and put the commercial crossing at Loop-20, México understandably built its bypass to connect to that point rather than TX-255, and the CCTR went bankrupt because (go figure!) truckers found little use for it.  TX-255 is still a perfectly acceptable bypass around the Laredos, connecting to the Mexican bypass by way of highway 2 (I've used it six times in each direction), but it is certainly underutilized compared to what it was meant to be.

I suppose the spur from NL 1 to the bridge also qualifies, unless going to Monterrey via Anáhuac is actually reasonable.

Qualifies for what?  A waste of money?  Do you know when that spur was constructed (Wikipedia says 1994, which was well before the bypass was being built)?

At any rate, going to Monterrey via Anáhuac on NL-1 is not a reasonable alternative to taking 85.  Some people do it, but I've read people from the area stating online that they have no idea why anyone would think that route was better.  By paying tolls, Fed-85 is four lanes all the way, and the free alternative is a better highway than NL-1.  Using that spur to near the Colombia crossing leaves a driver really no choice but to go through Anáhuac; some mapping sites used to show the route connecting all the way to Fed-85, but that didn't match reality and the mapping sites seem to have caught on.

[NE2]

I suppose the spur from NL 1 to the bridge also qualifies, unless going to Monterrey via Anáhuac is actually reasonable.

Qualifies for what?  A waste of money?

Yes; it's essentially the Mexican equivalent of 255 but without connectivity to federal highways.

[kphoger]

I suppose the spur from NL 1 to the bridge also qualifies, unless going to Monterrey via Anáhuac is actually reasonable.

Qualifies for what?  A waste of money?

Yes; it's essentially the Mexican equivalent of 255 but without connectivity to federal highways.

I'm not familiar with the history of what we're calling Spur NL-1 (SCT numbering actually considers this to be the "mainline" of NL-1, whereas the portion to Nuevo Laredo is considered the spur).  For all I know, that road has been there for ages, and has has simply existed as the road from Monterrey to Colombia–forgetting for a moment that Colombia is a planned community founded in the early 90s.  All that is to say, it might be that the road from the Huisachito junction to Colombia might not have been a "waste of money", and the road from that junction to Nuevo Laredo–which actually runs through two different states–might qualify for the "best use of funds" thread.

[US 41]

The TX 255 toll road is already confusing. On the Camino-Colombia website it acts like you have to have a day pass or TxTag to drive the road. The real question is that if you drive on the Camino-Colombia Toll Road without a a day pass or txtag will they just send you a $3.99 toll + the $1.15 pbm fee? I've been trying to figure out this question for the last forever and have never gotten a clear answer on it. If I can drive on it without a day pass that's what I'm going to do.

[kphoger]

^^ I got a day-pass as soon as they took out the toll booths, having only used it once when it was still an option to pay cash.  The only answer I can provide is only sort of an answer, because I do have a day pass account.  Allow me to detail my history with TX-255.  Here goes...

2009 - Used TX-255 SB and NB - Our van alone - paid cash

between 2009 and 2010 - Toll booths removed, cash no longer an option

2010 - I set up a day pass account, including our van and our friend's dad's Honda

2010 - Used TX-255 SB and NB - Our van plus his Honda

2011 - I changed my account info, removing the Honda and adding our friend's pickup, also changing our license plate number

2011 - Used TX-255 NB only, having arrived at Colombia via Mines Road on the southbound portion - Our van plus his pickup

2012 - I changed my account info, removing the pickup and adding our youth pastor's SUV, also changing our address

2012 - Used TX-255 SB and NB - Our van plus his SUV

2013 - Used TX-255 SB and NB - Our van only

2014 - I changed my account info, removing the SUV and adding our friend's pickup back on

2014 - Used Pay-by-Mail lanes on TX-130 SB only (Georgetown to Seguin), then TX-255 SB and NB - our van plus his pickup

As you can see, I milked the Camino Colombia Day Pass for all it's worth.  Now for the pertinent part:

Shortly after returning to Wichita in 2014, I received the bill for having used the Pay-by-Mail lanes on TX-130.  This is what I expected.  What came as a surprise is that there were also charges for TX-255 dating clear back to 2010, and I believe they were for more than just our own van but the other vehicles as well.  Apparently–either through my fault or TxTag's (my account history, admittedly, was very confusing)–at various points, TxTag had the wrong license plate(s) on file for my account.  Since TxTag and its associate collections agencies do not have access to Kansas DMV information, they could not determine an address to send any of those bills to; so they just held on to them until I unwittingly straightened it all out last year.  If I'm not mistaken, my friend never got a bill in the mail for using TX-130 last year, but I can't remember if his charges were on my bill or not.  It seems to me that, every so often, TxTag saw one of out vehicles drive under the TX-255 gantry, found no account matching the license plate number, then held the charges until that license plate number suddently matched account a few years later.

What have I learned from this experience?
(1) It is possible to receive a bill in the mail for using TX-255.
(2) TxTag lumps charges from TX-255 and other toll roads together on a statement.

What I still don't know for sure:
Assuming TxTag has access to your address from the DMV, will they still send you a bill for TX-255 even if you have no account?  This is only an issue if you live in Texas or a state whose DMV has an agreement with TxTag.  If you live in a different state (no agreement), then it is widely reported you will never receive a bill.  I do suspect, however, that those unpaid tolls would show up if ever you decided to open an account of any sort with TxTag.

[Bitmapped]

WV's biggest waste is the triangle of roads formed by US 50 (Corridor D), I-79 and I-77 between Parkersburg, Charleston and Clarksburg.

50, 80 miles of construction, runs though the middle of nowhere, an area not amenable to development and thus, 40 years in, still undeveloped.  79, 120 miles of construction, likewise travels though areas without economic potential. 

Eliminate either 77 or 79 and you only add 20 miles of travel between Clarksburg and Parkersburg.  100 or 120 miles of construction to save only 20 miles, is a waste.  Do what the original Turnpike wanted to do, which is a single road, slightly to the east of the where 77 ended up, with a branch off to Clarksburg and billions would have been saved.

The section that could be removed with the least amount of impact, the 57 miles of I-79 between Charleston and US 19, carries more than 10,000 VPD on its least traveled stretches.  I-79 saves drivers heading between Charleston and points north of Clarksburg 27 miles.  I-79 and US 19 save 73 miles for people heading between Beckley and Clarksburg versus a I-77/US 50 routing.

I could see an argument that US 19 should have received the Interstate designation south of Sutton with I-79 to Charleston built as an ARC corridor instead, but the routings as-built make plenty of sense when you look at connecting population centers.

[cpzilliacus]

On I-83, PennDOT did a top-to-bottom reconstruction between York (just north of exit 22, Business I-83) and I-76 (Exit 39, Pennsylvania Turnpike) in the 1990's. 

The overpasses were mostly replaced (those that were too low were rebuilt to Interstate standards), the pavement got a full-depth replacement, the signs were replaced,  but nothing was done to remediate the substandard interchange geometrics (example at Pa. 392, Exit 33 here).

[NE2]

Perhaps I-64 could have used I-79 to Sutton and then cut over to Staunton, but it's doubtful that this would have saved any construction, and it'd probably be a more difficult mountain crossing.

Now there is a good argument to be made that the 1961 extension of I-79 from Washington, PA to Charleston was pork that primarily benefited West Virginia, since it only cut the distance by 9 miles over 70-77. However, the more recent creation of I-68 has made I-79 more important to non-West Virginians (as has Corridor L, which saves 43 miles over going via Charleston).

[I-39]

In Illinois, IiDiOT never wastes money on actual road construction projects because they don't have any money for actual road construction projects. Instead, they waste money on studies for roads and upgrades that are NOT needed, while completely ignoring roads and upgrades that ARE needed.

[NE2]

IiDOT

Not only a tired meme but a typo. Yawn.