“Billions Spent on Roads and Transit Projects Are Often Based on Optimistic Forecasts,” headlines the Wall Street Journal last week. “Researchers have found that transportation planners frequently expect more people to use their road and transit projects than ultimately do so,” said the article. “Yet those optimistic forecasts become part of the justification for spending millions or billions of dollars on such projects,” which, the article goes on to say, is “wasting resources.”
Toll road under construction in Texas. Photo by Larry D. Moore.
Recent FTA studies found that transit projects overestimate ridership by an average of 21 percent, which the article claims “was an improvement over previous years.” As I pointed out a few weeks ago, the “improvement” came about because the FTA changed its frame of reference. While older studies looked at ridership projections made when local transit agencies decided to build the project, the newer studies looked at the projections made when the FTA itself began to subsidize the project. These two steps may be separated by several years.
Even 21 percent, however, was more than road projects, which overestimated use by an average of just 6 percent, based on a study of 1,300 projects. Tollroads overestimated use by an average of 30 percent, the Journal reported, but that included tollroads all over the world, not just in the United States.
It’s meant for oral body process and is coordinated not only by various systems of our bodies but is also related to personal and social experience, which keep changing with time and age. viagra sales in canada Treatment for erectile dysfunction Erectile dysfunction sildenafil overnight shipping can be caused by cat scratches. The treatment of ED will depend on http://amerikabulteni.com/2011/09/22/vast-majority-of-israelis-would-accept-u-n-recognizing-palestine/ generico cialis on line the resultant causes. Reports state that this is the most common forms of therapies offered to autistic children are as follows: Occupational Therapy Speech Therapy – Structured Teaching-Applied http://amerikabulteni.com/2016/10/19/sulzberger-ailesinden-new-york-timesin-patronluguna-taze-kan/ viagra generika Behavior Analysis or ABA Therapy – Social Skills Development Therapy -Speech and Language Therapy-Hippo therapy (Occupational Therapy through horseback riding to help children with sensory processing disorder) GFCF Diet -Psychiatric or Psychotherapy Sessions Apart from the above, normal education, swimming, physical training, vision therapy and aqua. It’s ironic, of course, that anti-road groups claim that the problem with new roads is that they get too many users while the Journal is claiming that the problem is they don’t get enough. “Our money could be better spent fixing the roads that we already have,” the paper quotes an Akron, Ohio planner as saying.
Akron doesn’t need new roads. According to the Census Bureau, its population shrank between 2010 and 2020. However, fast-growing urban areas such as Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, and Phoenix almost certainly need new roads to serve travelers. A 6 percent shortfall in use is hardly worth arguing about; the FTA scores any estimate within 10 percent of actual to be accurate.
The really important question is one of value. Both roads and transit should pay for themselves. If they can’t, we shouldn’t build them. Instead of arguing over ridership and usage estimates, we should fund transportation agencies out of their own user fees and let the agencies decide where to spend those fees to best serve users.
Eventually You reach a point of negative returns on road building. Because eventually you have a point of diminishing returns….As such what’s happening now. Adding 10,000 lane miles of new highway adds ten thousand lane miles of maintenance. In industry and economy; infrastructure costs curb revenue/profitability so their aim is to have as little infrastructure as possible. LESS they need it…..
LazyReader,
You are living up to your name as you wrote the same thing yesterday with the same typos and grammatical errors, indicating you just copied and pasted it. It wasn’t responsive to my post either day because both days I said that roads should be paid for out of user fees. No matter how much returns are diminishing, if users pay enough to build new ones then they are worthwhile. You might as well tell Apple to stop making iPhones because eventually there will be negative returns.
”
Akron doesn’t need new roads. According to the Census Bureau, its population shrank between 2010 and 2020. However, fast-growing urban areas such as Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, and Phoenix almost certainly need new roads to serve travelers. A 6 percent shortfall in use is hardly worth arguing about; the FTA scores any estimate within 10 percent of actual to be accurate.
” ~anti-planner