 |
Re: No more roads...
Author: FUD
Date: 06-18-2019 - 08:16
The guy has a point. But "starve the beast" has never worked - there is always a need for more. Th question is, what and how to prioritize it. We have transportation and land use planners who are supposed to be looking at that, but most of the time they must check to be sure enough fingers are in use then salute when others tell them what must be justified.
As for money - most of those funding programs (including, as the story noted, most federal funding) are for NEW projects, not patching potholes or fixing old bridges. As we found with the Bay Bridge, though, sometimes fixing an old bridge MEANS building a new one - and that can sometimes be sold as new construction eligible for the regular funding. And if you let the road deteriorate enough, patching potholes becomes a reconstruction project, which again can use new construction funding. It's a dumb way to do things, since while it's all deteriorating it gets less safe and more inconvenient for a long time, but if those federal dollars can only be used for new construction, well, it might make sense.
What does it have to do with trains? Not much, though the same thing happens there to a degree - if you don't maintain it (a little bit at a time), you pay a lot more to replace it (equipment, bridges, track, etc.), though for equipment the new stuff usually has features the old doesn't, like lower emissions, better crash performance, ADA compliance that works, "new car smell", etc. And the guy does have another point: if you're showing that your transit or rail project is a cost-effective, space-efficient way to provide needed capacity, great, but if you're up against roads for funding, note that the road projects usually don't have to do as rigorous a justification job (especially if it's just adding on to an existing roads) so ... you lose.
Probably fake news but plausible: at one time FL allegedly had a policy that for Interstates they would pay only for the through traffic capacity. So up to 6 lanes. Anything more had to be locally funded, and any non-interstate freeways had to be toll roads to pay for themselves. Can't find a way to verify that, but it makes sense when you look at how FL roads work (or don't, on I-95).
As for money - most of those funding programs (including, as the story noted, most federal funding) are for NEW projects, not patching potholes or fixing old bridges. As we found with the Bay Bridge, though, sometimes fixing an old bridge MEANS building a new one - and that can sometimes be sold as new construction eligible for the regular funding. And if you let the road deteriorate enough, patching potholes becomes a reconstruction project, which again can use new construction funding. It's a dumb way to do things, since while it's all deteriorating it gets less safe and more inconvenient for a long time, but if those federal dollars can only be used for new construction, well, it might make sense.
What does it have to do with trains? Not much, though the same thing happens there to a degree - if you don't maintain it (a little bit at a time), you pay a lot more to replace it (equipment, bridges, track, etc.), though for equipment the new stuff usually has features the old doesn't, like lower emissions, better crash performance, ADA compliance that works, "new car smell", etc. And the guy does have another point: if you're showing that your transit or rail project is a cost-effective, space-efficient way to provide needed capacity, great, but if you're up against roads for funding, note that the road projects usually don't have to do as rigorous a justification job (especially if it's just adding on to an existing roads) so ... you lose.
Probably fake news but plausible: at one time FL allegedly had a policy that for Interstates they would pay only for the through traffic capacity. So up to 6 lanes. Anything more had to be locally funded, and any non-interstate freeways had to be toll roads to pay for themselves. Can't find a way to verify that, but it makes sense when you look at how FL roads work (or don't, on I-95).
