The $135million/mile highway

[RCrierie_Guest]

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This was front page on the WaPo yesterday, and it illustrates why infrastructure spending has become ****ed lately in the US: $2.56 billion to build a 18.8 mile highway -- that's $136.17~ million per mile, and most of the construction was in semi-rural areas, not in a core city center like Boston's BIG DIG. By contrast High Speed rail is estimated usually to cost between $50m and $80m a mile, for your information.

Additionally, MD-200 (ICC) is local for me. I can get in my car, and turn onto the road that my house sits off of, drive five minutes down the road, and encounter a brand new onramp for the ICC.

Also, because of this; tolls on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge went up to $4 dollars a car to replenish MD's coffers after blowing so much on the ICC.

Now, to the Newsblotter:

ICC puts strain on Maryland's transportation funds
By Katherine Shaver, Published: November 21

Updated: Tuesday, November 22, 6:42 AM

The 18.8-mile Intercounty Connector, which opened in full Tuesday, could be the last publicly funded highway built in Maryland for a generation, as the state's tolling agency, which financed its $2.56 billion construction, reaches its debt limit, local transportation experts said.

 

[Anderson]

Actually, my suspicion is that they'll just hike the debt limit in a few years, citing "effects of inflation" or something like that. Long-term increases in tolling revenue based on volume increases (i.e. more folks drive down the highway because of population increases, etc.) might also go to magically allow for more debt service.

With that said, I'm wondering what is costing so much for these projects. It seems like everything is running over budget...I know some of that is oil prices making asphalt prices go nuts, but this still seems more than a bit excessive.

And I'll actually raise a serious question to ponder: The EIS requirements go up as soon as federal funds get involved in a project, since NEPA gets involved on top of the usual EPA "stuff". If federal funding gets cut back (as noted in the article), I'm wondering if some states aren't seriously going to look at spurning those funds for some projects. I'm also wondering, if the impact gets to be bad enough on some project for that stuff, if we might not see outright hostility towards the environmental lobby grow even among Democrats and/or see an uptick in what amounts to "We don't care" responses to environmental complaints against projects.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

And I'll actually raise a serious question to ponder: The EIS requirements go up as soon as federal funds get involved in a project, since NEPA gets involved on top of the usual EPA "stuff". If federal funding gets cut back (as noted in the article), I'm wondering if some states aren't seriously going to look at spurning those funds for some projects. I'm also wondering, if the impact gets to be bad enough on some project for that stuff, if we might not see outright hostility towards the environmental lobby grow even among Democrats and/or see an uptick in what amounts to "We don't care" responses to environmental complaints against projects.

Can you please explain what sort of passenger rail project you feel has been killed by an EIS in recent memory?