Comments on: Do Roads Pay for Themselves?

By: Laura

Laura — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:56:09 +0000

Keri, you’ve hit on one of my pet peeves. I think transportation officials and elected officials mean well, but they are so very car centric. I really wish our elected officials and the voters could comprehend how much money is spent on roads and how we don’t get a whole lot back. I believe LYNX has a farebox recovery of around 20% system wide (includes paratransit, bus, and vanpool). Bus alone gets a 24% recovery.

By: Keri

Keri — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:59:33 +0000

“When access management at large intersections reaches restrictive levels adjacent properties become non-viable for businesses. Those properties become blighted, further reducing tax revenues and often adding law enforcement costs.”

There used to be a large car dealership on the corner of 50 and 436. How many years has that and the other lots on that corner been abandoned eyesores in preparation for the current road construction?

By: Mighk

Mighk — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:05:01 +0000

We don’t “pay for roads” one by one, and we don’t use them that way, either. We pay for an entire street system. Local neighborhood streets are normally built by developers and maintained through property taxes. People rarely take trips from Point A to Point B solely on arterials and freeways.

The TXDOT piece only scratches the surface regarding the costs of roads. The many “externalities” it doesn’t address:

Aside from the obvious air pollution issues…

Water pollution due to stormwater runoff

When roads are widened, land taken for right-of-way is removed from the property tax roles

When access management at large intersections reaches restrictive levels adjacent properties become non-viable for businesses. Those properties become blighted, further reducing tax revenues and often adding law enforcement costs.

By: Steve A

Steve A — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:29:01 +0000

Like most that receive subsidies, the motorists won’t want to hear this -it’ll go in one ear and fly out the other one even faster, leaving no imprint. At least it made me feel better about what I get taxed to pay for TRE, the only transit I’ve actually used around DFW.

By: Keri

Keri — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:28:06 +0000

Yeah, the anti-transit people love to gripe about subsidies. We just hide the road subsidies.

By: MikeOnBike

MikeOnBike — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:04:48 +0000

It’s interesting to compare these numbers to the “farebox recovery” ratio for transit systems

“Some roads pay for about half their true cost, but most roads we have analyzed pay for considerably less.” That’s very similar to the farebox recovery of transit systems.

The Houston road example has a 16% farebox recovery. If that were a transit system, that would be considered rather poor.