Transportation
The Outsized Cost of Expanding US Roads
A new study quantifies the fallacy that adding new roads produces an economic benefit.
Interstate 10 in Houston is one of a number of US roads slated for expansion, despite community resistance.
Photographer: Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images
The US spends billions each year constructing and repairing roadways. But new research finds that the costs of expanding roads in urban areas are three times greater than its potential benefits.
“The US urban roadway system is overbuilt,” the authors write in the Journal of the American Planning Association. “As a result, expanding roadway systems is unlikely to have anything close to the economic benefits that state and federal policymakers hope for.”