Urban Road Expansion does NOT pay off
The expense of expanding roadways in urban environments is three times greater than any economic benefit they produce
The state of American urban roadways is not good. In fact, there are too many roads.
A new City and Regional planning study published in the peer-reviewed JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION found, among other interesting conclusions, that reducing urban roadway area by 10% would yield a net benefit of nearly $28 billion a year.
And yet, here in Oklahoma, the OTA wants to pave down 59 new miles of 6-lane toll roads to nowhere.
The study also found that the average cost of expanding roadways exceeded the benefits by a factor of nearly three when accounting for land value.
Wow!
The United States dedicates too much land, money, and effort to building roadways.
Oklahoma does too.
Government agencies (and rogue state instrumentalities) have continued to pump billions of dollars into expanding, rebuilding, and maintaining roadway networks each year even though numerous policy reforms have called for less new alignments and more environmental protections.
The study urges policymakers to question policies focused on roadway expansion and consider options to reduce the amount of space dedicated to roadway in favor of more housing, offices, and other land uses.
When will Oklahoma stop with the new alignments and start reconnecting urban communities that were destroyed with ill conceived roadways?
There is a National movement to turn destructive highways into boulevards: https://www.cnu.org/our-projects/highways-boulevards
For example, citizens and the NYDOT are exploring ways to remove Interstate 787 and create a more appealing waterfront.
Where is Oklahoma in this conversation? Oh right… we’re just over here destroying watersheds, greenbelts and building new unnecessary alignments.