'Wasteful and pointless': Watchdog lists 'biggest boondoggles' to ease highway gridlock

The Washington Times ^ | July 3, 2019 | Dan Boylan

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

A public interest advocacy group has identified the country’s “most wasteful and pointless” transportation projects, which are costing taxpayers $25 billion.

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) cites among “the biggest boondoggles” a $2.2 billion widening of Interstate 81 in Virginia, a $7 billion interstate project in Houston and a $802 million “Connecting Miami” redesign of city highways.

According to PIRG, widening highways to reduce gridlock fails for several reasons. Multiple studies show that more road space over time leads to further congestion because of a phenomenon called “induced demand.”

“We’re stuck in a car-centric rut in the United States,” said Matthew Casale, PIRG transportation campaign director and the study’s co-author. “Yet states continue to spend billions building highways that will exacerbate traffic problems, increase pollution, destroy neighborhoods, encourage sprawl and consume billions of more taxpayer dollars for maintenance.”

The fifth installment of PIRG’s annual “Highway Boondoggles” report, developed with the nonpartisan Frontier Group think tank, also criticizes projects in California, Michigan, Illinois, Oregon and North Carolina. It warns state and local governments against publicly financing “counterproductive” highway projects when the country is facing a backlog of critical repairs on existing roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

PIRG released the report as President Trump and Congress were tussling over a $2 trillion plan to upgrade American roads, highways, ports and airports.

Officials from some of the targeted projects reject PIRG’s characterizations and argue that their efforts have merit for the commuters and communities they serve.

In Virginia, PIRG singled out a $2.2 billion widening of Interstate 81 and highlighted potential damage to Civil War sites as a consequence. It also warned about safety dangers because the highway’s speed limit is expected to increase to 70 mph.

[Lazamataz]

U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG)

This group is an extreme leftist group.

[Chode]

possible but i doubt it... it doesn’t even start to rise till about the 2oclock position on the circle and the max elevation doesn’t need to be met till the stanchion just before the tracks

[Alberta's Child]

Those are all valid points, but there’s a much more fundamental problem at work in the way transportation infrastructure is planned and built in most of the U.S. It’s impossible to do it well as long as the government agency overseeing the planning and design process for the infrastructure is not the same government agency that has authority to make land use and zoning decisions at the local level.

Go to any major urban area with a serious highway congestion problem, and invariably you’ll find the same historical pattern in the background: a state DOT — using a large sum of Federal highway funding — went out decades ago and built a major highway in an area that wasn’t heavily populated. Everything seemed to be done right back then. Then, over time, municipal governments all along that highway corridor said: “Hey, what a great highway! Now we can approve shopping centers and residential subdivisions, and people can live out here and work in that city 10 miles away. It’s only a 15-minute drive from here!”

That sounded like a great plan until everyone had he same idea ... and within ten years that 15-minute drive became a two-hour ordeal.

This story has been repeated endlessly across the U.S. The crux of the problem is that everyone wants to have the authority for land use decisions vested in local governments, but they want someone else to pay for the infrastructure that is needed to support the development.

[Alberta's Child]

Look at the railroad tracks. The road has to be elevated high enough to clear the tracks, but the tracks are too close to the intersecting road to have it touch back down at the elevation of the intersection. Adding the loop ramp extends the length road to give it more horizontal distance to accommodate a gentle grade.

Alberta’s Child, P.E.

[Alberta's Child]

Where was that photo taken? I’m guessing it’s one of the areas along the Alameda Corridor in L.A. where a former grade crossing was eliminated to accommodate the growing rail traffic out of the Ports of L.A. and Long Beach.

[hoosierham]

Lawrenceburg Indiana built an elevated westbound U.S. 50 that looks to be steeper than what the pictured straight connector would have been.Also check out the “ramp in the sky” I-465 to east I-74 on Indianapolis southeast.

[Chode]

no doubt

[Chode]

how gentle a grade to you need in a place that never has snow or ice?

we have steeper grades than that here in the NE where we DO have snow and ice

[marktwain]

The U.S. Interstate system is the greatest mass transit system known to man.

[Alberta's Child]

It has nothing to do with snow and ice. It has everything to do with travel speeds, vehicle size, and safe stopping distance over a vertical (crest) curve.

I can actually check this out when I'm in the office next week. Can you tell me where that photo was taken?

[DoughtyOne]

I’m sure that’s part of it.

It’s time to get all parties together, and get on track to build more infrastructure.

[Alberta's Child]

The Indianapolis interchange you describe covers a very large land area. That gives sufficient horizontal distance to build bridges with the grades that are appropriate for that type of roadway.

Freeways will typically be designed for a maximum grade of 5% even in mountainous areas. That means the road will need 100 feet of horizontal distance for every rise of 5 feet in the elevation. That means you need 400 feet of horizontal distance to get 20 feet up in the air, and that doesn't even include the transition curves at either end of the grade where the road flattens out.

Look at that photo closely, and you can see that it is a very tight arrangement. The vehicles are large compared to the aerials I saw of the two locations you described.

[Chode]

no idea... what’s the highest elevation to cross the tracks 30’ doesn’t seem that high or that steep but than again i’m no PE

[Alberta's Child]

For a railroad line that carries doublestack intermodal trains, a minimum vertical clearance of 23 feet is required. That’s the distance from the top of the rail to the bottom of the bridge structure.

[Kay Ludlow]

Looks like it is staging space for vehicles entering a tunnel. The tunnel speed is slower than the road, and cars in the tunnel cause a slowdown on the road. One of the tunnels going into Manhattan NY has something similar, because they collect tolls at the opening of the tunnel.

[Chode]

i guess anything’s possible

[Jim W N]

The political usage of “progressive” actually started in the 1800’s was specifically meant to mean more government control.

Don’t look for any other meaning or outcome when it comes to this Leftist political label. There is NO other outcome for Leftist “progressive” than more government control.

But as with generally every Leftist term, the usage and actual experience is exactly the opposite of the term’s inherent meaning. The Left deals in lies and confusion and is the materialization of George Orwell’s 1984.