HIGHWAY ECONOMY

HIGHWAY ECONOMY

INTRODUCTION:

            Governments have, of necessity, provided certain facilities that the private sector could not furnish. Among them are highways and public transportation. The intents of the expenditure for highways are to raise the level of the entire economy by providing for ready transportation of goods; to assist in problems of national defense; to make easier the provision of community services such as police and fire protection, medical care, schooling, and delivery of the mails; and to open added opportunities for recreation and travel. Highways benefit the landowner because ready access makes his property more valuable. Their improvement benefits the motor-vehicle user through reduced cost of vehicle operation, savings in time, reduction in accidents, and increased comfort and ease of driving. On the other hand, road improvements consume resources, including land, which might be used for other productive purposes by individuals or by government and the vehicles travelling produce air pollution and noise. From the point of  view of resources use, then, highways can be justified only if, in net sum, the consequences are favorable-that is, if cost reductions to highway users and other beneficiaries of the improvement exceed the costs, including some allowance for the return on the money invested. There are as has been indicated before, numerous other factors to be considered, but this chapter focuses on the economic or resource-use phases.

            Highway economy was under discussion over a century ago. W.M Gillespie, professor of civil engineering at Union College, in his Manual of the Principles and Practice of Road Marking, stated that “A minimum of expenses is of course highly desirable; but the road which is truly the cheapest is not the one which has cost the least money, but the one which makes the most profitable returns in proportion to the amount expended upon it.”

            The first detailed attention to highway economy developed about 40 years ago at lowa State College. It focused largely on the relative economy of various roads surfacing and, later, on the costs of motor-vehicle operation. The advent of the state wide planning surveys with the masses of data developed by them brought attention to many other factors of importance to the overall problem. Even so, attention to highway economy as a topic for detailed research and analysis has been small and sporadic. An accepting was that economic comparisons of alternative routes on the Interstate System were required by federal regulations. Many of these were based on the so-called Red-Book, developed by the AASHO Committee on the Highway Design. Further impetus for economic analysis on federal-aid projects many come through the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970 (Sect. 186) which required that in 1972 the Federal Highway Administration.