Wednesday, July 29, 2015

$130,000 per foot

What is $130,000 per foot? A new stretch of road in California.

DOT has put up a blog post announcing the completion of a $1.1 billion project for 1.6 miles of road. The Presidio Parkway website says it is 1.5 miles. The $130,000 figure ($130,208.33 to be exact) uses the 1.6 mile figure for the best case scenario in dollars spent per foot.

What's even worse is the subtitle of DOT's post is the following:

Federally funded project exemplifies transportation investment nation needs, officials say

Exemplifies transportation investment? Let's do a little math.

What if we want to build one road that connects one side of the nation to the other? We will use google maps and plot from San Diego, California to Bangor, Maine. That is 3,229 miles.


How much would that cost at $130,000 per foot?

$2,216,385,600,000! Take a quick screen capture of usdebtclock.org and that road would be about one ninth of the national debt. That one road is more than four times as large as the federal deficit!


Exemplifies transportation investment? I think we need to find a way to privatize roads. We can not afford the federal method.


1 comment:

  1. MATH

    1 mile = 5,280 feet

    $1,100,000,000/(1.6*5,280') approx $130,000 per foot

    $130,000 * 3,229 * 5,280 = $2,216,385,600,000

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