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The Conservative Case Against the Suburbs

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/driving-true-costs/412237/

Great article. The math on the amount of subsidies taxpayers pay to underwrite our automobile culture is astounding.

That article is absurdly stupid. Those taxpayer "subsidies" come out of income taxes, which shockingly are taxes on income (whether personal or corporate). The vast, vast majority of those individuals and corporations depend on roads to generate said income, whether directly or indirectly. The more income you make, the more you pay in income taxes, more of which goes back to pay for the roads. That is a pretty direct correlation. It is actually one of the few aspects of our tax structure that makes a lot of rational sense.
 
"it’s roughly $100 million or more for a mile of urban freeway"

In Manhattan? Over what time frame for maintenance? This can't be true unless the seven DMV guys doing fuck all are getting paid like the three guy actually doing anything productive.
 
I imagine that means a mile going both ways. That's a lot of road, a lot of machinery, and a lot of man hours.
 
"it’s roughly $100 million or more for a mile of urban freeway"

In Manhattan? Over what time frame for maintenance? This can't be true unless the seven DMV guys doing fuck all are getting paid like the three guy actually doing anything productive.

it's not talking about maintaining a street in Manhattan. Manhattan's streets, actually, are probably some of the most cost-effective in the entire world as they have been in place for 100 years and provide service to trillions of dollars in concentrated real estate value. It's talking about "urban freeways" i.e. 2&2's beloved Charlotte urban loop. And it appears the $100,000,000 is pretty accurate - here's a fact sheet showing that it cost $540,000,000 to build the last five miles of I-485 plus an interchange.
 
That article is absurdly stupid. Those taxpayer "subsidies" come out of income taxes, which shockingly are taxes on income (whether personal or corporate). The vast, vast majority of those individuals and corporations depend on roads to generate said income, whether directly or indirectly. The more income you make, the more you pay in income taxes, more of which goes back to pay for the roads. That is a pretty direct correlation. It is actually one of the few aspects of our tax structure that makes a lot of rational sense.

translation: I like roads, so therefore whatever prospect of our tax structure that pays for it "makes a lot of rational sense".

There is no aspect of American transportation funding that makes rational sense.
 
it's not talking about maintaining a street in Manhattan. Manhattan's streets, actually, are probably some of the most cost-effective in the entire world as they have been in place for 100 years and provide service to trillions of dollars in concentrated real estate value. It's talking about "urban freeways" i.e. 2&2's beloved Charlotte urban loop. And it appears the $100,000,000 is pretty accurate - here's a fact sheet showing that it cost $540,000,000 to build the last five miles of I-485 plus an interchange.


I know it's not talking about Manhattan. I only referenced that because it's an expensive urban area.
 
it's not talking about maintaining a street in Manhattan. Manhattan's streets, actually, are probably some of the most cost-effective in the entire world as they have been in place for 100 years and provide service to trillions of dollars in concentrated real estate value. It's talking about "urban freeways" i.e. 2&2's beloved Charlotte urban loop. And it appears the $100,000,000 is pretty accurate - here's a fact sheet showing that it cost $540,000,000 to build the last five miles of I-485 plus an interchange.

Worth every penny. In all seriousness, that interchange is amazing. It brings several major 8-lane roadways together and nobody has to slow down below about 60 mph at any point in time regardless of the direction you end up traveling in.
 
Is all the parking due to gov. requirements? Seems like if you try and run a business that wants walk in customers and you do not provide parking, you will be out of business in about two weeks.

Many zoning codes include parking minimums based on housing units in resi and sq footage in commercial/office areas.

If indeed a business would go under without parking, we can expect the market to provide the right number of spaces without government intervention. Perhaps a small business owner knows something about her clients that a bureaucrat does not.
 
Many zoning codes include parking minimums based on housing units in resi and sq footage in commercial/office areas.

If indeed a business would go under without parking, we can expect the market to provide the right number of spaces without government intervention. Perhaps a small business owner knows something about her clients that a bureaucrat does not.

exactly.

ETA, StrongTowns does a good feature every Black Friday where members go to malls and shopping centers and post photos of acres of empty parking on what is supposed to be the heaviest shopping day of the year.

I've worked in real estate development law my whole career, and pretty much every development project involves a lot of mental gymnastics about how to shoehorn an economically productive building onto a given piece of land while still complying with mandatory parking minimums.
 
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