Roads

cutting corners I doubt is any reason the roads are the way they are. Here in colorado.....they assign a 15 man crew an 8 hour shift to fix a fkn pot hole because they have left over "budget" they need to spend. If they dont spend their budget or go "over" the next years budget will be less, and they dont want that.

So in terms of DOT they almost never cut corners.....why would they?

 

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Want to try that again?

I'm not talking about maintenance - that's a totally separate budget from a construction project. Construction projects not only involve state money (and maintenance is usually county money) but a large amount of federal funds as well.

Also, I'm talking about millions of dollars per mile while you are only talking about a few hundred per mile. So your comparison isn't valid.

 

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ok I see the difference however. I do have a question. If the "state" alots a large budget each year for several years for a large construction project ie: Colorado and its t-Rex project. how do they maintain that level of funding after the project is finished? Do they just say....ah hell were done now so lets reduce the budget?

If this is the case i'll shut the hell up, but from my experience they always have something "major" going on and the budget is always on par or increasing from years past.

 

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They are finished with it. You don't seem to understand that a construction project is a PROJECT - and it's funded as a one-shot deal. Once the project is completed, that's it - done.

And that's where, later on, maintenance funds come into play to keep it up. And there's NO federal money at all involved in that. And the upkeep costs are FAR, FAR, FAR below what the original construction cost was.

Sure - every state always has some new construction projects going on somewhere.

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Initially yes the upkeep costs are far far far less than the origional construction costs but over time obviously wont be the case.

I was under the impression that such large projects were funded yearly do to the large $$ involved, they couldnt one lump sum the projects. I guess thats not the case.

 

It would take decades - 50 or 60 years before th upkeep costs started to get close to the original construction costs.

You're not too far off.

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They always have what's estimated to be the full cost of the project already figured out BUT often do break it up in annual installments. Very few states would have the cash on hand to fund a $3 billion project in one lump sum. And many of them cost far more than that.

The main thing I wanted you to understand, though. is that the project funds are for construction only, and don't have anything to do with maintenance.

 

It's a conspiracy by oil companies to increase the length of drive-time so you buy more gas. =p

- N