ANSWERS: 2
  • it varies greatly by location. A mile of road in the mountains may cost a few hundred times more than one on level ground. Similarly, building roads in more remote locations will sometimes be more expensive because of the cost of getting equipment and materials to the location. Other times, it may be more expensive to build a road in a city because of the increased costs associated with rerouting traffic, surveying around existing structures, and connecting to other roads, driveways, etc. This brings up another point: What do you mean by "build a road?" Some roads must be built over bad soil, uneven terrain, or over similarly difficult conditions. City roads are typically flat, whereas interstates and other highways are banked so as to promote better handling of the vehicles thereon at high speeds. It goes without saying that each situation varies. Depending on how you define "road" and whether it includes tunnells, bridges, and other conduits for the road itself, some mile-segments roads can cost billions (e.g. the Boston Big Dig). Other roads, in suburban areas, say for, instance, an extension road over flat ground, with no existing structures to deal with and good, hard earth under it, will only cost several thousand dollars. Another one mile stretch of road in Leadville, Colorado (elevation 10,000+ ft) may cost millions if rock needs to blasted, etc. It depends on what you define as "building" too. Does this include things like survey, demolition and plan costs? Or is it just the asphalt and the machinery and man-hours to lay the asphalt? Is the road just asphalt, or is it the prep that goes into laying it? All of this doesn't even get to the question, is the one mile of road one lane? One lane each way? Eight lanes each way? Are the costs of painted lines included? Traffic control devices? As you can see, there are a lot of variables. So I guess my answer would be several thousands of dollars to billions, depending on what's in the way, where it is, and what it will be used for. There are far too many factors to say what it costs per mile (lane count, bridges, materials used, terrain, new or replacement, forestry work, landscaping, etc) - but a cursory search on google shows a few interesting documents that breakdown the costs for a few regions: http://service.govdelivery.com/docs/WICLARK/WICLARK_243/WICLARK_243_20030731_en.pdf (Wisconson - $303,000 per mile - not sure that this includes labor and this sounds very low - perhaps this is only two lane rural roads) http://www.co.travis.tx.us/tnr/roads/TNR_originals/Rd_treatments.asp (Texas - over $1,000,000 per mile) http://www.dot.state.fl.us/estimates/Lane%20Mile%20Costs/Lane%20Mile%20costs.htm (Florida - 1-12 million per mile) A state DOT office is a good place to start.
  • Local Workers: $1.4 Million/Mile Foriegn Workers: 600K/Mile

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