Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Highway Expansion

A Better Way to Spend $1 Billion Than Ramming More Roads Thru Milwaukee

By Angie Schmitt | Dec 3, 2014 | 5 Comments

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation is set on widening Interstate 94, a highway that runs east-west through Milwaukee. The agency is so committed to this idea that it is proceeding, at great expense and over the objections of Milwaukee’s mayor, with a project to double-deck a portion of the road through a relatively densely populated […]

How Macquarie Makes Money By Losing Money on Toll Roads

By Angie Schmitt and Payton Chung | Nov 19, 2014 | 47 Comments

This is the second post in a three-part series about privately financed highways. Part one introduced the Indiana Toll Road privatization as an example of shoddily structured infrastructure deals. Part three looks at how faulty traffic projections lead bad projects to get built, and how the public ends up paying for those mistakes. Macquarie Group, the gigantic Australian […]

Citing Lack of Funds, St. Louis Road Builders Give Up on Sprawl Project

By Angie Schmitt | Nov 14, 2014 | 2 Comments

The transportation funding crunch kills bad projects along with the good. Case in point: Officials in St. Louis County say plans are on hold for the $120 million South County Connector, a classic sprawl highway boondoggle that has faced widespread local opposition. The campaign against the project included official legislation from the city of Maplewood, […]

The Illiana Expressway Will Eat Itself

By Phineas Baxandall and Jeff Inglis | Oct 1, 2014 | 21 Comments

A recent report by U.S. PIRG and the Frontier Group, “Highway Boondoggles: Wasted Money and America’s Transportation Future,” examines 11 of the most wasteful, least justifiable road projects underway in America right now. This is the final installment in our series profiling the various bad decisions that funnel so much money to infrastructure that does no good. Illinois and Indiana are proposing […]

To Destabilize Detroit’s Fragile Renaissance, Go Ahead and Widen I-94

By Phineas Baxandall and Jeff Inglis | Sep 30, 2014 | 9 Comments

A recent report by U.S. PIRG and the Frontier Group, “Highway Boondoggles: Wasted Money and America’s Transportation Future,” examines 11 of the most wasteful, least justifiable road projects underway in America right now. Here’s the latest installment in our series profiling the various bad decisions that funnel so much money to infrastructure that does no good. Michigan highway planners want to spend […]

How Colorado DOT’s Dubious Traffic Projections Could Soak the Public

By Phineas Baxandall and Jeff Inglis | Sep 29, 2014 | 2 Comments

A recent report by U.S. PIRG and the Frontier Group, “Highway Boondoggles: Wasted Money and America’s Transportation Future,” examines 11 of the most wasteful, least justifiable road projects underway in America right now. Here’s the latest installment in our series profiling the various bad decisions that funnel so much money to infrastructure that does no good. Local and state officials are eagerly […]

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