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The Fuel Tax and Alternatives for Transportation Funding Special Report 285 (2006) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix A Highway Benefits Estimates
Pages 202-208

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From page 202...
... The USDOT studies present historical trends for physical measures of high way condition (pavement smoothness, bridge structural condition, and numbers of bridges with obsolete designs) and performance (congestion, average speed, and accident risks)
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From page 203...
... The fraction of urban travel that is under congested conditions increases by 2020, although annual hours lost to congestion per driver fall slightly at the higher spending levels (USDOT n.d., 9-8)
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From page 204...
... Finally, the model's projections of justified spending levels assume that projects are performed in order of their rates of return, with the highest-payoff projects given highest priority until the budget is exhausted or the minimum acceptable rate of return is reached. In practice, state and local highway agencies do not rank projects exclusively according to economic returns, and there may be regional disparities in rates of return that result from the state allocation formulas in the federal-aid pro gram.
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From page 205...
... Highway maintenance and operation expenditures were $9.6 billion in 1973 (FHWA 1997, Table HF-210) , so the esti mated trucking cost savings equaled between one-quarter and one-half of total cap ital costs plus operating expenses.
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From page 206...
... The results showed that at all times during the study period, additional investment in the highway capital stock caused plants to reduce their inventories. Finally, inventory savings were scaled to an estimate of total economywide logistics cost savings by multiplying by a constant factor.
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From page 207...
... . That is, in the 1980­1991 period, an additional $1 of highway capital stock produced annual cost savings in private business equal to 16 percent of the total social cost of pro viding the additional capital.
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From page 208...
... 2004. Firm Inventory Behavior and the Returns from Highway Infrastructure Investments.
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Key Terms

  • capital stock
  • federal highway
  • highway administration
  • highway infrastructure
  • productivity growth

  • capital spending
  • inventory holding
  • spending levels
  • truck traffic
  • annual capital

  • highway investment
  • intercity highway
  • highway agencies
  • user costs
  • marginal benefits

  • holding costs
  • authors estimated
  • vehicle miles
  • social cost
  • study found

  • motor vehicles
  • production costs
  • cost study
  • trucking industry
  • operating costs

  • total cap
  • minimum acceptable
  • annual rate
  • performance studies
  • highway network


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