Originally Posted by
mikeshoup
Moving goods, services, and workers aren't the only reason roads get built. All sorts of groups lobby the government for different reasons to have roads improved.
Example, a developer is lobbying local governments here in Denver to build a freeway (to "complete" the beltway) so that his development has freeway access, instead of just via a semi-rural two lane county road and its working.
Bicycle advocacy groups lobby all the time for road improvements with bicycle infrastructure.
Roads are built to serve the wants and desires of lobbyists.
If you rephrased that last bit to say projects get selected for political reasons, that would be at least partially true. TIP programs have a very strong political element; however, the staff who build them are usually trying to do the most good for the most people with limited resources. So the politics tends to be a selection factor among needed project, rather than a pure pork element, except in those areas where the politics are particularly corrupt.
The point I was trying to make is that the reason the funding is as high as it is and was as high as it used to be was economic (with the exception of the Interstates which were military as well). The reason we spend more on roads than we do on say parks is because roads have a significant and measurable economic benefit. Something like parks have benefits are more qualitative than quantitative.