Build Roads Now

[Guest Scott]

I wonder if we can convince the lawmakers to build roads right now (instead of making cuts).

Yes, this may be a little self serving since I work in the industry, but here me out.

It is true that not much tax revenue is being generated now, but in the long run this would save tax payers billions.

Why?

The major factors affecting the fluctuations of highway construction costs are the cost of diesel, oil, asphalt (which is just a form of oil), and concrete.  Right now all are dirt cheap.  Asphalt costs here were around $520 a ton last month.  Now, despite what the index says, some companies are selling it off at $200 a ton.  Diesel is $1.80 a gallon here; the lowest in many years.  Oil is the cheapest it has been in history.

We could literally fix and build roads at half price. 

In addition, road construction would inconvenience the public less than it ever has.  Traffic volumes are way down.

I don't think there will ever be an opportunity like this again.

What do you think?

Edited April 28, 2020 by Scott

[Vort]

If such plans could be approved and put into motion within days, I'd be all for it. My suspicion is that any plans originating today won't actually start until the end of summer at least, and more likely next year. So I don't think it will work like you're saying. If it did, the municipalities, counties, states, and feds could sell bonds to finance things, so taxation would not be an issue.

[JohnsonJones]

6 hours ago, Scott said:

I wonder if we can convince the lawmakers to build roads right now (instead of making cuts).

Yes, this may be a little self serving since I work in the industry, but here me out.

It is true that not much tax revenue is being generated now, but in the long run this would save tax payers billions.

Why?

The major factors affecting the fluctuations of highway construction costs are the cost of diesel, oil, asphalt (which is just a form of oil), and concrete.  Right now all are dirt cheap.  Asphalt costs here were around $520 a ton last month.  Now, despite what the index says, some companies are selling it off at $200 a ton.  Diesel is $1.80 a gallon here; the lowest in many years.  Oil is the cheapest it has been in history.

We could literally fix and build roads at half price. 

In addition, road construction would inconvenience the public less than it ever has.  Traffic volumes are way down.

I don't think there will ever be an opportunity like this again.

What do you think?

You make some great points.  If they could pull it off, that would be common sense and be a good idea.

Unfortunately, with the Governments as they are...wonderful ideas do not seem to run alongside the decisions they sometimes make.

[Carborendum]

9 hours ago, Scott said:

The major factors affecting the fluctuations of highway construction costs are the cost of diesel, oil, asphalt (which is just a form of oil), and concrete.  Right now all are dirt cheap.  Asphalt costs here were around $520 a ton last month.  Now, despite what the index says, some companies are selling it off at $200 a ton.  Diesel is $1.80 a gallon here; the lowest in many years.  Oil is the cheapest it has been in history.

We could literally fix and build roads at half price. 

What do you think?

Good idea.  But it completely ignores the details that make this idea useless. 

Remember that the actual bitumen content of asphalt mix designs amount to about 5% by weight or about 10% to 15% by volume.  Then you've got the base, subbase, subgrade prep and stabilization...  So, you're really only saving less than 1% of the overall construction cost because of bitumen prices.

There's labor, financing, equipment rentals, traffic controls...

That said, roadway construction has always been a method that government entities have used to stimulate the economy -- usually with good results.  But the amount being saved by oil prices generally is not the reason why it makes financial sense to do so.

[anatess2]

10 hours ago, Vort said:

If such plans could be approved and put into motion within days, I'd be all for it. My suspicion is that any plans originating today won't actually start until the end of summer at least, and more likely next year. 

Not anywhere in the USA that I know of - especially if it's Federal.  So, there's this county road that got built in Florida because of a brand spanking popular business that got approved for construction in the county and they expect traffic to boom in the area. The business got built and opened... I'd say 4 years ago by now.  The road finally got started a couple years ago and it's still under construction right now making it worse for the area than if they never started it.

Granted, this was not under the Trump-era regulation reduction new-way-of-doing-things.

[Guest Scott]

37 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Remember that the actual bitumen content of asphalt mix designs amount to about 5% by weight or about 10% to 15% by volume.  Then you've got the base, subbase, subgrade prep and stabilization...  So, you're really only saving less than 1% of the overall construction cost because of bitumen prices.

It's a lot more than 1%, especially on overlays and maintenance jobs (which consist of only asphalt pavement, shouldering, and guardrail.

And while asphalt binder is only 6% by weight (few places around here use 5%), the aggregate in pavement is $25-$30 a ton while the binder is $520 a ton (before the recent down turn in prices).   More than half of the cost of pavement is from the binder despite the weight.  

37 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

There's labor, financing, equipment rentals, traffic controls...

Traffic control will be a lot cheaper right now because traffic volumes are way down.  Financing is cheaper now than it has been in years.   Labor costs won't change.

I used to be an estimator for highway projects.  Right now, the cost will be approximately 50% of what it was last year.

[Guest Scott]

31 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Not anywhere in the USA that I know of - especially if it's Federal.  So, there's this county road that got built in Florida because of a brand spanking popular business that got approved for construction in the county and they expect traffic to boom in the area. The business got built and opened... I'd say 4 years ago by now.  The road finally got started a couple years ago and it's still under construction right now making it worse for the area than if they never started it.

Granted, this was not under the Trump-era regulation reduction new-way-of-doing-things.

It depends.  Florida is almost all private land.  That's why it takes so long there (and in other places).    The two biggest obstacles are obtaining right of way (which can take years) and sometimes environmental.  Florida has a lot of wetlands so I'd imagine it might be an obstacle there.

Buying land takes a long time.  Sometimes it even goes through the condemning process.

Out here though, we can usually get roads out a lot faster.  Most places we don't have to worry much about land acquisition.  There isn't much private land around.

You do have to get things like environmental clearence, but it usually isn't that hard (though sometimes it can be).

A lot of projects are already designed and are shelved so it wouldn't take long to get them going.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Scott

[Carborendum]

12 minutes ago, Scott said:

It's a lot more than 1%, especially on overlays and maintenance jobs (which consist of only asphalt pavement, shouldering, and guardrail.

And while asphalt binder is only 6% by weight (few places around here use 5%), the aggregate in pavement is $25-$30 a ton while the binder is $520 a ton (before the recent down turn in prices).   More than half of the cost of pavement is from the binder despite the weight.  

It looks like you haven't actually done the math on it yet.  As usual.

Just do this: How much is the price of bitumen (even at 6% instead of 5%) for a mile of roadway 6" thick pavement for a 36' wide (2x12' lanes + 2x6' shoulders) roadway?  You'll find the savings to be less than $2000.  And what is the typical price of such a roadway for a mile?  You'll find that it is nearly $200,000.  So, about 1% of it is bitumen cost.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Carborendum

[Guest Scott]

54 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

It looks like you haven't actually done the math on it yet.  As usual.

Just do this: How much is the price of bitumen (even at 6% instead of 5%) for a mile of roadway 6" thick pavement for a 36' wide (2x12' lanes + 2x6' shoulders) roadway?  You'll find the savings to be less than $2000.  And what is the typical price of such a roadway for a mile?  You'll find that it is nearly $200,000.  So, about 1% of it is bitumen cost.

What are you talking about?  Based on your figures (other than the $200000 per mile; that's way off for a 6" overlay) the cost savings would be more than $800,000.  It is you that haven't done the math.  Where are you coming up with $2000?

Six miles of road, 36 feet wide, with 6" depth of pavement requires 41,817.600 tons of pavement.

6% of 41,817.6 is 2509.056 tons of binder.

At $520 a ton, the binder cost will be $1,304,709.  

At $200 a ton, the binder cost will be $501,811.20.

That's a difference of $802,897.90.

 

[anatess2]

5 minutes ago, Scott said:

What are you talking about?  Based on your figures (other than the $200000 per mile; that's way off for a 6" overlay) the cost savings would be more than $800,000.  It is you that haven't done the math.  Where are you coming up with $2000?

Six miles of road, 36 feet wide, with 6" depth of pavement requires 41,817.600 tons of pavement.

6% of 41,817.6 is 2509.056 tons of binder.

At $520 a ton, the binder cost will be $1,304,709.  

At $200 a ton, the binder cost will be $501,811.20.

That's a difference of $802,897.90.

 

He is calculating ONE mile of road.

And I don't get the math.  (I have zero knowledge on pavement).

1 mile = 5,280 feet, * 36 feet wide *0.5 feet depth * 6% = 570.24

$520 = 296,524.8

$200 = 114,048.0

for a difference of well... not 2000... I think Carb missed a few zeroes.

So... how much does it cost to build a ONE MILE paved road?

Edited April 28, 2020 by anatess2

[Guest Scott]

Just now, anatess2 said:

He is calculating ONE mile of road.

For one mile of road, the cost savings will be $133,816.30.

For one mile of road, 6968.600 tons of pavement are required.

That's 418.176 tons of binder required (at 6%).

At $520 a ton, that is $217,451.50.

At $200 a ton, that is $83,635.20.

That's $133,816.30 per mile saved (given the dimensions of 1 mile x 36' x 6").

How is that less than $2000?

[anatess2]

2 minutes ago, Scott said:

For one mile of road, the cost savings will be $133,816.30.

For one mile of road, 6968.600 tons of pavement are required.

That's 418.176 tons of binder required (at 6%).

At $520 a ton, that is $217,451.50.

At $200 a ton, that is $83,635.20.

That's $133,816.30 per mile saved (given the dimensions of 1 mile x 36' x 6").

How is that less than $2000?

A few zeroes.  But that's not his argument.  His argument is that the savings is 1% of the TOTAL cost.  So... how much does it cost to pave a mile (not just the cost of bitumen or petro-whatever)?

Edited April 28, 2020 by anatess2

[Vort]

17 minutes ago, Scott said:

Six miles of road, 36 feet wide, with 6" depth of pavement requires 41,817.600 tons of pavement.

6 minutes ago, Scott said:

For one mile of road, 6968.600 tons of pavement are required.

So, um 41,817.600 tons / 6 miles = 6969.600 tons / mile

That's within 0.015% of your second statement, so I guess that's acceptable.

By the way, that's some awesome precision, that you know the pavement weight requirement down to two-pound increments. Impressive!

[anatess2]

12 minutes ago, Vort said:

So, um 41,817.600 tons / 6 miles = 6969.600 tons / mile

That's within 0.015% of your second statement, so I guess that's acceptable.

By the way, that's some awesome precision, that you know the pavement weight requirement down to two-pound increments. Impressive!

Whoa whoa whoa... I just noticed TON.

it's not square foot we're talking about.  It's WEIGHT????

That's why I don't get the math.  I forgot Ton is weight.  It's kilograms here ya know...  Hah hah.  Sorry... forget me.

Edited April 28, 2020 by anatess2

[Guest Scott]

13 minutes ago, Vort said:

So, um 41,817.600 tons / 6 miles = 6969.600 tons / mile

That's within 0.015% of your second statement, so I guess that's acceptable.

By the way, that's some awesome precision, that you know the pavement weight requirement down to two-pound increments. Impressive!

For estimating purposes, thousands or hundredths of tons are used, depending on whether it is a state, federal, county, or city project.  That's why I used .xxx.  It's how estimates are done.

For payment purposes hundredths of tons are used.

For the plans themselves, usually numbers are rounded for simplicity.

I didn't make the rules; that's how it's done.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Scott

[Guest Scott]

9 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Whoa whoa whoa... I just noticed TON.

it's not square foot we're talking about.  It's WEIGHT????

That's why I don't get the math.  Hah hah.  Sorry... forget me.

Anatess, yes payment is done by tons.

If you want to convert area or volume to tons here is the calculation:

110 lbs. per square yard per 1" inch thickness.  It's kind of a dumb calculation (dang non-metric system) but that's the official one.  Of course it's really easy just to use that and come up with a factor.

Anyway contractors are required to stay within a certain yield of the above calculation for overlays.  It varies depending on the smoothness of the road.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Scott

[anatess2]

4 minutes ago, Scott said:

110 lbs. per square yard per 1" inch thickness.

So... that's 73.3 lbs per square foot of 6" thick, 6% (or 4 lbs) of which is petro-binder?

so that's 23,232 pounds of binder for a mile of road, 36 feet wide... (do you know there are different kinds of tons according to google... but I'll use 2000 what the heck), that's 380 tons of bitumen...

I'm still waaaaaay off.  

🎵 The system of metric, the system of metric, the system of metric... is better! (for my head) 🎵

 

[mordorbund]

6 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

🎵 The system of metric, the system of metric, the system of metric... is better! (for my head) 🎵

 

[Guest MormonGator]

All this talk about building roads makes me want to play Sim City 4 again. 

[anatess2]

5 minutes ago, mordorbund said:

 

Ahhh number hub... how can you fail me?  TON, my dear, ton.  How many barley corns in a ton...

[Guest Scott]

27 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

A few zeroes.  But that's not his argument.  His argument is that the savings is 1% of the TOTAL cost.  So... how much does it cost to pave a mile (not just the cost of bitumen or petro-whatever)?

That's a hard question to answer since location makes a big difference.  

For material cost alone, the initial savings would be 25%  assuming the cost of aggregate didn't go up or down (it also went down).  This includes shouldering as well, you would have to shoulder the road.

BUT (and and this is big but), there is more.  Colorado has a fuel cost adjustment attached to construction costs.  This protects the contractor and agency from fuel cost fluctuations and thus it makes projects easier to big by private contractors so they don't have to try and predict diesel prices.

With the price of diesel right now, the price the agency pays for the project item is adjusted down because of the price of diesel.  If the contractor bid say $100 a ton on something, when payments are allocated this is adjusted up or down based on the price of diesel.  Right now everything is being adjusted down.

So the real cost savings of materials more than 25%.  Including non-mayerial cost, it could be up to near 20% in a rural area, but less in an urban area.

Of course there are more savings too.  Traffic control costs go up exponentially rather than linear depending on traffic volumes.  Double the traffic volume is more than double the cost.

For example, a low traffic area might only require an unmanned temporary signal.  As you increase traffic volumes, you would need flaggers.  Increase it more and you would need pilot cars.  Increase it more and you might need detours (which are sometimes needed anyway).   The more you increase the traffic, the more PIS (Public Information Service) required.

Also, with lower traffic volumes you can do longer stretches of road at a time, which drives the cost down further.

Lodging, mobilization, and other costs are down too.

With other material costs, potentially total savings could be more than 40% assuming the project could get out quickly and things stay the same as they are now (but for other reasons of course we don't want that to happen).

 

 

[anatess2]

31 minutes ago, Scott said:

Anatess, yes payment is done by tons.

So I did a google and it says the country road that can take me home to a place where I belong cost $2M per mile (holy guacamole, batman!).

So with $133,816 savings per mile of binder cost... you saved 6.6% of total cost... you're still out 1.8million and some change for every mile.

Not the 1% that Carb thought but not that much more... so does his argument hold?

[Guest Scott]

18 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

So... that's 73.3 lbs per square foot of 6" thick, 6% (or 4 lbs) of which is petro-binder?

so that's 23,232 pounds of binder for a mile of road, 36 feet wide... (do you know there are different kinds of tons according to google... but I'll use 2000 what the heck), that's 380 tons of bitumen...

I'm still waaaaaay off.  

🎵 The system of metric, the system of metric, the system of metric... is better! (for my head) 🎵

 

1 mile of road = 5280 feet.

36 feet wide × 5280 feet = 190,080 square feet

190,080 square feet = 21120 square yards.

21120 square yards × 110 lbs per inch thickness × 6" = 13,939,200 lbs.

13,939,200 lbs. = 6960.600 tons.

6% of 6960.600 is 418.176 tons of binder.

[anatess2]

4 minutes ago, Scott said:

That's a hard question to answer since location makes a big difference.  

For material cost alone, the initial savings would be 25%  assuming the cost of aggregate didn't go up or down (it also went down).  This includes shouldering as well, you would have to shoulder the road.

BUT (and and this is big but), there is more.  Colorado has a fuel cost adjustment attached to construction costs.  This protects the contractor and agency from fuel cost fluctuations and thus it makes projects easier to big by private contractors so they don't have to try and predict diesel prices.

With the price of diesel right now, the price the agency pays for the project item is adjusted down because of the price of diesel.  If the contractor bid say $100 a ton on something, when payments are allocated this is adjusted up or down based on the price of diesel.  Right now everything is being adjusted down.

So the real cost savings of materials more than 25%.  Including non-mayerial cost, it could be up to near 20% in a rural area, but less in an urban area.

Of course there are more savings too.  Traffic control costs go up exponentially rather than linear depending on traffic volumes.  Double the traffic volume is more than double the cost.

For example, a low traffic area might only require an unmanned temporary signal.  As you increase traffic volumes, you would need flaggers.  Increase it more and you would need pilot cars.  Increase it more and you might need detours (which are sometimes needed anyway).   The more you increase the traffic, the more PIS (Public Information Service) required.

Also, with lower traffic volumes you can do longer stretches of road at a time, which drives the cost down further.

Lodging, mobilization, and other costs are down too.

With other material costs, potentially total savings could be more than 40% assuming the project could get out quickly and things stay the same as they are now (but for other reasons of course we don't want that to happen).

 

 

This is the job of system engineers... of course, there are TONS (see what I did there?) of factors involved in cost analysis of a public utility as you have mentioned.  And for a holistic system, you're going to need to tie it to healthcare cost (traffic accidents, pollution, etc), litigations, etc. etc.

That's why, usually, when we talk of things in general, we don't look at the holistic system, we simply look at... "I'm building a road, it cost me X much, I saved Y much".

[Guest Scott]

6 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

So I did a google and it says the country road that can take me home to a place where I belong cost $2M per mile (holy guacamole, batman!).

So with $133,816 savings per mile of binder cost... you saved 6.6% of total cost... you're still out 1.8million and some change for every mile.

Not the 1% that Carb thought but not that much more... so does his argument hold?

Anatess, that 2 million a mile is probably for a complete reconstruct or new construction.

Carb's example is for an overlay (with shouldering since you can't leave a 6" drop off).  Around here at least, given the criteria it would in the ballpark of $683,000 a mile for construction costs.