"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
Roads as Economic Development
"Roads and transportation are costly. Building ten miles of a four-lane rural interstate highway costs about $200 million. For an eight-lane urban interstate, it is closer to $1 billion. Roads and transportation also come at a high environmental cost. The transportation sector accounts for about one sixth of world carbon emissions and the absence of roads is central to the process of taming (or spoiling) wild places. On the other hand, roads and transportation are the bedrock of the modern world. They facilitate the trade and specialization of tasks that is fundamental to economic growth since the industrial revolution. Devising transportation policy to balance the economic benefits of roads against their economic and environmental cost is an important and formidable problem."
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