Tearing down urban freeways to make room for a new bicycle economy | Grist

A great post in Grist. It’s part 2 of their bikeconomics series. If you enjoyed this also listen to NPR’s All Things Considered on the same subject – The end of the road; saying goodbye to freeways.

The numbers at play are almost too large to comprehend, but comparison is enlightening.

Bike lanes cost anywhere from $5,000 to $60,000 per mile to add to an existing road. That includes everything from engineering and design to paint and concrete to traffic signals.

Does that seem like a lot? Well, let’s compare.

Freeway construction in Michigan’s countryside clocks in at $8 million per mile. In the state’s cities, with their need for overpasses, underpasses, exits and entrances, and mitigation of construction impacts on health and commerce, the cost jumps to an average of $39 million per mile.

via Tearing down urban freeways to make room for a new bicycle economy | Grist.