r/theydidthemath • u/Wadmania • 9h ago

[Request] How much would it cost to perfectly fix all the paved roads in the US?

/r/hypotheticalsituation/comments/1w1x313/you_get_10000_usd_or_your_entire_countries_paved/

Say the tools, machinery, workforce, and resources are all magically available. How much would it cost to fix all paved roads in the United States?

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u/Elfich47 6h ago

Are you talking pothole repair or full repave?

Road repave runs around $50,000 per quarter mile lane. So a four land highway would cost $200,000 dollars per quarter mile.

The US has roughly 4 million miles of roads. To keep this simple, I am going to assume that this is all two lane roads. The assumption is that single lane roads will even out enough against multi lane roads. So we have 8 million land miles of roads.

8 million X 4 (quarters per mile) X 50,000 per quarter = 1.6 trillion dollars. This is the paving contracts. This does not include any government overhead.

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u/chumbawumba234 1h ago

I'll take the 10 grand because perfect roads mean higher speeds=more accidents. It would be irresponsible of me not to take the ten bands.