A MICROCOMPUTER PROGRAM TO EVALUATE THE BENEFITS AND COSTS OF ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENT STRATEGIES ON LOW-VOLUME LOCAL RURAL ROADS

The physical condition of local rural roads and bridges is deteriorating. Many roads have not been reconstructed since they were first surfaced; many bridges are 50 to 100 years old. At the same time, the money available to local governments to maintain and rebuild the system is declining. Some observers believe that the local road system must be restructured by reducing the number of miles of road and by paving some roads, reconstructing others, and reducing maintenance levels on still other roads. Residents living on or farming land on roads considered for abandonment, reduced maintenance, or conversion to private drives argue that these policies increase their transportation costs in amounts exceeding the savings to local governments. At the present time, local government officials have no methods of evaluating the changes in travel and investment costs associated with changing the number of miles and types of local rural roads. Described in this paper is a microcomputer program designed to enable county engineers and other local officials to estimate the change in travel and investment costs from alternative investment strategies on local rural roads and to compute benefit-cost ratios for the alternative investment strategies.