How much new road capacity do we build every year in the U.S.?
U.S. highway capacity has been growing very slowly in recent years. Currently, the U.S. has just over four million center-line miles of roads, providing 8.42 million lane-miles for highway travel, according to the Federal Highway Administration. Between 1997 and 2006, the U.S. built an average of 8,015 center-line miles of new roads per year. This, along with widening of existing roads, added 20,233 lane-miles per year. This means the capacity of the highway system grew less than one-quarter of one percent per year. During that same time, the U.S. population grew an average of one percent per year, the number of licensed drivers grew 1.2 percent per year and the number of vehicle miles traveled on the nation’s highways grew 1.8 percent per year. It’s no wonder congestion increases annually.
