Once again, I'm reminded to be very careful about what I post here:
Suppose, for a moment, that the people who run your local government really cared enough about you and your fellow citizens to do something that might actually benefit you, by funding a fancy transportation project that could shave 13 minutes off your time while commuting once it's done.
Is it worth it?
The answer, at this point, is "it depends". And honestly, what it depends upon is what your and your fellow commuters' time is really worth.
That's why we've created the tool below, so you can see how much you're saying your time in traffic is worth if the project goes forward! Just enter the indicated data in the tool below, and we'll do the math….
All the default numbers in the tool above are taken from a federally-funded transportation project in North Carolina, which promised to spend $461 million to reduce the travel time of some 100,000 train commuters between Charlotte and Raleigh by 13 minutes a trip, which would bring their one-way transit time down to just under three hours. We then adapted the math developed by John Whitehead for determining the benefit-cost ratio for the project to estimate what value per hour saved per individual that the state's politicians were assigning to the primary declared benefit of the project.
via politicalcalculations.blogspot.com
The tool says that the NC project implicitly values commuter time at $638/per hour.
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