A few days ago I came across a Dallas Morning News article that seemed to forget many fundamental economic principles. The article, written by Brandon Formby, discusses the proposed idea to tear down the elevated portion of interstate 345. It's the portion of roadway between 75 and I45. You know you're on it if you drive northbound and see a huge Apple ad hanging from a high-rise. 

For an article which suggests the removal of the highway, I thought it was odd to begin with this sentence:

"Interstate 345 gets hundreds of thousands of people into, out of and around downtown Dallas every week."

Has anyone looked at Google Maps between 3-8 p.m.? How will the removal of this stretch help turn those deep red lines even into yellow? 

Why is the case being made to tear down the highway? Here come the feel good reasons (a good way to mask the cost). Reasons such as "Deep Ellum and East Dallas feel separated" and "The highway looks bad" are just a few. I know, I know, it's all just "free" money, but does the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars that would be necessary to tear it down really justify it? 

Wait! There is an economic reason being put forward. It's from Patrick Kennedy, founder of A New Dallas. The claim is that all of the prime real estate under the overpass would now be available for commercial and residential use. Property could be developed and spur all sorts of economic progress. 

Right ... I'd be saying the same thing too if I was in the real estate business. Don't get me wrong, I love business, small and big. But what you don't see or hear are the real estate companies offering to pay for that tear down. And I don't blame them. We (AKA the taxpayers) would be the ones paying for that huge demolition bill. For what? Economic growth? 

No.

The worst part is we (the taxpayers) will probably be naive and talked into giving some company millions more in incentives and tax breaks to move here to fill the buildings. What do we get in return? What's our ROE on this?

Oh yeah, we lose a highway and roads, the very roads we need to get to those new developments. We get increased traffic, costs, and probably end up paying for some public transportation system to fix our new problem. 

I learned about the idea of supply and demand in the 7th grade. I found it fascinating. I've always loved the idea, its simplicity. But I also think many people don't understand it, or have adopted a new meaning. This writer proved my point with this segment:

"Experts say transportation departments’ true goal is to spur economic development. A highway like I-345 not only prevents that, they say, but also serves to feed the demand transportation departments say they’re trying to quell."

Care to name those experts? Is that really TXDoT's true goal? Highway I-345 prevents economic development? 

"Experts say people and transportation departments don’t grasp that much of what drives highway demand is the existence of highways in the first place."

No.

Again, who are these experts? And now we have an insight to the writer's logic. 

Using Formby's logic, why are we not building roads all over the place? Demand would follow, right? All we (the taxpayers) have to do is keep building roads and businesses would follow. Why do we have the unemployment rate anywhere but 0 then? Why do we have traffic at all? Shouldn't the highways already be big enough to handle the demand?

The truth is, roads and highways are built after demand. It would be impossible to forecast where demand will be a few years from now.

All costs are passed along. That seems to be a principle forgotten in this discussion. Helping Deep Ellum sounds good. Tearing down the highway would look good. Unknown to those proposing it, economics isn't based on emotion.

Unfortunately, this proposal might work because we vote on for what feels good or what looks good. So for the people pushing this idea, the bar is pretty low, because you're dealing emotions. And people vote on emotion, not economics.

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