Government benefits cost for local government typically runs 30%. With benefits, Snow is costing taxpayers about $300,000 per year.

• Las Vegas’ annual cost per person due to traffic congestion is $279; the national average is $422.
• Our annual delay per person is 16 hours; the national average is 25 hours.
• Part of the perception of our problems is that we have a higher than average miles of freeway travel per lane-mile of freeway, probably because we’re more spread out than most cities our size (Las Vegas is 17,062 per day compared with the national average of 16,206).

Here is a direct link to the Census Bureau spreadsheet that includes this data.

One of the projects, the Boulder City bypass, actually has a negative return on investment and clearly should not be built.

Another revelation: the “I-15 North” project, which was started around the beginning of 2008, ranks lower in priority than the “I-15 South” project. The highest ranked project, US 95, was completed in 2007.

Nevada’s Department of Transportation stopped using cost-benefit analysis ten years ago. No one can say why. But without such analysis, DOT’s wish list of projects that comprise its “deficit” cannot be objectively evaluated.