Throwback Thursday: Millions Spent on Unused Midwest Highway, Bridges

In 1986, the Federal Highway Administration spent $21.4 million — almost $58 million in 2022 dollars — on unused roads and bridges in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska.

For this wasteful spending, Sen. William Proxmire, a Democrat from Wisconsin, gave a Golden Fleece Award to the FHA.

In that FHA region, auditors found that 15 percent of the highway and bridge projects that they looked at were either unneeded and unused or were underused far below expectations.

“Some of the unneeded projects had been sitting, lonely and forlorn, for over two decades,” Proxmire said.

One four-lane bridge had “one little problem” Proxmire said, and the FHA spent $900,000 to replace it. But two years after the bridge was done, no road led to or from it.

“The taxpayers had a dirty trick pulled on them in this bridge game,” the senator said.

In another project, the FHA paid for 6.5 miles of new roadway because traffic was expected to almost double within 20 years. In 1974, on average, 3,420 vehicles used the old road each day. A dozen years later, traffic has dwindled to 1,600 per day on the new road.

Another instance saw the FHA approving construction of an extra-long overpass bridge, as the road underneath was expected to be widened to four lanes.

After more than 25 years, in 1986, the road underneath was still only two lanes.

“These bridges are overly long and the taxpayers are at least $26,000 short,” Proxmire said.

The #WasteOfTheDay is presented by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.