Randal O’Toole went on a bus tours of different parts of Houston while he was in town for the Preserving the American Dream Conference a couple of weeks ago and he chronicles his impressions with observations here (neighborhoods between downtown and the Galleria area) and here (one of the Houston area’s several master-planned communities, Sienna Plantation). Upon finishing the tour of Sienna, O’Toole commented on the trip back to his downtown hotel:

After finishing up our tour of Sienna, we took the Fort Bend Parkway, one of the region’s many toll roads, back to Houston. This 6.2-mile, four-lane highway required just over a year to build and opened in 2004 at a cost of $60 million. That’s less than $2.5 million per lane mile, including on- and off-ramps, over- and underpasses, and toll facilities. By comparison, $60 million would barely get you one mile of light rail and less than a mile of heavy rail. The toll for the 6.2 miles was $2, even for our full-sized buses.

And compare that to this!