If there was any doubt that inflation has significantly weakened the US dollar, one need only look toward the city of Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta is home to Hartsfield-Jackson Int’l Airport, the world’s busiest airport in terms of passenger volume as well as flight capacity. Given the airport’s immense size, events that take place at Hartsfield have a ripple effect throughout the air traffic control system.

For years, Atlanta, like many major urban centers across the country, has confronted growing airport congestion leading to long flight delays, made worse after Sept 11th and the war on terror. To combat this congestion problem the city of Atlanta commissioned the construction of a 5th airport runway to ease congestion, while increasing flight capacity.

According to the FAA, this 5th runway will increase flight capacity by over 30% at Hartsfield, which translates into smoother air traffic, not only in Atlanta but throughout the country. So…what was the cost of this rather mundane piece of civil engineering? The runway, taxiway and bridge over a nearby interstate cost the taxpayers approximately $1.2 billion, that’s BILLION!!!! Who knew that 9,000 ft of pavement and a bridge could cost so much….In the late 1970s, the construction costs for Hartsfield Airport itself, replacing the then Atlanta Municipal Airport, totaled: $1.6 billion (and that included 3 runways). By contrast the taxpayers of this nation shelled out $130 billion dollars to construct the nation’s interstate system, which included over 40,000 miles of highway, bridges, overpasses and intersections (approximately $3.2 million per mile). For $1.2 billion, one would expect the runway to extend from Atlanta to Jacksonville, Florida.

So how does the cost of the runway compare with other major construction projects in today’s dollars? The Golden Gate Bridge costs approximately $249 million, while the Empire State Building costs a whopping $554 million and the Sears Tower topped out at over $623 million.

With the completion of Atlanta’s 5th runway, the city can boast of the most expensive stretch of pavement in the world, perhaps someone should consider taking a look at those accounting books…
http://www.usatoday.com/money/biztravel/2006-05-15-atlanta-usat_x.htm