Case Studies of the Economic Impact of Highway Bypasses in Kansas

Book excerpt: Case studies of the economic impacts of highway bypasses on individual towns are needed since the effects of bypasses may vary a great deal from place to place. The objectives of this report were for a sample of small Kansas towns that have highway bypasses, (1) assess the impact of the bypass on the towns' total employment, (2) measure the impact on retail sales of the towns' travel-related businesses, (3) measure the impact on employment of the towns' travel-related businesses, (4) measure the impact on labor cost per employee of the towns' travel-related businesses, and for the Kansas counties that contain the sample of small Kansas towns that have bypasses, (5) assess the incremental impact on the county's road maintenance expenditures of assuming maintenance responsibility for the previous road alignment.