THE IMPACTS OF BYPASSES ON SMALL- AND MEDIUM-SIZED COMMUNITIES: AN ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS

Abstract

A highway relief route is a segment of a highway that reroutes traffic around the central business district of a city. Planners perceive it as a means of enhancing mobility and often associate regional economic progress with construction of bypasses. Though a bypass often means safer, quieter, and less congested downtowns, the communities to receive a bypass generally worry about potential negative impacts to the local economy. Hence, to make wellinformed decisions on constructing relief routes, impact studies are needed. This work examines the economic impacts of highway relief routes on small- and medium-sized communities in Texas. Per capita sales in four different industry sectors were chosen as the indicators of impact. Fixed- and random-effects models were developed using a panel dataset. The models developed suggest that the bypassed cities suffer a sizable loss in retail sales, service receipts and gasoline service station sales. However, sales in the eating and drinking places...