Complete Streets Cost Calculator

Roadway cost is directly proportional to the number of vehicle lanes, while protected bike lane, sidewalk, and median costs are flat per-mile add-ons that don't change based on lane count. As you add more vehicle lanes, roadway cost grows while the multi-modal components stay the same dollar amount, so those components shrink as a percentage of the total project cost even though their actual price tag is unchanged.

Protected bike lanes and sidewalks are priced for construction on both sides of the road, since a complete streets corridor typically needs pedestrian and cyclist facilities serving both directions of travel. A landscaped median runs down the center of the roadway as a single continuous feature rather than duplicated on each side, so its per-mile cost is not doubled the way the bike lane and sidewalk costs are.

No -- it only estimates roadway, bike lane, sidewalk, and median construction costs at flat per-mile unit rates, and does not include utility relocation, stormwater drainage, signal or intersection modifications, or right-of-way acquisition. Real complete-streets project budgets typically add substantial cost for those items on top of the pavement and facility costs modeled here.

The unit costs used here are rough, generalized urban planning-level estimates, and real per-lane-mile and per-mile facility costs vary substantially by region, local labor and material costs, soil conditions, and project complexity. Use this calculator for early-stage budgetary comparison between design options, not as a substitute for a detailed engineer's cost estimate once a specific corridor and design are selected.

Each add-on contributes its own flat per-mile cost when enabled, so a road with all three multi-modal features costs meaningfully more per mile than a bare roadway with only vehicle lanes. The relative size of that increase depends heavily on corridor length and vehicle lane count -- the same multi-modal package adds a much larger percentage to a narrow two-lane road's budget than to a wide six-lane arterial's budget.