ABSTRACT

Experience shows that selection of a welfare-improving transportation investment, even if based on a proper evaluation, does not guarantee that the project will be built. Without secure funding, such a project remains merely an idea, unlikely to reach fruition. Political realities often render the evaluation process neither necessary nor sufficient for project implementation. Alternatively, the political ability to marshal and ensure funding can result in a project being completed even if it did not undergo orderly assessment. In cases like these, secure funding is often the raison d’être for undertaking the project even if the COBA has shown it to be unwarranted.1