Quality of Life
The part that never seems to make the budget.
I'm raising my kids here. I drive the same crowded roads you do, and I've spent plenty of weekends looking for a park that isn't packed, or something to do indoors that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.
That's the part that never seems to make the budget. The money goes into repaving, and it'll keep going into repaving every year for as long as we keep adding lane miles we can't afford to maintain. Every lane we don't build is money that stays available for decades, not just this budget cycle. And building inside the footprint we already have keeps us out of the wetlands, which is the same thing as protecting the water.
It isn't a choice between the nice things and the necessary ones. It's a choice between paying for the same road twice and getting something back.