Transportation For America » How will your state spend its transportation stimulus?

How will your state spend its transportation stimulus?

December 19, 2008
By Stephen Lee Davis

updated: 01/13/09 12:00 pm

As Congress works to craft an economic stimulus that can help get our economy out of a rut, will the spending just dig a bigger ditch?

The numbers for the proposed economic stimulus package keep increasing. Congress and the incoming administration both expect that tens of billions of dollars in the package will be targeted for transportation. Where does your state want to spend the money? We’re starting to get a picture, and at the moment, many of the answers don’t match what’s needed.

As part of developing the stimulus, states have been asked to develop lists of transportation projects that could be “ready to go” if funds were available. Transportation for America has gathered a handful of these lists from state departments of transportation, and the lists thus far suggest some real problems.

(Note: The lists we have received are not all complete, and some other projects may be funded directly by Governors or from other budgets. Refer to your state directly for the final word.)

Tables at the bottom of the post.

With commuters crowding into overburdened transit systems in record numbers and our elected leaders calling for investments in green, 21st Century transportation, we should prioritize investment in things like expanded public transportation, rail projects, and streets safe for walking and biking. Polls have shown that Americans favor those investments, and Americans voted for them again this November in huge numbers.

Consider also the fact that our current system has a tremendous backlog of repair and maintenance that has been neglected or underfunded for decades. With 12% of our nation’s bridges deemed “structurally deficient” in 2007, there’s a pressing need to repair our road and highway network we’ve spent the last 50 years building.

The lists we have, while perhaps incomplete, are not all headed in that direction. The state lists display a striking imbalance between these desperately needed repairs and brand new roads.

Florida’s list is 75% highway expansion and 10% maintenance and repair; Utah’s list is almost exclusively populated with highway expansion projects; Missouri’s list is two-thirds expansion; Kansas’ three-fourths.

It’s important to remember that highway expansion comes with the added cost burden of future maintenance and repair. Where will the money come from for those costs ten years from now? Because the recovery package will be a one-time infusion of cash, repair and maintenance of the existing network should be a top priority for these critical stimulus dollars.

Of the current state lists that do show public transportation or rail projects, the majority show 10 percent or less of stimulus spending in those areas.

This is not because road projects are “ready to go” and others are not. Local governments and public transportation agencies have identified scores of shovel-ready transit, sidewalk, and local road repair projects. The need for bridge maintenance and repair alone is about $17 billion annually for the next 50 years. The current lists would leave that repair backlog largely untouched.

Our state governments need to do a better job of identifying the best projects for the stimulus — and doing so with your input. Be sure to urge your state officials and representatives in Congress to release their list of projects, address their crumbling roads and overburdened public transportation systems, and help us craft the clean, green recovery our country needs to compete and thrive for decades to come.

Using the economic stimulus package to write blank checks to the states with zero accountability would be a poor use of precious national resources. If the states are given taxpayers’ federal money, we need to ensure there are measurable goals for what the money must accomplish.

Truthfully, the onus will be on Congress and President-elect Obama’s administration — not the states — to make sure the money in the package is allocated with some accountability.

Giving billions in stimulus funds to states without measurable goals for what constitutes success means there’s no guarantee that we’ll meet our pressing national goals for immediate job creation or our longer term goals for economic growth, reduced oil dependence and climate emissions, or greater access to the middle class for millions of working Americans.

NOTE: As we said, states have their lists in many different forms, so the tables below do not have consistent categories. Nor do we know where the lists are complete, and where they are not. Use these tables as a start, not an end; ask your state DOT and governor about the status of your state’s list, and urge a balance that if it is not evident. As we get in more state lists and more data, we’ll be analyzing the lists not just for what, but where: urban? Rural? Stay tuned.

Alabama
Total: $877 million
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highways	$877 Million	100%

Arizona
Total: $1.23 billion
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highway	$869 million	70.4%
Aviation/Other	$356 million	28.3%
Transit & Intermodal	$8.5 million	0.7%

California
Total: $1.15 billion
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highway Maintenance & Repair	$477.6 million	41.6%
Transit & Intermodal	$425.7 million	37.1%
Highway Expansion	$218.5 million	19%
Aviation/Other	$25.8 million	2.3%

Colorado
Total: $1.42 billion
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highway Maintenance & Repair	$1.02 billion	71.6%
Highway Expansion	$146.5 million	10.3%
Transit & Intermodal	$144 million	10.1%
Other	$113.1 million	8%

Florida
Total: $6.97 billion
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highway Expansion	$5.4 billion	77%
Highway Repair & Maintenance	$1.53 billion	22%
Transit & Intermodal	$73 million	1%

Georgia
Total: $3.44 billion
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highway Maintenance and Repair	$1.5 billion	43.6%
Transit & Intermodal	$1.2 billion	34.9%
Highway Expansion	$675 million	19.6%
Aviation/Other	$45.3 million	1.3%
Bike & Pedestrian	$21.8 million	0.6%

Idaho
Total: $804 million
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highway Expansion	$420.5 million	52.2%
Highway Repair & Maintenance	$384.2 million	47.8%

Kansas
Total: $1.3 billion
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highway Expansion	$983 million	75.6%
Highway Repair & Maintenance	$317 million	24.4%

Maine
Total: $325 million
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highways	$222 million	68.3%
Transit & Intermodal	$59 million	18.1%
Aviation/Other	$35 million	10.8%
Ferry, Bike & Pedestrian	$9 million	2.8%

Massachusetts
Total: $783.2 million
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Transit & Intermodal	$368.8 million	47.1%
Highway Maintenance & Repair	$232.6 million	29.7%
Other	$164.2 million	21%
Bike & Pedestrian	$17.6 million	2.2%

Missouri
Total: $800 million
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highway Expansion	$517 million	64.6%
Highway Maintenance & Repair	$233 million	29.1%
Transit & Intermodal	$39 million	4.8%
Bike & Pedestrian	$6 million	0.75%
Aviation/Other	$5 million	0.63%

Nebraska
Total: $370 million
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highways	$370 million	100%

New Jersey
Total: $2.85 billion
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highway Repair & Maintenance	$1.26 billion	44.2%
Transit & Intermodal	$800 million	28.0%
Highway Repair & Maintenance	$780 million	27.3%
Aviation/Other	$9 million	0.3%
Bike and Pedestrian	$2 million	0.1%

New York
Total: $3.70 billion
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highways	$1.83 billion	49.4%
Transit & Intermodal	$1.76 billion	47.6%
Aviation/Other	$630 million	3%

North Carolina
Total: $6.20 billion
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highway Expansion	$3.43 billion	55.2%
Highway Maintenance & Repair	$1.74 billion	28.1%
Transit & Intermodal	$630 million	10.2%
Aviation/Other	$379 million	6.1%
Bike & Pedestrian	$26 million	0.4%

South Carolina
Total: $859 million
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highway Maintenance & Repair	$631 billion	73.5%
Highway Expansion	$205 million	23.9%
Transit & Intermodal	$23 million	2.7%

Tennessee
Total: $1.70 billion
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highways	$950 million	56%
Transit & Intermodal	$634 million	37.3%
Other	$114 million	6.7%

Texas
Total: $6.21 billion
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highway Expansion	$3.44 billion	55.4%
Highway Maintenance & Repair	$2.60 billion	41.9%
Transit & Intermodal	$142 million	2.3%
Bike and Pedestrian	$27.5 million	0.4%

Utah
Total: $10.8 billion
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highway Expansion	$7.56 billion	70%
Intermodal (Mountain View Corridor)	$3 billion	27.8%
Highway Maintenance & Repair	$240 million	2.2%

Vermont
Total: $159 million
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highway Maintenance & Repair	$93 million	58.5%
Transit & Intermodal	$62 billion	39.0%
Bike and Pedestran	$3 million	1.9%
Aviation/Other	$1 million	0.6%

Wisconsin
Total: $7.6 billion
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Transit & Intermodal	$3.3 billion	43.4%
Highway Expansion	$3.0 billion	39.4%
Aviation/Other	$830 million	10.9%
Highway Maintenance & Repair	$472 million	6.2%

Wyoming
Total:$400 million
Area	Funds Requested	Percentage of Total
Highway Repair & Maintenance	$317 million	79.2%
Highway Expansion	$83 million	20.8%

Filed under: Campaign Blog
Tags: accountability, DOT, economic recovery, featured, States, stimulus

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Deborah G Ward

I am part of a group, Garrett Countians for Smart Growth (Garrett County, Maryland). We have actively been opposing a flagrant misuse of transportation money, framed as the proposed Oakland Bypass – 2.6 miles of highway separating 2 rural communities estimated at $42 million – the estimates are closer to $100 million now! It was originally proposed in the 70′s and was defeated, but raised its ugly head over 3 years ago because local politicians felt that this would be a feather in their caps to obtain significant transportation funding for rural Garrett County. Not only is this atrocity NOT needed, it is in direct opposition to the State of Maryland’s transportation plan which supports maintaining existing roadways and bridges. I still feel our local polticians will attempt to push this project through if transportation money becomes available. What a disgrace! So, check out Maryland’s misuse of transportation money!!
martarider

Do you have the list for Georgia yet? Email if you need a copy of the spreadsheet. You could also get it from any of your T4A network contacts here, it’s been widely circulated.

It is really quite progressive for GDOT, and compares favorably to many of the ones above. By my calculations:

51.4% (1.769B) for roadway maintenance and operations
35.0% (1.205B) for transit
11.7% (403M) for roadway expansion
1.3% (45M) for aviation
0.6% (22M) for bike/ped
Lionel Gambill

What this adds up to is a global Jonestown with the highway lobby serving the Kool-Aid.

Every increase in highway capacity triggers an increase in vehicle miles traveled (VMT), which in turn increases oil consumption and therefore global climate disruption.

For 60 years we’ve bloated our highway budgets and starved our once-great rail system. Estonia spends more dollars on passenger rail than the U.S. Highways emit two to three times as much greenhouse gases per passenger mile as rail. Transportation accounts for 12 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the train-friendly European Union and 62 percent in highway-only Marin County, CA. It’s a double-whammy because when limestone is burned to make cement one ton of carbon dioxide is emitted for every four tons of cement.

When you find yourself in a hole the sane thing to do is to stop digging.
http://www.thevillageproject.com Sarah

Headline of today’s local paper here in NC:
“Again, New Pavement Goes Bad.”

Our newest interstate, I-795, must be repaired just 16 months after its construction, to the tune of $22 million.

This is just a little over a year after NCDOT had to shell out another 22 million to RE-do a 10-mile job on I-40.

How long are we going to stick with this technology that works so poorly yet costs so much and serves so few?
Barbara Diment

What are we thinking? We’ve turned our backs – for the most part – on public transportation that serves so efficiently such places as Europe, Mexico, etc. And that mode of transportatin – Railroads! I am now watching Obama’s Express from Philadelphia to Washington – what an innovative idea! Excitement is so high for success of this administration.

Missouri itself has many possibilities -I live in a town some 25 miles north of Kansas City- and at least 2-3 trains an hour pass through here loaded with coal for Power Plants. BUT, no passenger train travels these rails for commuters, pleasure, etc. Again, what are we thinking??

Let’s expand our rail transportation for efficient mass transit, reasonable rates, and a plus all around for Americans.
http://TRANSPORTATIONFORAMERICA ZACHARY JONES

WHAT IS INDIANA DOING ABOUT TRANSPORTATION FOR IT AGING AND DISABILTY CLIENT
Dave

Stimulus package for Tennessee.

Bet you a $Million, we spend it all on roads and bridges, Thanks to our Governor/TDOT. All he wants to do, is watch concrete being poured.

” Let them eat cake ” comes to mind !

We still live in the 1800′s here in middle Tenessee. Nashville is 250 miles from the nearest passenger rail station.

I thought it was all about ” Are you ready for change ? ” Apparently I never read the script properly..

Sad, what a let down.
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