New report reveals smart transportation spending creates jobs, grows the economy

In his State of the Union address, President Obama called on Americans to “out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world” to win the future. To rebuild America, he said, we will aim to put “more Americans to work repairing crumbling roads and bridges.”

A new report from Smart Growth America analyzes states’ investments in infrastructure to determine whether they made the best use of their spending based on job creation numbers. Recent Lessons from the Stimulus: Transportation Funding and Job Creation evaluates how successful states have been in creating jobs with their flexible $26.6 billion of transportation funds from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA). Those results should guide governors and other leaders in revitalizing America’s transportation system, maximizing job creation from transportation dollars and rebuilding the economy.

According to data sent by the states to Congress, the states that created the most jobs were the ones that invested in public transportation projects and projects that maintained and repaired existing roads and bridges. The states that spent their funds predominantly building new roads and bridges created fewer jobs.

As Newsweek’s David A. Graham explains, investments in transportation create jobs in the short term and longer term economic prosperity too:

Injecting money into transportation projects, the thinking goes, is an especially potent jobs-creation tool because it not only puts construction workers and contractors to work quickly, it also lays the groundwork for future economic growth and development. Obama predicted the transportation money alone would put hundreds of thousands of workers on the job.

As “Recent Lessons from the Stimulus” explains, not all transportation projects reap these benefits equally:

[S]tates spent more than a third of the money on building new roads—rather than working on public transportation and fixing up existing roads and bridges. The result of the indiscriminate spending? States missed out on potentially thousands of new jobs—and bridges, roads, and overpasses around the country are still crumbling. Meanwhile, the states that did put dollars toward public transportation were richly rewarded: Each dollar used on transit was 75 percent more effective at putting people to work than a dollar used for highway work.

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Now Hiring: Deputy Communications Director at Smart Growth America

Smart Growth America is seeking an experienced and enthusiastic candidate to be deputy communications director. This individual will act as SGA’s press secretary, manage offline publicity and media relations work, and author significant written communications for the organization. The candidate must have 7-10 years experience with traditional media, strategic planning for press releases and reports, … Continued

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National Associations Congratulate HUD Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant Awardees

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 14, 2010

National Associations Congratulate HUD Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant Awardees
Organizations Urge Continued Federal Investments to Ensure Nationwide Community Economic Competitiveness

WASHINGTON, DC – The National League of Cities (NLC), National Association of Regional Councils (NARC), Smart Growth America (SGA), the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (n4a) and ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA (ICLEI) congratulate the cities, towns, communities and regions which today were awarded Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). These communities will now undertake critical regional planning and implementation activities that support building sustainable, livable communities through regional cooperation, broad stakeholder and community involvement and coordinated processes. The organizations also offer gratitude to HUD and the other federal agencies involved for undertaking an inaugural and historic process that will yield results for years to come.

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Strengthen the economy and the middle class with better buses and road repair, Department of Treasury says

Download full reportA report out from the Department of Treasury this week reveals that fixing America’s roads and bridges will not only improve our drive to the store, it will help the country’s middle class and our long term economic health, too.

The new report (PDF) discusses the numerous benefits of investing in transportation infrastructure. Spending on infrastructure is one of the best ways to invest transportation funds. The fact that these projects create good, new jobs – and lots of them – is one big reason why. Yesterday’s report found that 72% of the jobs created by infrastructure spending are middle class jobs, defined as those which pay between the 25th and 75th percentile of the national distribution of wages. New jobs are a huge boon for the construction industry in particular, which is facing unemployment rates at nearly twice the national average.

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Now Hiring: Director, Governors' Institute on Community Design

Smart Growth America is looking for a highly qualified individual to fill the position of Director of the Governors’ Institute on Community Design. This position offers a tremendous opportunity to work at the cutting edge of state and local smart growth policy with top level officials and experts, developing innovative policy options and disseminating best … Continued

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New Report: What We Learned from the Stimulus

In the first ten months of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), investments in public transportation have created twice as many jobs per dollar as investments in highways. A new analysis by the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Smart Growth America, and U.S. PIRG shows that by mimicking funding levels for transportation set out in ARRA, the Jobs for Main Street Act passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in December missed an opportunity to create additional jobs where they are needed most. Read more on the report, “What we learned from the Stimulus, and how to use what we learned to speed job creation in the 2010 jobs bill.”

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Report Finds House Jobs Bill Misses Opportunity to Create Most Jobs

Lessons Learned from Recovery Act Show Superior Job Creation from Spending on Public Transportation WASHINGTON, D.C. — A new analysis by the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Smart Growth America, and U.S. PIRG shows that in the first ten months of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), investments in public transportation have created twice as … Continued

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Stimulus Woes: How One Coalition is Working for More Equitable Spending

For 17 straight years, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) has failed to meet their own, not-remarkably-ambitious hiring goals: that at least 11% of their workforce should be people of color and at least 6% should be women. (Minnesota is 85% white, though not 94% male.) The economic stimulus was meant to benefit everyone in hard economic times, partially through job creation in the transportation sector. African-Americans are hit disproportionately by job losses in a recession, but in Minnesota they haven’t received the full benefit from the stimulus money, an investment meant to aid everyone.

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