Skip to main content

ARTBA highlights transport's importance to US

New data available from the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) highlights the importance of transportation spending to US economic growth. This information can be sourced through a new Internet resource set up by ARTBA. The data has been revealed at a time when the multi-year highway/transit authorisation bill is still being discussed in the US Congress. The US secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, said at the CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2011 that he hopes a six year authorisation bill will
May 16, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
New data available from the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) highlights the importance of transportation spending to US economic growth. This information can be sourced through a new Internet resource set up by ARTBA.

The data has been revealed at a time when the multi-year highway/transit authorisation bill is still being discussed in the US Congress. The US secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood, said at the CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2011 that he hopes a six year authorisation bill will be signed in August of this year, but there is still concern that more delays will appear.

ARTBA’s interactive website provides information about the job creation impacts of federal transportation investment on the national and state economies. The data, found at www.transportationcreatesjobs.org, shows the number of American jobs that could be at risk if the House and Senate fail to take action on a long-term bill. It also provides statistics about the size and scope of each state’s transportation network, the current road and bridge investment needs, commuting patterns, and the impacts on other industries that depend on the nation’s transportation network.

The research was conducted by ARTBA vice president of policy & senior economist Alison Premo Black, an economics doctoral candidate at The George Washington University. Utilising US Census Bureau “County Business Patterns” data and the US Commerce Department’s Regional Input‐Output Modeling System (RIMS II), Black found that the transportation construction industry’s largest economic impact is in the state of California, where it generates or sustains more than 354,000 jobs. California’s followed by New York (286,449), Texas (276,276), Florida (196,087), Pennsylvania (148,669), Illinois (129,014), Georgia (106,658), Ohio (104,310), Washington (100,384) and New Jersey (97,036). Black said that money invested in transportation construction industry employment and purchases generates over US$380 billion in US economic activity, nearly 3% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Related Content

  • Tolls to help fund improvements to the Brent Spence Bridge
    January 29, 2015
    The International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) has applauded Governors Beshear (Kentucky) and Kasich (Ohio) following their announcement that they plan to use tolls to pay for at least part of the US$2.63 billion Brent Spence Bridge replacement. Brent Spence Bridge is a double deck, cantilevered truss bridge that carries Interstates 71 and 75 across the Ohio River between Covington, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio. Originally designed to carry 80,000 vehicles per day, approximately 172,0
  • How can US transportation be ‘re-envisioned’?
    October 17, 2019
    In her address to this year’s ITS America Annual Meeting, congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, chair of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, called for a ‘re-envisioning’ of transportation. Her speech is below – and ITS International asks a number of US experts what they would like to see ‘re-envisioned’…

    I would like to welcome  ITS America to the nation’s capital.

  • Germany pushes expansion of electromobility
    November 13, 2012
    Berlin wants to expand its role as the showcase city for electromobility. The charging infrastructure within the capital is to increase from 100 to 300 by 2013 and to 800 by the end of 2015. The Berlin senate has released a corresponding EU-wide tender. Germany Trade & Invest will present the industry’s latest prospects and developments at this year's "The Battery Show" in Detroit. An increasing number of municipalities have consulted the Federation of German Industry for Electromobility for information reg
  • Enforcement ensures equity for toll road users
    January 25, 2018
    All-electronic tolling boosts traffic flow but introduces the tricky question of enforcement. Workable solutions are starting to emerge. Enforcement is an essential part of tolling and one of the most important ways for a mobility agency to keep faith with its investors, its community stakeholders and the vast majority of its users. It can also be one of the most unpopular and contentious things a toll authority has to undertake. If tolling is about paying for the roads, then everyone has to pay their