A Heartening Flurry of Activity

This Editorial appears in the March 9 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

What the federal stimulus package does for road transportation and job creation may be more piecemeal than grand, but whether it’s filling potholes or replacing a crumbling bridge, it’s heartening to contemplate the flurry of construction activity that is about to sweep across the land.

Nearly $28 billion is flowing to state governments to launch projects that otherwise would remain on hold for lack of funding. Legislatures and departments of transportation are composing lists, letting contracts and sending in the bulldozers and asphalt spreaders.

Though new freeways are not likely to spring up left and right, so many roads, intersections and interchanges need widening, resurfacing and other repairs that a veritable forest of “Slow for Construction Zone” signs should be popping up this spring.

Expanding gantlets of orange cones may slow more traffic than usual, and that will be problematic for keeping the freight moving on schedule.

Ultimately, though, we expect this to be a boon for trucking businesses, because our infrastructure is getting the shot in the arm we’ve been clamoring for. The repairing and rebuilding being unleashed constitute a direct benefit to the industry, especially where they relieve time- and fuel-consuming bottlenecks.

In the longer term, benefits should materialize in the form of jobs — an estimated 150,000 to be created or saved by road infrastructure work alone, the Obama administration said — as an underpinning for economic activity that potentially translates into more demand for freight.

Safety, too, will be enhanced, the president said in a speech at U.S. Department of Transportation headquarters in Washington, D.C., last week. He announced the release of the first installment of money authorized in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for public works projects, and said government had a responsibility to fix poor roads that pose a public hazard.

Pushing and shoving have commenced in some states over which projects are worthy of the check from Uncle Sam. Texas transportation commissioners reportedly want to spend 70% of the state’s share on toll-related projects. Also, while the federal infusion will help strapped state programs, it won’t provide a permanent solution. That is why numerous legislatures — even in some of the most tax-averse states — are weighing fuel-tax hikes.

With that recognition, we’re glad Washington is here to help. But we also point out this is no more than one small step toward resolution of the highway system’s immense problems.