Road Funds Add 150,000 Jobs, Increase Safety, Obama Says

This story appears in the March 9 print edition of Transport Topics.

WASHINGTON — President Obama last week said the $27.5 billion in his economic stimulus package for highways would create or preserve 150,000 jobs and save some 14,000 lives in coming years.

During a March 3 speech to workers at the Department of Transportation, Obama said transportation projects “that were once on hold are now starting up again — as part of the largest new investment in America’s infrastructure since President Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System.”

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who joined the president and Vice President Joe Biden at DOT, said that the first official stimulus-funding project — the resurfacing of a one-mile stretch of Route 650 in Montgomery County, Md. — was getting under way as Obama was speaking to about 500 DOT employees.

Obama said that “of the 3.5 million jobs that will be created and saved over the next two years as a result of this recovery plan, 400,000 will be jobs rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges” and other infrastructure, and that the highway investment alone “will create or save 150,000 jobs by the end of next year, most of them in the private sector.”

Obama also said the stimulus funds would lead to a measurable highway safety improvement.

“What makes this investment so important is not simply that we will jump-start job creation, or reduce the congestion that costs us nearly $80 billion a year, or rebuild the aging roads that cost drivers billions more a year in upkeep,” Obama said. “What makes it so important is that by investing in roads that have earned a grade of D-minus by America’s leading civil engineers — roads that should have been rebuilt long ago — we can save some 14,000 men and women who lose their lives each year due to bad roads and driving conditions.

“Like a broken levee or a bridge with a shaky foundation, poor roads are a public hazard,” he added, “and we have a responsibility to fix them.”

LaHood told the DOT audience that this visit marked the first time a president and vice president had come to DOT headquarters together.

Biden told the DOT staff, “We’re counting on you . . . in a way I don’t think we’ve ever looked to the department before.”

Obama said that, in addition to getting Americans back to work, “We also need to ensure that tax dollars aren’t wasted on projects that don’t deliver results.”

Biden, he said, is spearheading an effort to oversee how funds are spent, and that he was “deputizing every single American to visit a new Web site called recovery.gov so you can see where your tax dollars are going and hold us accountable for results.”

LaHood said that the spending plan included “no earmarks [and] no boondoggles.”

Projects funded by the recovery package, Obama said, would be denoted by a new logo, which would be “a symbol of our commitment to you, the American people — a commitment to investing your tax dollars wisely, to put Americans to work doing the work that needs to be done.”

The resurfacing project in Maryland is being conducted by American Infrastructure, a Worcester, Pa., construction company.

Mark Compton, director of government affairs for the firm, told Transport Topics the company was “obviously very excited” to get the first official contract from the stimulus.

The company has “about 350 people in layoffs” and, because of the project, “our people are being called back and we’re really excited by that,” he said.

The one-mile resurfacing job “will support 60 people,” Compton estimated. In a press release, American Infrastructure said that the stretch of road had not been resurfaced since 1992.

Obama said 100 other companies would begin receiving funds for other projects almost immediately.

“Over the next few weeks, we will launch more than 200 construction projects across this country, fueling growth in an industry that’s been hard hit by our economic crisis,” he said.

Some of the projects cleared by DOT and the states include:

• $7.2 million in resurfacing and patching of Interstate 80 across Illinois.

• $15 million for auxiliary lanes and ramp improvements on Interstate 15 south near Salt Lake City and $13 million for bridge rehab along I-80 in Utah.

• $21.2 million to mill and resurface Interstate 40 in Sampson and Duplin counties in North Carolina.

• $10.1 million to resurface Interstate 690 near Syracuse, N.Y., and $5.33 million to complete the bridge replacement on Interstate 86 in Steuben County, N.Y.