Stimulus money spent on transit produces twice as many jobs as highways
A new analysis of data from the federal economic stimulus reveals that investment in public transit has produced almost twice as many jobs as the investment in highways. Every $1 billion spent on roads and highways resulted in about 8,700 months of work. For transit, it was over 16,000 months of work for the same investment.
Locally, jobs-rich transit projects are getting very little of the available money. In Missouri, 11% of the stimulus went to transit. In Kansas it’s only 8% for transit. To be fair to MoDOT and KDOT, much of the funding distribution was determined by federal formulas and not state discretion.
The main criteria for the transportation stimulus was 1) speed of construction and 2) number of jobs created/retained. This new report shows that any future stimulus program should make a bigger investment in transit in order to maximize its job creation and retention benefits. It also indicates that state and local governments could better stimulate their economies by increasing local investments in transit systems.
Analysis Finds that Funding Public Transit Creates More Jobs Than Funding Highway Projects
by Center for Neighborhood Technology, Public Interest Research Group, and Smart Growth America.
MoDOT ARRA projects (PDF)
