Report: Western States Spending Too Much Stimulus on New Roads

By Courtney Lowery, 7-01-09

A report out this week from the national Smart Growth America group takes a look at where transportation stimulus money is going on the state level and it found that in most cases, especially in the West, states are spending too much on new roads and not enough on maintenance and repair of existing infrastructure or on public transportation options.

The report is exhaustive, and you can read the whole thing here, but two main points from the group are these:

• Not enough money is being spent on repair and maintenance: “Despite a multi-trillion dollar backlog of road and bridge repairs, states committed almost a third of ARRA STP money—$6.6 billion—to new capacity road and bridge projects rather than to repair and other preservation projects” According to the report, this creates a missed opportunity for states that could have “created more jobs, faster, and made more progress ... by spending more on repairing the public’s previous investments in the transportation system.”

• Not enough money is being spent on public transportation: “By allocating few funds (3.7%) to public and non-motorized transportation, states made less progress on modernization, rapid job creation, enhancing public transporation, long-term economic growth, reducing greenhouse gases, oil dependence and providing low cost transportation choices,” the report states.

In the ratio of work on new to existing transportation systems, Western states weren’t the best, but weren’t the worst either. Colorado ranked at 21, Wyoming at 24, Idaho at 25, New Mexico at 27, Montana at 31 and Utah at 32. On public transportation, Western states were all over the map, with Colorado coming with a 6th rating, for devoting 11.3 percent of its stimulus to public transportation or non-motorized travel and Wyoming coming in dead last by putting 0 percent toward public transportation.

As for Colorado, while the headline from the Denver Business Journal read: “Report: State should spend less on new roads,” the Colorado Independent, which also looked at this issue last Spring, points out in a story today:

But first, the lion’s share of the Recovery Act money earmarked for Colorado for surface transportation projects, $278.7 million, has gone simply to repairing and maintaining existing roads.

Second, the state Economic Recovery Team has divvied up that Surface Transportation money with the knowledge that an additional $100 million in Recovery funds is coming in strictly for mass transit. That means the figures must be corrected: $84.2 million has gone to “new highway capacity” but now $131.1 million for public transportation.

Third, a glance at the stimulus transit construction in Colorado doesn’t look particularly sprawl crazy– no new prairie beltways circling cities and encouraging exurban sprawl.

Click here for the full assessment from John Tomasic, including links to some very useful interactive maps of the projects.

State by state, here’s a breakdown of how Western states fared in the Smart Growth America report:

Colorado
Total ARRA funds: $411.7 million
Ranking: 21
System preservation: 84%
New capacity: 16%
Percent of roads not in “good” condition: 56%
Percent of funding on public transportation + nonmotorized projects: 11.3%

Idaho
Total funds: $173.1 million
Ranking: 25
System preservation: 82%
New capacity: 18%
Percent of roads not in “good” condition: 43%
Percent of funding on public transportation + nonmotorized projects: 4.7%

Montana
Total funds: $173.5 million
Ranking: 31
System preservation: 70%
New capacity: 30%
Percent of roads not in “good” condition: 24%
Percent of funding on public transportation + nonmotorized projects: 3.9%

New Mexico
Total funds: $107.9 million
Ranking: 27
System preservation: 80%
New capacity: 20%
Percent of roads not in “good” condition: 36%
Percent of funding on public transportation + nonmotorized projects: 0%

Utah
Total funds: $232.5 million
Ranking: 32
System preservation: 69%
New capacity: 31%
Percent of roads not in “good” condition: 49%
Percent of funding on public transportation + nonmotorized projects: 3.5%

Wyoming
Total funds: $158.4 million
Ranking: 24
System preservation: 83%
New capacity: 17%
Percent of roads not in “good” condition: 45%
Percent of funding on public transportation + nonmotorized projects: 0%