Stimulus Flows Into Patchwork of State Transport Projects

[Pirate Smile]

Source: The New York Times


President Obama, with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, marked the release of the first $26.6 billion in transportation stimulus money on Tuesday in Washington.

By MICHAEL COOPER
Published: March 3, 2009

Kansas will widen U.S. 69 to remove a bottleneck outside Kansas City, along with a few other expensive projects. Maryland will spend its money in smaller pieces, resurfacing dozens of rutted roads and highways. Colorado will build an interchange on Elk Creek Road in Jefferson County, complete with an underpass for the elk.

There is nothing monumental in President Obama’s plan to revive the economy with a coast-to-coast building spree, no historic New Deal public works. The goal of the stimulus plan was to put people to work quickly, and so states across the country have begun to spend nearly $50 billion on thousands of smaller transportation projects that could employ up to 400,000 people, by the administration’s estimates.

More than a dozen states have now said how they plan to spend at least some of their transportation money, giving the clearest picture yet of how one of the president’s signature programs is playing out around the country. Beyond all the money for Medicaid and unemployment benefits in the huge bill passed last month, this will be the face of the country’s stimulus program: a bridge will be painted on a rural road, a new lane added on a suburban highway, a guardrail built on a median strip.

They may be old plans that the recession had forced a state to shelve, but multiplied by thousands, they will quickly get bulldozers rolling again and paychecks flowing. On the highway projects alone, the White House said Tuesday that 150,000 jobs would be created or saved.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/us/04states.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all