Stimulus Money Spent in the Wrong Place?

You might have seen road construction
signs that read, “Project funded by the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”
That’s economic stimulus money being spent
on road repair and construction. Shawn Allee reports one environmental group wishes
there were less construction and more repair:

Transcript

You might have seen road construction signs that read, “Project funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”

That’s economic stimulus money being spent on road repair and construction.

Shawn Allee reports one environmental group wishes there were less construction and more repair.

The land-use policy group Smart Growth America tracked how much stimulus money is going toward road repair versus road construction.

The group’s state policy director Will Schroeer says new roads and bridges are getting about a third of transportation stimulus dollars.

Schroeer says to employ the most people, we should be spending even more on repair, not construction.

“The largest reason for that is that you don’t have to buy any land to repair the road and as soon as you start buying land, that’s money that you can’t put toward wages and other things that produce secondary employment.”

Shroeer’ says about 20 percent of transportation stimulus money is still up for grabs.

That gives states about a year to turn spending toward projects his group advocates, including road and bridge repair and public transit.

For the Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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