In September, the Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate among 16-24 year old Americans was a staggering 53.4%, the lowest civilian workforce number for that age group since WWII. Even among college educated Americans, only 19.1% of Class of 2009 graduates found a job this year - contrast that to over 50% for the class of 2007. Neither number captures the number who have given up looking for work in the time being. Meanwhile, local, state and federal transportation agencies lament a "graying" workforce and a lack of qualified staff to assume these civil service jobs. Before the recession, the private sector frequently complained about the unavailability of skilled labor and general disinterest in certain jobs among American workers. We hear anecdotal evidence suggesting a general disinterest in math and science among American students compared to their global counterparts - or perhaps better termed, their competition. When more and more transportation jobs begin to come back online, will we revert to old habits if we don't plan long-term for transportation's future? How can the Jobs Bill present an opportunity correct this mismatch between young workers demanding jobs and transportation-related jobs in demand?

A discussion on how to create jobs is incomplete without focusing on long-term workforce and career development - this is true for the transportation field as well as the larger economy.

A "Jobs Bill" cannot simply allocate funding for the jobs themselves. It must also address K-12 and higher education reform to encourage more students to pursue civil engineering, economics, and public policy. There also needs to be financial incentives in the form of student loan relief or civil service exchange to make it a reality for those who cannot afford the education. Perhaps even immigration reform is a part of the equation, so that highly qualified and skilled foreign workers have better access to transportation jobs.

Another timely question, with plenty of thoughtful responses. NRDC signed onto letters to policymakers regarding the need for more rail investment as Ed Hamberger advocates and a other reforms laid out by James Corless of Transportation for America.

And I also like what Emil talked about -- this should be about more than jobs, it should be about what infrastructure has the power to do if investments are made strategically. It should lift the whole economy, so that for example GDP is on a higher trajectory as a consequence.

That's why new investments should be funneled as much as possible through new programs, specifically HSR, TIGER and TIGGER. These allow for strategic, leveraged investments that should be based on merit as the President has rightly said.

I also agree with a novel way of distributing funds backed by the Congressional Black Caucus in a letter to the President: Send the money straight to local jurisdictions. This is a matter of principle, since this is government closest to people and businesses. It's also pragmatic, though, since it means investments are better targeted at the metropolitan level, where most of the nation's people, GDP and VMT are situated, and not in a some distant state capital. And having worked for state government, I can attest firsthand that there's often a proportional relationship between size and speed where government action is concerned. So distributing funds this way would probably also yield results faster.

As Congress works on a second stimulus package, increased eligibility for freight rail projects would support the creation of jobs all around the country. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, every $1 billion of investment in rail infrastructure creates an estimated 20,000 jobs nationwide.

Expanded eligibility for rail projects under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act meant that many states were able to seek stimulus funds for "shovel ready" freight rail projects. Under ARRA, $1.5 billion was appropriated for the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program. Out of the 1300 or so TIGER grant applications submitted this September, 125 projects were rail-related, worth roughly $5.6 billion.

Ensuring rail projects are eligible under similar legislation would support a generation of new jobs all around the country. Any new economic recovery bill that includes funding for State and local surface transportation projects also should include eligibility for rail related projects.

While it may be too soon to judge all of the effects of the previous stimulus package, there are a handful of items we are making Congress aware of ahead of a potential jobs package.

1) Let’s make sure people are not getting a job to pay to get to work -- During this past recession, many of the jobs lost came from the middle- to high-end wage jobs. The most recent stimulus bill seemed to create more lower-paying jobs, so while people are going back to work they may not be doing so at their previous earning rates. Also with gas prices creeping back up again, those with jobs are seeing more of their paycheck devoted to getting to and from work. The last stimulus bill included a provision that helped millions save more on their commute by increasing the allowable transportation fringe benefit. We believe that Congress should look at legislation offered by Congressman Blumenauer, Kirk, and McGovern called Green Routes to Work (HR 3271) which would make permanent that increase as well as create small tax breaks for companies to help provide low cost alternative commutes to their employees.

2) Let’s get back the jobs we lost -- over the past several years, there have been hundreds of professionals in the transportation demand management sector, who have lost their jobs from State DOTs, MPOs, and other local governments. If there is a jobs bill, let us make sure that those positions and jobs that were lost because of budget cuts are re-established. That would be the quickest and most effective way to create new jobs.

3) Let's think outside of the box -- The previous stimulus package sent money through traditional formulas. While this seems to be the quickest and most effective way to get the money into the system, Congress should explore other policy initiatives that would get money into the system. One issue we have worked on is a provision to expand vanpool services by leveraging private sector capital. We do recognize that many of these issues will be dealt with in a full reauthorization, but that again begs the question, should the transportation bill just be called the jobs bill?

Congress needs to publically decide how the jobs priority and the transportation funding priorities line up with each other and give all stakeholders a clear timeline towards resolution. Creating a patchwork setup through stopgap measures, especially when many major projects are multiyear efforts, needs to be a temporary solution towards an end goal of a newly designed transportation authorization.

One lesson we learned from the stimulus is that aviation-related infrastructure projects should not be ignored. While many have lamented that not enough of the funds in the Aviation Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) were used for job-creating projects, the money given to the Federal Aviation Administration was fully spent and turned into private sector jobs faster than just about any other investment. In fact, the FAA is so good at getting projects funded and rolling that when the “cash for clunkers” program needed advice on how to get the money out the door in a hurry, the FAA was consulted.

Another lesson learned is that airport infrastructure is important, but airborne infrastructure is critical to meet the Administration’s goal of accelerating NextGen – the satellite-based air traffic control system that will replace World War II-era radar. In addition to more than 100,000 new jobs, studies show the public benefits from a federally funded, NextGen-equipped civil fleet – dramatically reduced CO2 emissions, shortened travel time and reduced delays – will more than cover the initial investment in just a few years. It’s important to look 15 or 20 years down the road at things like high-speed rail but, if we want immediate return on our investment, we need to look to NextGen. Aviation moves the global economy. Twenty-first century infrastructure investment that doesn’t include aviation is shortsighted.

The Port of Los Angeles has just gone through a very frustrating week and this question could not be more timely. The Port of LA is experiencing first hand right now what needs to be fixed in any future stimulus, reauthorization, etc. Local and state requirements delayed advertising of the City of LA’s largest transportation stimulus project by five months, and actions by the FHWA National Review Team nearly derailed our bid-opening set for a week ago today. Quick background: The City of LA received $121 million from which the Port was able to compete for funding, offering our most ready-to-go projects. Our most ready project was not, as has been pointed out by my colleagues, necessarily our top priority terminal, grade sep, bridge, or rail-yard project that would get trucks off the roads, improve throughput, and prepare us for the return to economic growth. Our project, the Harry Bridges Boulevard Improvement Project, was a street improvement. We jumped through every hoop to comply with the aggressive timeline of the stimulus and that set up by our regional transportation agency. And we secured the money, receiving our go-ahead locally mid-June. We received $21.47 million, the largest by an order of magnitude given to any project in LA, and the 12th largest stimulus grant in all of California. However, from June through September, our state and local transportation agencies made a time-consuming change in DBE requirements; then they asked for a new requirement – a Quality Assurance Plan; both had to be incorporated into revised plans, which of course required attorney review. All this is going on while Caltrans and the City of LA are under-going furloughs, lay-offs, and budget crises. Finally, we received the go-ahead to go to bid in late September, and advertised two days later. We were set to open bids last Thursday, December 3. But on Tuesday, December 2, we started picking up rumors by e-mail and phone (nothing official on letterhead) that the “FHWA National Review Team” had issues with our plans and was threatening to de-obligate our funding! We postponed bid-opening one week, hoping we could find out what was supposedly awry and fix it. We called on our state legislators to convey the importance of this project and ask Caltrans to work with us toward a solution, which they did, “re-approving” our originally submitted plans and providing the go-ahead to open bids next Thursday, two weeks behind an already delayed schedule. In addition to the multiple layers and process changes that complicated things, it turns out that the Office of the Inspector General at FHWA is conducting an audit of the National Review Teams, which never, before according to our local Caltrans folks had looked at City of LA projects. Well they are looking now, right at the same time the DOT is supposed to be expediting – stimulating – transportation funding. Is this what policy-makers had in mind with the stimulus? The largest single pot of real infrastructure stimulus dollars is going out through multiple layers of government with conflicting and time-consuming requirements to projects that are not necessarily the highest priority long-term investments, though ours will generate jobs and improve our infrastructure in the short term…if it could get built! That’s why we need the following changes going forward: 1) the ability to apply directly for federal funding as with the TIGER process; 2) fewer layers of agencies with over-lapping jurisdiction asserting themselves over projects; 3) objective competitive criteria for nationally important goods movement projects.

Thus far, the infrastructure funding in the ARRA has done what it was intended to do: create/sustain jobs and facilitate much needed repairs to the nation’s public works. But, as many of us on this blog have said, there is still much work to be done to improve the nation’s infrastructure. ARRA’s approximately $100 billion in infrastructure was only a small piece of the $2.2 trillion needed over the next five years. Likewise, unfortunately, much still needs to be done to improve the nation’s overall economy as well.

We all know the benefits of infrastructure investment—every dollar invested in the nation’s highway system yields $5.40 in economic benefits and every billion dollars in federal highway construction spending generates more than 30,000 jobs annually—so its role in economic recovery is obvious. And, one way to ensure that the new investment is targeted appropriately is to make sure that we’re using the right objectives.

For the ARRA, ASCE recommend that beyond the immediate criteria of creating jobs, the investments must have considerable secondary effects such as delivering measurable improvements in public health, safety and quality of life; substantial, broad-based economic benefit; the project should be designed and built in a sustainable and cost-effective manner; or the project should have a significant environmental benefit such as area restoration, improved air quality through reduced congestion. These Principles for Infrastructure Stimulus Investment apply to the proposed bill as well (for that matter, to all infrastructure projects), and should be used as a guideline for how to move such an investment forward efficiently and effectively.

Of course, none of this means that the jobs bill should be a mirror of the ARRA. Shovel ready projects were the focus of ARRA, but new the bill needs to also look at projects and programs that may not be as far along, but have the potential to create lasting economic growth and improve our quality of life. The enthusiastic support for ARRA high speed rail funds shows us that the country is ready for large-scale projects that can transform the economy and the way we live our lives.

Perhaps most importantly though, we need to remember that the ARRA and the new jobs bill will be nothing more than band-aids if we don’t couple them with a long-term plan that includes sufficient funding levels and a dedicated revenue source. An obvious fix to is to pass the six-year authorization of the surface transportation program with the needed reforms and long term plans as a companion to a jobs bill. Without combining that kind of planning and commitment with our shorter-term investment, we could wind up right back where we started.

Although the purpose of a jobs bill is to "create" jobs, a more effective goal would be to protect and enhance the nation's economic prosperity and competitiveness. Transportation policies are essential components of such a stategy. Federal transportation funding programs, regardless of the focus of the legislation in which they are contained, need to be performance-driven, directly linked to a set of clearly articulated goals, and held accountable for results.

Establishing a performance-driven framework with national goals (such as the ones recommended by the Bipartisan Policy Center's National Transportation Policy Project (NTPP) seeks to insure that transportation investments are held accountable for achieving results. Demonstrated results from transportation investments should be more substantial than merely how quickly funds can be spent or how many jobs are created, as a result, but also about having projects that can demonstrate improvements in national connectivity, increased metropolitan accessibility, and enhanced economic growth. Building a framework around such broader national goals will have a greater lieklihood of increasing economic prosperity for regions and for the nation, which ultimately will foster long-term and sustainable job creation.

Three of the national goals presented by NTPP -- national connectivity, increased metropolitan mobility, and enhanced economic growth -- offer the opportunity to think about improving the transportation system in ways that increase the productivity of businesses and of labor and therefore to grow the economy, generating improved wages and secure jobs with long-term growth potential. This approach improves upon one aimed solely at creating as many jobs, as possible, many of which will be relatively short-term. The investment of taxpayer dollars should demonstrate longer-term economic, environmental, and safety benefits, as well.

Many are skeptical that worthwhile reform can be incorporated into a short-term stimulus, or jobs, bill. But there are ways to begin laying the foundations of much needed transportation policy reform in short-term legislation and in a jobs bill. These efforts can begin to build a framework of robust policy and programmatic change.

We should take the opportunity to pursue reform and accountability in a jobs, or economic stimulus, bill. A jobs bill that really begins to frame the building blocks of reform and helps us to understand how transportation projects and investments can create accessibility to jobs and businesses would be good public policy.

In thinking about the proposed jobs bill, it is easy to focus on the technical or policy-related aspects of transportation at the expense of jobs. We must not forget these proposals affect real, everyday people. Families are really hurting these days, and the proposed bill provides hope that their suffering can be alleviated.

In helping struggling American families, we should not be reckless with the kinds of infrastructure investments we make. The money we use should advance long-term transportation goals, not just dig holes and fill them back up again. While job creation is an end unto itself, it does not give us license to create more problems by making unwise investments. Instead, the proposal should fund projects with long-term positive impacts such as reducing carbon emissions and vehicle miles traveled by creating walkable communities and the constructing sidewalks of bikeways. It should focus on repairing our existing infrastructure over starting new roads – the fix-it-first approach.

It is admirable to create jobs quickly, but we should also take a hard look at the future effects of adding new capacity to a road system we already cannot maintain. We have seen that with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, more people are employed more quickly with fix-it-first strategies than they are with adding capacity through new or expanded roads. Focusing on repair and transit can give us the best of both worlds in providing new jobs quickly as well as advancing our long-term national goals. Times are hard, but the jobs we create in the present must create a better future – not future burdens.

We are encouraged by President Obama’s proposal to provide $50 billion for merit-based infrastructure projects.

In both his remarks at the Brookings Institute and during last week’s jobs summit, the President struck at the tension between short-term stimulus and long-term reform. Given that infrastructure projects made up an essential component of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed earlier this year, it makes sense that Congress would once again look to infrastructure as a potential jobs source. But while America’s transportation system offers definite job-creation promise, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about infrastructure spending.

Regardless of what kind of jobs bill emerges, we believe a reform transportation bill must be taken up during this Congress.

President Obama pointed out that infrastructure projects funded under the stimulus bill were supposed to be implemented gradually. As he explained, the stimulus was planned this way “so the impact would be felt over a two year period; and, more importantly, because we wanted to do this right. The potential for abuse in a program of this magnitude, while operating at such a fast pace, was enormous.”

To that end, Anthony Shorris of the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy hit on a few important points. One is that existing transportation formulas are not funneling money to where it is needed most, and that there is a need for greater accountability and merit-based evaluation. Second, new programs like the TIGER grants– which do consider merit – are an important step in the right direction. Michael Replogle’s response proposing expanded TIGER grants, directing funding targeted to metropolitan areas and more reliable support for public transportation also addresses some core issues.

Before Thanksgiving, Transportation for America sent a letter to Congressional leaders outlining three principles we believe are essential for any transportation-related provisions in a jobs bill:

1) Create the greatest number of jobs in the quickest time possible by prioritizing rehabilitation and operation of existing infrastructure and target new workforce development opportunities for people most in need of employment (i.e. “Fix-it-first.”)

2) Chart a new 21st Century direction in transportation policy by including Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), high speed rail, funding for TIGER grants and other modernization strategies;

3) The legislation should not replace or take the pressure off the long-term transportation authorization bill;

In addition to “fix-it first” projects, Congress can also get a big bank for its buck by providing emergency support for public transportation through transit operating assistance. This would keep transit operators in their jobs, hire new workers immediately and protect access to employment and essential services for millions of Americans through the restoration of bus and train service that has been slashed in big cities and small towns all across America in the last two years.

The tension between short-term and long-term priorities will persist, but Congress has the chance create a jobs bill that puts Americans back to work while laying the groundwork for real transportation policy reform in the coming year through a new long-term authorization bill. We hope Congress will take that path.

Ken:

Today's biggest issue with the surface transportation authorization is finding long-term additional revenue sources other than the general fund to back infrastructure needs. With the jobs bill, the discussions focus on a short-term infusion of general fund revenues (paid for by borrowing) to try and jump-start the economy. The economy needs it. Unemployment is too high and with millions of Americans eager to work what better way to achieve that goal than improving our infrastructure?

Therefore, I believe there is little downside and a great deal of upside to funding job-creating transportation programs. For now it also appears to be the only game in town so why shouldn't advocates take advantage of it? The congressional politics as I know them are not intertwined.

Tony Shorris is right that we should not confuse the purpose of a jobs bill with the purpose and necessity of a real transformation of surface transportation policy. And Mr. Oberstar is right that we should not take the pressure off passing a multi-year authorization. But the heavy lifting on the latter is achieving consensus on reforms and finding industry revenues to pay for them. Passing a jobs bill with have little impact on those tasks.

Steve Van Beek

Before we start celebrating the beneficial effect of the proposed jobs bill, let us pause and consider what its wider impact might be. In short, the second stimulus, if authorized by Congress, could put an end to any hopes of enacting a multi-year transportation reauthorization in 2010. In other words, the jobs stimulus— or rather its infrastructure component — could be the death warrant for any foreseeable reform of the federal surface transportation program.

The crowded senate calendar means that congressional action on the second stimulus proposal –or at least its $50-70 billion component dealing with new infrastructure spending — must wait until next year. According to speculations in the press, the bill might not reach the President’s desk until late Spring 2010. With the newly authorized infrastructure funds added to the still unspent tens of billions of dollars left over from the Recovery Act (ARRA), federal stimulus spending on transportation projects could stretch well beyond 2010 according to White House officials. President Obama implied as much in his Brookings address when he said that the stimulus program was intentionally planned to make its impact felt over a two-year period.

Assuming the job stimulus becomes law, does any one think that Congress would still have appetite to enact a $500 billion multi-year authorization in 2010, on the eve of a congressional midterm election? Most likely, a multi-year authorization would be delayed until 2011and some pessimists think that with a new Congress and an increased emphasis on deficit reduction, an even further slippage could occur.

Is the tradeoff worth it? You decide.

Much as there were lessons from SAFETEA-LU that should have guided the development of ARRA, there are certainly lessons the early stages of the latter’s implementation that can help us in shaping any kind of second round of stimulus.

First, we need to be honest with ourselves about what the goals of such a program are, and then accept that the policy choices we make will affect the outcomes. Disappointment in some quarters that ARRA did not, for instance, lead to nationally transformative infrastructure programs was inevitable for an initiative that was in fact designed to create jobs as quickly as possible which, in turn, guaranteed a focus on short-term, job-intensive, and pre-approved projects. ARRA contained five overarching goals, yet the short-timeframe and “use it or lose it” deadlines attached to nearly $35 billion of transportation funded through DOT ended up trumping other policy objectives. A second effort at job creation should be recognized as just that – and not over-sold for its impact on the underlying economy.

Second, a decision to use existing funding mechanisms as the distributional tool in order to expedite the flow of money also carries certain consequences. The vast majority of ARRA transportation funding essentially runs through slightly modified versions of existing SAFETEA-LU and PRIIA policies. Incentives for innovation will be reduced and the status quo advanced by such decisions – which is why use of this approach is widely sought by the beneficiaries of the current structure. Again, there is nothing wrong with making this call, as long as we expect to see new money reinforcing the old ways of doing business, for better or worse. As noted by others, the new TIGER, HSR (although a mostly PRIIA-based mechanism), and – I would add – TIGGER (to a much lesser degree at a mere $100 million) programs within ARRA reflect bold moves in a new transportation policy direction.

Third, the use of the existing funding formulas to funnel money means that primary decision-makers who receive those funds may not be the same groups representing those in greatest need of funding. ARRA reflects a decision to run a lion’s share of the transportation dollars through SAFETEA-LU’s Surface Transportation Program. Furthermore, ARRA policy modified – somewhat arbitrarily – the STP allocation mix to divert a greater share towards state-level decision-makers at the expense of local, sub-State decision-making groups. We’ve seen a number of reports documenting the outcomes of this policy decision, as urban areas received relatively less funding as compared to their needs than non-urbanized areas. With that choice comes the inevitable accoutrements of state-based policy-making: a wide variation in policies on the use of the money among the States, a deference to satisfying the political needs of state capitols at the expense of other objectives, added time to trickle money down to local decision-makers, and the unlikelihood of either regional programming or the prioritization of national over state needs. The learning here needs to happen on at least two levels, (1) a re-examination of state/local allocation formulas with consideration given to a more performance-driven and need-based process, and (2) cross-state and cross-city outcomes analyses to identify best practices from what otherwise appears to be a heterogenous mix of spending decisions.

Fourth, the use of general funds for the support of a transportation-oriented stimulus program further erodes the connection between who pays and who benefits from investments in roads and rails. There is an argument to be made that this relationship has been over-stated – that there are sound policy reasons for the use of a broader funding base for transportation investments given the externalities associated with many projects – but in this case, we are really creating a jobs program, a macro-economic intervention that demands general funding, rather than a transportation program where user-funding certainly has a stronger case.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these choices – but they are choices, and we need to be clear with the public and with ourselves about what they imply and what we can expect. There may well be better ways to create jobs immediately than transportation projects that inevitably take longer to start up than many other kinds of job programs (hence the predictably slow cash flow on the ARRA program despite obligations and allocations actually being ahead of DOT predictions), but given the nation’s backlog of work and its need for jobs over the next few years, the most important lesson we can learn from the current stimulus round is that we should have done more than making a few tweaks to existing policies to squeeze out different outcomes.

My fellow contributors are right to make the point that the transportation components of ARRA have worked. They have, in fact, remarkably well. It is gratifying that with all of the scrutiny built into the legislation there have been no widely publicized wasteful projects that have soured the legislation’s achievements.

The idea that the federal government can deliver important transportation projects that help the economy and increase our national wealth is a great precedent for future authorizations and could potentially be the most important legacy of ARRA. It will help with our efforts to convince the American people and our legislators that transportation users and taxpayers need to pay more to meet our infrastructure needs and improve the quality of our lives.

Yes we should “clear the queue” of many highway, transit and airport projects that are ready to go. And, where necessary, we should again waive the match for many cash strapped states and localities.

Leslie is right too that we should take advantage of the time USDOT has put into developing the new rail and intermodal discretionary programs to fund more of these projects when their announcements come after the beginning of the year. The time that has passed since the passage of ARRA has provided high-speed rail, ports, and multimodal project proponents with more time to get their projects ready. If USDOT determines that adding new resources to these programs will result in short-term job creation, those investments should be an equal priority to the more traditional formula programs.

Projects that are not ready should not be funded as part of a jobs program and we must be very careful not to truncate important parts of the project review process. Instead, we must redouble our efforts to get the Obama Administration and Congress to agree on surface and aviation authorizations that truly reform our transportation programs along the lines of our previous week submissions.

By highlighting the value that transportation projects have to the nation, ARRA has made an important contribution to these critical reform efforts. It is time to build on ARRA, invest, and put America back to work.

Steve Van Beek

A new "jobs' or stimulus package should focus on programs and incentives that possess the ability to provide both short and long term jobs and economic benefits. I concur with the other respondents that have noted the impacts and value of the portion of the original stimulus bill that was directed toward rebuilding and investing in transportation infrastructure. Importantly, the ARRA included both landside and waterside infrastructure investments, including some funding for the Corps of Engineers to improve the declining state of the federal navigation channels leading into and out of America's ports.

With international trade accounting for over 25% of our GDP, and trade through ports responsible for over 13 million jobs, additional investments on landside and waterside transportation infrastructure as part of a jobs bill can serve as an economic lifeline, creating more immediate and sustainable jobs, help to revitalize the economy, and develop the infrastructure making US exports more competitive in global markets.

A jobs bills could help accomplish these valuable goals through provisions such as additional funding for the "TIGER" and state highway programs, and further funding for the Corps of Engineers to help bring navigation channels back to the dimensions currently authorized and make headway in already approved deepening and widening improvements.

America's ports are playing their part, continuing to invest over $2 billion a year in their facilities to provide the critical link between our nation's domestic transportation system and the world, concomitant federal investments such as those noted above via a jobs bill will play a significant role in creating jobs, kick starting an economic recovery and literally laying the framework for sustainable growth and prosperity.

Here's what President Obama had to say on the subject earlier today in his speech on job creation and economic growth at the Brookings Institution. I'd love to know what the experts think about the president's remarks along with their suggestions for the jobs bill.

Excerpt on infrastructure spending:

Second, we’re proposing a boost in investment in the nation’s infrastructure beyond what was included in the Recovery Act, to continue modernizing our transportation and communications networks. These are needed public works that engage private sector companies, spurring hiring across the country. Already, more than 10,000 of these projects have been funded through the Recovery Act. And by design, Recovery Act work on roads, bridges, water systems, Superfund sites, broadband networks, and clean energy projects will all be ramping up in the months ahead. It was planned this way for two reasons: so the impact would be felt over a two year period; and, more importantly, because we wanted to do this right. The potential for abuse in a program of this magnitude, while operating at such a fast pace, was enormous. So I asked Vice President Biden and others to make sure – to the extent humanly possible – that the investments were sound, the projects worthy, and the execution efficient. What this means is that we’re going to see even more work – and workers – on Recovery projects in the next six months than we saw in the last six months.

Even so, there are many more worthy projects than there were dollars to fund them. I recognize that by their nature these projects often take time, and will therefore create jobs over time. But the need for jobs will also last beyond next year and the benefits of these investments will last years beyond that. So adding to this initiative to rebuild America’s infrastructure is the right thing to do.

While we will continue to determine the successes and failures of ARRA over the coming months and years, I think one point is quite evident – the funding for transportation projects is working as well, if not better, that any other sector. We should have allocated a greater share of the ARRA funding to transportation where we have been successful in getting projects going quickly.

Last week, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar pointed out that almost 8,000 highway and transit projects had already broken ground creating or sustaining some 210,000 direct jobs. Chairman Oberstar also noted several thousand more transportation projects were ready to move forward if additional funding was approved.

And while job creation seems to be the main focus of ARRA and pending stimulus action, getting the best return on investment should also be a priority. Transportation and other infrastructure investments are doing just that.

While Congress is looking at ways to get the most bang for the buck, they should consider investing in the deployment of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) that will immediately create new private sector and small business jobs, while stimulating job creation across multiple sectors and improving the performance of our existing transportation network. These are the kinds of jobs that President Obama has spoken about creating.

Researchers from the London School of Economics and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation have found that investment in ITS creates a ‘network effect’ throughout the economy and directly benefits economic growth by stimulating high-tech job creation across multiple sectors, including green jobs, high-tech, automotive, information technology, consumer electronics, and related industries; and provides a foundation for long-term benefits, including government cost savings, economy-wide productivity, and an improved quality of life.

But most important of all, a federal investment in ITS will save lives. An estimated 31 percent of the nearly 40,000 fatal traffic accidents each year could be prevented or have their impact reduced through ITS technologies like lane departure warnings, blind spot detection and other collision avoidance systems, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

I can’t think of a more meaningful use of tax payer dollars than this.

To build for a sustained economic recovery, new transportation investment should focus on boosting jobs while improving system performance, energy security, and environmental protection.

Because the American Economic Recovery and Renewal Act (ARRA) of 2009 relied on existing programs and focused on shovel-ready projects, it did little to focus new transportation investment in areas where it would create the most jobs or where the new jobs are most needed. For the future:

• Expand the competitive TIGER grant program, which has spurred some good cross-cutting ideas and demonstrated strong demand.
• Launch a new Infrastructure Bank with appropriate performance screens for investments, capitalizing it with some of the unused TARP funds.
• Get more funding directly to metropolitan areas and empower them to use new approaches to manage transportation, including congestion pricing, transit and freight investment, and stronger incentives for sustainable development patterns.
• Provide more reliable long-term funding for public transportation, which creates more jobs per dollar spent than highway investment.

More stable long-term investment in public transportation is needed to stop the bleeding and spur job growth. For example, the Chicago Transit Authority used stimulus money to order 58 new hybrid buses from U.S. bus manufacturer New Flyer and placed a larger order for 140 buses, which it planned to pay for with state money. But state budget cuts then forced CTA to delay the larger order. This so disrupted New Flyer’s production schedule that, in August 2009, the company began laying off 320 people, 13 percent of its workers.

A new study by the Center on Globalization, Governance & Competitiveness at Duke University discusses how the lack of stable transit funding puts at risk the 25,000 to 33,000 jobs in the bus manufacturing industry in the U.S., as well as the promise of developing a green U.S. bus industry. The value chain of the bus manufacturing industry involves a considerable number of small and large manufacturers in nearly every state in the eastern United States, including Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and other hard-hit industrial states. These encompass makers of components from engines and transmissions, to windows, lighting, seating and flooring, and aftermarket products.

America should focus on growing its transit manufacturing industry for the global market place. Bus transit is growing most quickly in the Asia/Pacific region, especially China, which is the world’s largest producer and consumer of buses. Global demand for transit buses is expected to rise by almost 6 percent a year through 2017 according to a recent industry survey. Allison Transmission has sold some 14,000 transmissions for transit buses throughout the world, most of them in China. Cummins, Firestone Industrial Products, and other American Bus suppliers are actively selling into the Chinese bus market.

America would gain the greatest economic benefits by targeting federal investment support on transportation initiatives that boost system performance with more efficient mobility, lower greenhouse gas emissions, improved public health and safety, and expanded travel choices.

Lesson number one is that transportation spending has led the way in the rapid generation of jobs. This sector was clearly underfunded and additional funds should be added. As Steve Heminger points out, fewer regulations would help as well.

Lesson number two is that a focus on short-term jobs means that many projects with higher long-term rates of return have been missed. Here are three out of many examples of places to add more funds.

· Fix the nation’s traffic signals. Coordinated traffic signals provide a broad array of benefits including reduced traffic congestion, reduced emissions, and reduced energy consumption. These investments show benefit-cost ratios of 30 or 40 to 1. ITE (the Institute of Transportation Engineers) has recommended a three year cycle for retiming the nation’s lights and a ten-year cycle to upgrade equipment. This would cost $1.125 billion per year, with 75 percent for direct labor. More could be done if this program were front loaded. Funds would go to state, county and local agencies.

· The demand for TIGER grants totaled $58 billion versus only $1.5 billion available. Many of these project emphasize cross-cutting projects. Surely we should be able to fund more than 2.5 percent of these projects -- particulalry given the time already invested in preparing and evaluating proposals.

· At the recent jobs summit, President Obama emphasized the importance of generating private sector jobs. The TIFIA program of soft loans helps to stimulate private and public spending on transportation. For the first time in several years, demand exceeds the financial capacity of this program. Some additional funds would support this pent up demand.

My friend John Horsley is certainly right that there is a lot of pent-up demand for federal transportation funding, especially with the prospects of a long-term authorization bill for the regular program still up in the air. However, I think the record on delivering ARRA projects has been somewhat mixed. Using the data that John cites from the Federal Highway Administration, about 80% of total ARRA highway funding has been "obligated" by state and local governments, and a further 60% of those obligated projects have actually commenced or completed construction. Putting the two figures together suggests that nearly a year after ARRA was signed into law by President Obama in February 2009, about half the highway funding has not yet been put to work creating jobs.

If there is another stimulus or jobs bill, we need to produce better results for the taxpayers and our unemployed fellow citizens. One way to do so would be to exempt at least the road repair and transit vehicle replacement projects funded out of a second stimulus bill from the usual gauntlet of federal permits and reviews. If we are really serious about a "fix it first" approach to our transportation infrastructure, then let's make sure those kinds of projects can fast forward to construction and procurement as soon as possible.

One lesson learned from the 2009 Stimulus Bill, is that if the Congress wants to create thousands of jobs fast, the best way to do it is by investing in “ready-to-go” transportation projects. Of the $787 billion approved in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February, $48 billion or 6% was provided to fund transportation projects. Eight months later that 6% of the funding has delivered nearly 25% of the jobs saved or created.

There are two other lessons worth mentioning. The unemployment rate for construction workers increased to the alarming rate of 19.4 percent in November, up from 18.7 percent in October, the highest among any sector measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Targeting construction jobs is sure to meet an enormous need.

States have identified a new list of 9,500 “Ready to Go” transportation projects worth more than $69 billion that, if funded, could be approved for bidding within 120 days. These include $47 billion in highways and bridges, plus $22 billion in transit, rail, port, and aviation projects. There is a well-oiled pipeline ready to be put to work once again to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in every state in the country.

The success of what state DOTs, cities, counties, airports and transit authorities achieved with funding under ARRA is a strong indication of what they can and will do again if Congress moves forward with a jobs bill.

As of Nov. 27, the Federal Highway Administration reported that 9,375 highway or bridge projects worth more than $21 billion had been approved for funding under ARRA. More than half of those projects – 5,458 – were either under construction or had already been completed. As of Nov. 26 the Federal Transit Administration said of the $8.4 billion in ARRA funds provided for transit, approval to precede has been received for 690 grants valued at $7 billion. The Federal Aviation Administration has issued grants to local airport authorities to commence construction involving nearly all of the $1 billion provided for airports.

Last week, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee reported that as of Nov. 20, economic recovery projects have created more than 210,000 direct on-project jobs, as well as hundreds of thousands of indirect jobs. What this means is that thousands construction workers have been hired, buses, rail and passenger train cars have been ordered and are being assembled, and service cutbacks and layoffs have been avoided at transit systems, airports and state transportation departments nationwide. Just as importantly, long lasting benefits are being created by the highways, bridges, transit and airport facilities being preserved or expanded. The payoff is improved travel, a cleaner environment, and a stronger economy.

Transportation providers are ready to work, ready to build, ready to go.

I see three shortcomings in the first stimulus bill that impeded its true potential and should not be repeated in any new jobs bill:

(1) inadequate funding levels for infrastructure,

(2) extremely short “use it or lose it deadlines” that forced a heavy focus on “shovel ready” projects, and

(3) weak “maintenance-of-effort” requirements that allowed states to substitute federal funds for their own.

To achieve sustainable employment growth, the infrastructure package of the “jobs bill” should not be limited to assisting states with deferred maintenance projects. If we are just filling potholes or engaging in other extremely short-term assignments, then we miss the opportunity to put people to work in a meaningful way to sustain a recovery.

Congress should therefore provide enough funding and flexibility to go beyond pothole repairing to actually building new capacity – new lanes, interchanges, repair or replacement of old bridges, enhancement of transit systems, increased rail capacity, and expansion of airports and runways. Substantive improvement projects that support good-paying jobs in a sector that has been hard hit by the recession will create and keep millions of jobs for years, whereas quick-hit repaving is done in days or weeks at the end of which the jobs vanish.

We applaud President Obama’s leadership in creating jobs by rebuilding the nation’s critical infrastructure. Government funding to accelerate modernization of our outdated, inefficient air traffic control system – NowGen – should be a national priority. By driving jobs and commerce, NowGen will speed the nation’s economic recovery in ways far greater than “business as usual” infrastructure improvements.

Accelerating ATC modernization with a federal investment of $6.4 billion for equipage and procedures will create approximately 167,000 jobs, with some created in the short term with hiring for manufacturing-sector-related NowGen jobs. NowGen deployment will ultimately result in thousands of jobs for engineers, software developers and other high-tech workers. In addition, airline employees, aviation maintenance workers, the travel and tourism industry, shippers, and businesses large and small will benefit from installation of equipment in aircraft, reduced fuel/travel/shipping costs and more efficient air transportation.

Particularly in today’s troubled economy, NowGen will reduce the $40 billion of lost time and productivity from congestion and flight delays caused by our inefficient ATC system while enhancing aviation safety and reducing fuel burn/carbon emissions. Government investment today would enable the U.S. airline and aerospace industries to remain world leaders as other nations look to our development and deployment of innovative technologies and procedures, ensuring jobs retention and growth.

Without question, NowGen brings a far greater return on investment than building a high-speed rail system from scratch or rebuilding highways. It is truly a game changer for the nation.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) included $1.1 billion in Airport Improvement Program (AIP) funding. Use of the existing AIP program, where eligible projects focus on enhancing safety, capacity, security and environmental concerns, meant money was moved quickly from Washington to the local communities. In fact the FAA had, by June, reported that all but $5 million of the $1.1 billion had been obligated to 323 separate projects across the country. That money translated into jobs in large and small cities throughout the United States.

FAA officials noted earlier this year that $3 billion worth of shovel ready AIP projects could be completed over the next two years. Given the success of the airport projects in the initial stimulus, we believe that additional AIP funding is a crucial piece of any jobs bill.

The ARRA also included a two-year waiver of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) on Private Activity Bonds (PAB) along with a five-year refinancing provision. Bonds account for approximately 53 percent of funding for airport capital construction projects, but due to the combination of the economy and the AMT penalty, from August through December last year not one long term bond (30 yr) was sold. All that changed with the AMT relief enacted by Congress. Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport is just one example of the success of this job-creating provision. The airport was able to place $550 million of bonds, funding that was essential for the $2.5 billion Terminal 3 project under construction at the airport. Without the sale of these bonds, they would have had to close down the project and eliminate the 1,600 jobs associated with it. The work on the terminal is planned to continue through calendar year 2011, peaking at 2,400 jobs; jobs which would not have been maintained without the AMT relief.

There is another investment in our national transportation infrastructure that Congress could make today and create more jobs- passage of the FAA Reauthorization bill. With an eighth extension of operative authority expected to pass the House this week, the aviation community continues to wait impatiently for completion of the reauthorization process. The House-passed version of the bill, H.R. 915, contains an increase in the Passenger Facility Charge (PFC), raising the ceiling from $4.50 to $7.00. This $2.50 increase would help airports make a serious dent in the $47.3 billion in capacity projects in progress or planned to prevent passenger delays and congestion, without impacting the federal deficit.

In addition to creating good paying construction jobs today, further investment in airport infrastructure would allow the industry to take a step forward in preparing for NextGen, which begins and ends at the airport. As the GAO noted in its September 2008 report, Next Generation Air Transportation System: Status of Systems Acquisition and the Transition to the Next Generation Air Transportation System, “With regard to airport infrastructure, a transition to NextGen will also depend on the ability of airports to handle greater capacity.”

While the economic slowdown has impacted the entire aviation industry, airports continue to have a responsibility to maintain our facilities to meet passenger safety, security and capacity needs today as well as into the future. We are committed to making the necessary infrastructure investments to prepare for the expected 25% growth that the FAA predicts our industry will face by 2021, when it is estimated that one billion people will take to the sky.

Greg Principato

President, ACI-NA

This past week at the National Jobs Summit, ATA Past Chairman Charles "Shorty" Whittington told the President that investing in highways is the quickest, most efficient way to create jobs and restore the economy.

We must make a long-term commitment to a national transportation policy that repairs and expands our highway system to give construction companies certainty that when they hire new employees or buy new equipment, the investment will pay off.

A multi-year investment that increases highway capacity at our nation’s worst bottlenecks will put people back to work and improve travel times for commuters and freight haulers. The Texas Transportation Institute's 2009 Urban Mobility Report indicates that congestion creates an $87.2 billion annual drain on the U.S. economy in the form of 4.2 billion “lost hours” stuck in traffic and 2.8 billion gallons of wasted fuel.

Trucking is a $660 billion industry, transporting nearly 70 percent of all freight tonnage moved in the U.S. Moreover, the industry employs directly or indirectly nearly 9 million people in the U.S., or one in 15 civilian workers.

The recession hit the trucking industry particularly hard, as truck shipments contracted an astounding 25.5 percent from March 2008 to April 2009. Since the low point in April 2009, the number of loads has risen only modestly and any recovery remains fragile.

It’s no secret that our nation needs a tremendous investment in infrastructure to handle the increased demands that will be placed on our highways in the coming years. Infrastructure spending makes U.S. businesses more competitive. Every dollar invested in the nation’s highway system yields $5.40 in economic benefits as a result of reduced delays, improved safety and lower vehicle operating costs.

In fact, if highway bottlenecks were eliminated the trucking industry could save $19 billion every year. That's more money we can invest in putting people to work and buying new equipment.

There is a "Groundhog Day" feeling to the early discussions around a potential "jobs bill," with many of the same players falling in line to play the same roles they played exactly a year ago when Congress started drafting the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Last week's most uncanny déjà vu moment came when, just as they did last year, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials presented a vague "wish list" of spending for transportation projects that could supposedly commence in 120 days.

But we've learned a lot since last year. We've learned that it is unrealistic to expect infrastructure investment to spend out and make a significant difference in the economy in 120 days or less. It's also been confirmed that repair projects for existing roads and bridges can be initiated faster and create more jobs than new road building. And we also know now that a modest, yet significant, investment in new innovative transportation can produce a huge growth of activity for long-overdue investment, as proven by the explosion of demand for high-speed passenger rail across the country.

This time around, new road spending from Congress should be tightly focused to create the most jobs while addressing our quickly aging infrastructure. Rather than sending highway funding to states based on vague "wish lists" that lack project specifics, Congress should ensure that any new road funding goes first to bringing existing roads and bridges to a state of good repair. Not only will this direct federal investment straight to hiring workers rather than land sales and other overhead costs involved with new capacity projects, it will also further the critical goal of making the roads and bridges that American families rely on everyday safer and more reliable.

Congress can also send a loud and clear message to the burgeoning high-speed rail industry that the $8 billion included in the recovery bill was the beginning of an extended commitment, not just a trend, by making another significant investment in high-speed passenger rail.

Demand for high-speed rail funding has well exceeded the expectations that existed when the recovery bill was signed. Currently, there are close to $60 billion in project applications from more than 30 states competing for the first $8 billion in federal high-speed rail funding. Domestic and foreign investors and private industry have taken notice of the government's initiative and the sector has exploded over the last few months, providing hope for a new employment base that can offset massive losses in the automotive industry. But all eyes are on Congress to see if they will follow through on the original down payment in their next major transportation spending bill.

For the administration and Congressional leadership, the stakes for new spending are extremely high. Rather than blindly repeating the process that led to the recovery bill, they should take notice of the types of investments that are working for the economy and specifically direct funding to needed road and bridge repair and to further stoke the emerging high-speed passenger rail industry.

While the jury is still out on TIGER and HSR, since the awards are yet to be made, the TIGER program is a special case in a number of ways. To start, it is the first truly multimodal federal spending program we've seen -- and in this respect alone, although the amount of money at stake is small, it has already made an outsized impression on the transportation community. Second, the focus is on big, bold, capacity-building projects yet it entrusts DOT to prioritize them objectively, rather than turn the money over to the more common and politically satisfying earmarking process. Further, it institutionalizes the concept of "nationally significant" transportation infrastructure - an important step toward a more unified multimodal national network.

And, even though TIGER has yet to have an effect on job creation, it's been suggested that one easy and fast way to get money out to transportation construction and create jobs in our industry is to boost the amount of TIGER funding available. The awards are scheduled to be announced in January, according to the schedule set by the Secretary, and there are $58 billion in requests across more than 1400 applications with only $1.5 billion in authorized spending. Not only is the demand for TIGER high, but the criteria already prioritizes projects based on their job-creating attributes, among other tests of merit and national significance. Applying more money to this program could fund, say, 5% of the most worthy, job generating, nationally significant transportation projects, instead of only 3%, and do it with very little additional process.

Unfortunately, last week's relatively positive jobs report had little in the way of good news for construction workers. While mild November weather extended the construction season, helping shrink monthly layoffs, the new federal figures showed construction unemployment surging to almost 20 percent. The message for Washington ought to be clear, the best way to improve the nation's jobs picture is to boost infrastructure investments.

As Congress and the Administration explore jobs measures, new investments in highway and transit investments must be the vital component. Looking at this year's stimulus measure, it is pretty clear that the single most effective and efficient part of the program was its surface transportation investments. No other component of the stimulus that has been able to put over 70 percent of the funds allocated to work as rapidly.

The fact so much of the stimulus transportation dollars have been put to use, however, means federal investments in highway and transit projects will decline by over $15 billion next year, an almost 20 percent drop. Such a decline would cost our economy an estimated 430,000 jobs, something the nation can scarcely afford. Including significant new funds for infrastructure investments in a jobs measure will help prevent those needless layoffs. And with states reporting almost $70 billion in ready to go projects nationwide, there's little doubt new funds will be put to good and immediate use.

The Administration has been right to tout the accomplishments of the transportation component of the stimulus, the President's off-the-cuff remarks last week about the value of transportation investments notwithstanding. They've also been right to set aside a portion of the stimulus funds to stimulate larger, more complex and labor intensive projects through the TIGER grants. Likewise, a similar portion (about 5 percent) of new transportation funding that's part of a jobs bill should be set aside for the discretionary, competitive program.

The other major lesson from the stimulus is that the worst time to attempt policy changes is when you are trying to make speedy investments. Significant expansions of Buy American, Davis Bacon and reporting requirements in the last stimulus have done far more to delay projects and hurt workers than their supposed benefits will ever deliver. Save the policy changes for the long-overdue highway and transit bill, and focus on getting Americans back to work as soon as possible.