Transportation investment is inherently valuable; job creation is an important side benefit

Hat tip: Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is understandably fond of emphasizing the number of jobs that projects funded by his Department, particularly those under the High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail program, have created or will create. He reiterated this case in testimony before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee yesterday.

London’s Paddington station. Photo by dipfan on Flickr

Given the persistently high national unemployment rate, touting job creation is an important way to win the support of Americans and the officials they elect. And it’s certainly true that the construction and replacement of railroad infrastructure and the operation of passenger train systems generates good-paying jobs that cannot be outsourced.

But perhaps job creation should not be thought of as the number one reason to invest in transportation and infrastructure upgrades. Instead, the value to the economy and society inherent in the efficient, reliable movement of people and goods should be enough to justify a consistent, high level of investment in transportation. This is the conclusion reached by five former Secretaries of Transportation of both parties who participated in a panel last week at the University of Virginia.

President Ronald Reagan’s deputy transportation secretary James Burnley put it this way:

We need to convince the American people that we need to invest in transportation infrastructure because we need to invest in transportation infrastructure. If we sell that idea – not as a jobs program, but because it affects the ability of our economy to grow over time, our international competitiveness and all the other things that we believe it affects, then we’ve got a fighting shot at convincing the American people that the resources that we believe ought to be devoted to transportation should be devoted to it.