As a solid follow-up to my morning rant about the lack of subway expansion in New York City comes word that, as I posited, public transportation investment is the nation’s leading in job creation. AltTransport highlights a new (PDF) report by the Transportation Equity Network that shows how $1 billion in transit investment leads to 9000 more new jobs than $1 billion in road investments. Of course, New York City, with its extensive transit network, TEN finds, leads the nation in both transit investment and job creation through this spending. The city has spent 75 percent of its Transit Improvement Program funds on transit and has created 34,679 jobs per $1 billion spent. While New York politicians are clamoring for road improvements, investment in transit would lead to a stronger economy and a better city overall.
Public transit investment paces job creation
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A friend of mine keeps saying “we need a massive infrastructure development program across the country, that’s how we’re getting out of this financial meltdown”. The more and more I think about it, the more it seems to make sense.
I just think back to the New Deal, post ’29 market crash and how all the huge infrastructure projects helped get our country out of the dregs and becoming one of the leading nations in the world.
That sort of infrastructure development with the federal government taking the lead in funding would be a fantastic way to bring our country and our city to the next level in order to support an economic boom. Hopefully it just doesn’t throw us into WWIII….
I just skimmed the report, but it looks like Reason-grade hackery to me. The three main reasons:
1. It’s a non-peer-reviewed study published by a thinktank.
2. I didn’t see any control for confounding variables.
3. The standard list of reasons to build transit listed at the end all boils down to “It reduces people’s transportation costs.” It’s true; it can also increase housing costs.