Speed Not the Only Consideration in Transportation Stimulus Spending

by Will Schroeer, Smart Growth America

The New York Times this morning added to the growing literature on how states are choosing to spend transportation stimulus dollars with the article by Michael Cooper and Griff Palmer entitled "Cities Lose Out on Road Funds from Federal Stimulus."

The Times piece continues an encouraging trend away from talking just about spending the money as fast as possible (the theme as recently as the Thursday before, when the House Transportation & Infrastructure committee had its hearing on 120 days of the transportation stimulus) and talking instead about "is the money being spent well-in a way that will produce the change we need?"

That change is simply essential to successfully evaluating ARRA, and to spending the rest of ARRA money better.

I was also pleased to see that the Times confirmed the findings of the Smart Growth America report (blogged about here last week), and extended the findings to geographic distribution.

The only quibble I have with the Times story is the implication that more money for cities is automatically good. Compared to many state departments of transportation, metropolitan areas (officially, "Metropolitan Planning Organizations" receive the stimulus dollars) tend to spend transportation dollars in a way that is both more sustainable and creates more jobs. But like any kind of spending, that kind of generalization hides a mix of good and bad decisions. Some state DOTs are leaders in supporting the economic engines in their metropolitan areas. And some MPOs have chosen to spend their stimulus dollars on projects that by any quantitative measure are far down the list of regional priorities.