Stimulus Projects Could Slow Traffic

Approximately $27 billion is headed to states to repair roads and bridges on top of the annual $42 billion in federal aid. $200 million worth of work has already begun, but expect much more to follow in the next two years, according to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

Anyone who’s ever sat in a single lane of bottlenecked traffic knows what this means. The surge in construction projects (not to mention the low price of gas compared with last year) has the potential to create severely obnoxious slowdowns and traffic jams.

For example, Florida will have 25% more roadwork than usual, Pennsylvania will have an unprecedented number of projects, including around Philadelphia, and New York will see a 60% increase in spending on road projects. This level of construction will come with the inevitable trade-off of slowdowns.

Perhaps this is a relatively small price to pay for job creation, but that will probably be hard to keep in mind when you’re creeping along a four-lane highway that’s been reduced to two lanes of bumper-to-bumper stimulus traffic.

Traffic Set to Slow as Stimulus Gears Up (USA Today)