The Livable Blog

In a recent post I noted that building more freeways is a really dumb response to the economic crisis; a response worse that the roads to nowhere built by relief camp workers in the dirty 30s.

I received a response by email suggesting that we should therefore support transit megaprojects such as the Canada Line. As shown and discussed below, transit service improvements are better for local job creation than infrastructure projects. But either are much better than highway projects.

Megaprojects such as freeways and subways are often built by international conglomerates, which usually bring in workers from far away and take their profits with them when they are finished. In contrast, local firms and workers benefit more from smaller projects. For example, local construction firms would be capable of building a busway such as the proposed King George bus rapid transit (BRT) line.

Illustration of the Proposed Vanness Avenue Electric BRT in San Francisco California

Source: San Francisco County Transportation Authority http://www.sfcta.org/vanness/

Another key point is that "transportation investment should not be seen as primarily a jobs program." Every dollar from the public purse should support useful projects that create jobs people can be proud of doing.

Building fatter freeways is about the worst possible response to the parallel meltdowns of our glaciers and the Enron economy.

The quote below is from the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership www.transact.org; a very useful source of information on transportation issues.

Impact of Public Transportation Projects on Job Creation

In recent years, proponents of increased investment in new highway capacity have used job-creation as a rallying cry for their cause, saying that money spent on these new roads will lead to a surge in new jobs. While transportation investment should not be seen as primarily a jobs program, economic studies indicate that transit capital investments and operations funding are even better sources of long-term job creation.

According to a recent study by Cambridge Systematics, 314 jobs and a $30 million gain in sales for businesses are created for each $10 million invested in transit capital funding, and over 570 jobs are created for each $10 million in the short run. While new highway construction does lead to an increase in employment, these jobs are mostly for non-local workers: road engineers and other specialists who come in to an area for a specific job and then leave when it has been completed. On the other hand, transit investments create a wealth of employment opportunities in the short and the long run. Transit system construction leads to an impressive level of short-term job creation, and once the systems are finished, a long-term source of high-quality jobs. Of the 350,000 people directly employed by public transportation systems, more than 50 percent are operators or conductors. In addition, 10,000 to 20,000 professionals work under contract to public transportation systems or are employed by companies and government offices that support these systems. Thousands of others are employed in related services (i.e. engineering, manufacturing, construction, retail, etc.). [snip]
http://www.transact.org/library/factsheets/jobs.asp