01476891

Component

With the interstate system substantially complete, the majority of new investment in highways is likely to take the form of selective capacity expansion projects in urban areas, along with incremental expansions and upgrades to expressway or freeway standards of existing intercity highway corridors. This paper focuses specifically on the latter type of project, rural highway expansions designed to connect smaller outstate cities and towns, and examines their effects on industry-level private earnings and local employment. The authors examine three case study projects in rural Minnesota and use panel data on local earnings and employment to estimate the impacts of the improvements. Results indicate that none of the projects studied generated statistically significant increases in earnings or employment, a finding the authors attribute to the relatively small time savings associated with the projects and the maturity of the highway network. They suggest that for rural highway expansion projects, as with other types of transportation projects, user benefits should be a primary evaluation criterion rather than employment impacts.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADD10 Transportation and Economic Development.

01470560

13-4701

English

27p

2013

Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Case studies; Earnings; Economic development; Economic impacts; Employment; Panel studies; Rural highways; Rural transportation

Minnesota

Economics; Highways; I10: Economics and Administration

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2013 Paper #13-4701

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Feb 5 2013 12:54PM