Study: States Lack Tools to Justify Transportation Spending

Only 13 states have performance goals and reviews in place to help taxpayers determine if transportation spending promotes such things as safety, mobility, and jobs and commerce, according to a new study being released Wednesday.

The Pew Center on the States and the Rockefeller Foundation conducted the study, which found the 50 states spent $131 billion on transportation in Fiscal Year 2010 alone.

Another 19 states have few or no tools with which to “account for the return on investment in their roads, highways, bridges and bus and rail systems,” the study said, while the remaining 18 have some but not enough assessment tools.

The study comes at a time when transportation leaders in and out of Congress are saying that any transportation reauthorization passed this year ought to contain performance and assessment criteria for the states.