Durbin Report: Infrastructure Investment is Foundation for Strong Economy
Fellow Illinoisans:
At the end of this month, the federal program that pays for our country’s major transportation and infrastructure needs expires. That is just days away.
Without Congressional action, funding to states and mass transit agencies across the country will stop. This could seriously jeopardize projects in Illinois and across the country.
We have been in this situation before and managed to authorize an extension without a lapse. But we shouldn’t have to run the federal highway and transit program like this.
The longer we wait to address the issue, the more the cost to repair and replace goes up. And that’s just maintaining what we have, not investing in what we need.
Illinois Impact
Illinois receives roughly $2 billion in annual transportation funds from the federal government of which nearly $600 million is for transit.
Millions of people in Illinois and across the country count on these trains and buses to get to work; to visit family; to run to the grocery store. This morning alone, 1.5 million Chicagoans took a trip on a Chicago Transit Authority bus or train during rush hour.
And it’s not just in Chicago, transit ridership is at an all-time high across our state, but without a long-term federal investment plan, capacity on can’t even begin to keep up with demand.
When it comes our roads, highways and bridges, Illinois is in even worse shape.
Small businesses make up many of the companies involved in repairing the more than 4,000 bridges that have been deemed structurally deficient or functionally obsolete and restoring the roads in poor condition that have cost Illinoisans$3.7 billion a year in vehicle maintenance each year – that’s $448 per driver!
Click here for an interactive map on America’s infrastructure backlog.
Slowing payments to these contractors and construction workers who are currently fixing these problems is senseless. This hurts jobs, both direct and indirect.
Design, construction and maintenance of transportation infrastructure supports 138,701 full-time jobs in Illinois. These workers out on the roads and bridges are middle-class men and women working labor-intensive jobs to feed their families and put their kids through school.
They don’t deserve this uncertainty -- not knowing whether or not they will be paid on time. And they do not need another manufactured crisis to disrupt their lives.
Long-Term Investment Solution
Now the question is not if we should keep kicking the can down the road, but how far we kick it. A month? Till September? Till the end of the year?
The President has proposed a six-year, $478 billion bill that improves our roads, public transportation systems and freight and passenger rail networks.
Under this plan, Illinois would receive an additional $575 million annually to invest in repairing and modernizing our infrastructure.
Click here to read more about President Obama’s plan.
We can’t patch our way to prosperity. We need a long-term transportation bill that creates good-paying jobs by building newer, better infrastructure that will lay the foundation for a strong economy.
Sincerely,
Dick Durbin
United States Senator
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