By Caitlin Bronson, Special to Transport Topics This story appears in the June 28 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
President Obama spoke in Columbus, Ohio, on June 18 to celebrate the 10,000th road project funded by last year’s stimulus law.
The road improvement project located in downtown Columbus also marked the beginning of what is being dubbed “Recovery Summer,” a six-week surge of infrastructure projects funded by the stimulus.
The White House has said that this summer will be “the most active Recovery Act season yet,” with more than 10,000 highway projects planned for July — six times as many as in the same month last year.
The administration said it also plans for developments in clean drinking water, home weatherization and improvements to national parks.
During his remarks, Obama called transportation infrastructure projects one of the “keys to our future prosperity.”
“The purpose of the Recovery Act [is] not just to jump-start the economy and get us out of the hole that we’re in right now, but to make the investments that will spur growth and spread prosperity and pay dividends to our communities for generations to come,” he said.
The White House said it will send out several Cabinet members throughout the summer to various locations across the country to oversee and speak at these project sites, including Vice President Joe Biden.
The construction industry is benefiting immensely from the effects of the stimulus, said Brian Turmail, a spokesman for The Associated General Contractors of America. However, the industry is looking for a more long-term effort from Washington to ensure future sustainability and growth, he said.
“We would hate to see what the construction industry would look like without the stimulus,” Turmail said, adding that he believed more layoffs would have occurred and fewer firms would have survived the recession without the stimulus.
“In many cases, we’ve been able to identify construction-related success stories for the administration. But at the same time, we’ve been urging folks in Washington to remember that the stimulus is a short-term program,” he added.
During his remarks in Columbus, Obama said the “economic development being sparked today is going to continue into the future,” with further business development planned after the road project was completed.
He also said he was “under no illusion” that economic recovery was complete, but that he was generally optimistic about the effects of the Recovery Act, stating that the United States had added jobs for the past six out of seven months largely because of infrastructure investment.
“It can’t end here,” he said. “The truth is if we want to keep on adding jobs . . . we’re going to have to get serious about our long-term vision for this country, and we’re going to have to get serious about infrastructure.”
