Thousands of Jobs Created As A Result of Highway Stimulus Package

Millions of dollars in new highway and road projects are now under construction in Mississippi as part of the federal stimulus package, and as MPB’s Phoebe Judge reports it’s not just drivers who are benefitting.

The Mississippi Department of Transportation was awarded just over $350 million dollars for shovel ready projects this spring through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. At a news conference held yesterday in Biloxi, Larry L. Butch Brown, executive director of MDOT announced that $225 million dollars in projects are already under construction. MDOT is facing billions of dollars in backlogged work and Brown says the stimulus funds have been a godsend in helping to address that backlog,

“It really has helped us to move things a little faster where there were some critical needs but just unfunded.”

The stimulus funded projects are taking place all over the state, and include the widening of 12 bridges and a new major interchange in Meridian. But it’s not just the highway system that is benefitting from the stimulus package. MDOT estimates that more than 15,000 jobs will be created and retained statewide through these projects, and by July more than $2 million dollars in payroll had already been expended. John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials says nationwide the stimulus package’s highway program has been a smashing success,

“The public is getting a double benefit. First you are getting hundreds of thousands of jobs created all over the country quickly, but in the case of the highway project you get a long lasting legacy. The facilities these workers will create will last twenty to fifty years into the future.”

Nationwide $27.5 billion dollars has been allocated to highway programs through the federal stimulus package.