Transit Creates 31-84% More Jobs than Building Highways (Per $1 Spent)

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Give the people what they want. And what do they want? Well, a few things: Jobs, more money in their pockets, mass transit, and less polluted air. And how can we achieve all of those things? Transit-oriented development.

Greg LeRoy’s contribution on The Blog over at The Huffington Post makes the case for putting priority on mass transit initiatives to spur job growth, using facts and figures about job creation from the Recovery Act. LeRoy writes, “Two analyses of the Act’s apples-to-apples jobs data found that building transit systems created 31 to 84 percent more jobs per $1 billion than did building highways.”

So, instead of roads to nowhere, effective public planning should  focus on repairing the existing highway system and providing mass transit that will inevitably create jobs and lessen our collective dependence on expensive, dirty oil imports.

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The success of transit-oriented development news is sweet, sweet music to the ears of the environmentally conscience, un-(or under)employed, folks choosing (or financially forced) to live without cars, and those of us who just think mass transit is the ish.

Source: The Huffington Post
Image: mass transit in Portland, Oregon via Shutterstock