Roads inadequate to serve growing agricultural and energy output, emerging cities that are not connected to the Interstate Highway System, and rising congestion in popular tourist destinations all require immediate attention and investment to ensure that America's rural areas stay connected, concludes a report released Monday by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

More investment is needed in America's rural transportation system to keep agriculture, new energy products, and freight moving; improve access for the travel, recreation, and tourism industries; connect new and emerging cities; and to ensure reliable access to key defense installations, according to "Connecting Rural and Urban America," distributed Monday at news conferences held in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Wichita, Kansas.

"Improving connectivity and mobility for the 60 million Americans who live in rural areas is just as important as improving mobility for those who live in metropolitan areas," said AASHTO Executive Director John Horsley. "Rural states are essential to the nation's success, not only to meet the needs of their own citizens, but also to maintain their part of the national network on which the U.S. economy depends."

The report found that 66 cities with populations of 50,000 or more -- including one state capital -- do not have immediate access to the interstate system, and that during the next 30 years, 80% of the nation's population growth is expected to concentrate in the South and West.

"Arkansas is a rural state with many more highway needs than funds to meet those needs," said Arkansas Highway and Transportation Director Dan Flowers.

Highlighting the need for a good rural transportation system, Marvin Childers, president of The Poultry Federation, said that Arkansas producers move 30 million chickens to market every week.

Rural Highway Expansion Would Fuel Economic Development

Expansion of rural capacity is important for economic development efforts that depend on access to interstate and National Highway System routes, AASHTO asserts.

Congress has extended the previous multiyear surface transportation authorization law known as "SAFETEA-LU," which expired in September 2009, until the end of 2010. Because of the uncertainty about funding in a new long-term reauthorization bill, highway projects that would expand rural capacity have greatly decreased.

"Luring job-creators to Kansas -- such as the Siemens plant in Hutchinson that will manufacture wind turbine generators and the National Bio-Agro Facility at Manhattan -- are welcome additions that will create hundreds of jobs," said Kansas Transportation Secretary Deb Miller. "But they will create capacity issues for our infrastructure, as well."

Kansas' short-line railroads haul an average of 175,000 carloads of goods throughout the state every year, according to the Kansas Department of Transportation. With increased congestion, trucks and freight trains can't deliver their goods and people can't get to their jobs, which creates lost time and wasted money, Miller said. AASHTO's report predicts increased trade between Canada and the United States will require states to expand their highway and transportation options or risk overloading the system and causing more even more congestion.

Many of the nation's most-popular tourist destinations -- including ski slopes, seashores, and national parks -- experience significant traffic delays and many of these destinations are not close to interstate or National Highway System routes. The tourism and trade industries that help support America's economy are negatively affected by the rising congestion in rural areas, the report contends.

Increased Investment in Reauthorization Bill Key to Improvement

To resolve these concerns, the AASHTO report offers a plan to ensure the connectivity of rural and urban America. In any reauthorization of federal transportation legislation, Congress should:

• Continue to fund rural portions of the Interstate Highway System and other federal-aid highways that connect America;
• Double federal investment in rural transit systems to meet rising demand; and
• Expand the existing capacity of the interstate system, upgrade rural routes to interstate standards, and connect newly urbanized areas to the interstate system.

"In Mississippi, we're fortunate to have waterways, ports, highways, and rail, but we must ensure that all rural states have good transportation options that will enable them to generate jobs and create strong economic growth," said AASHTO President Butch Brown, Mississippi Department of Transportation executive director.

AASHTO's 56-page report and state examples of rural capacity needs are available at expandingcapacity.transportation.org.

Connecting Rural and Urban America is the third and final in a series of reports published by AASHTO to identify the need to increase capacity in America's transportation system. The second report, "Transportation Reboot: Unlocking Freight," focused on freight capacity needs. (see July 9 AASHTO Journal story) The first report, "Transportation Reboot: Unlocking Gridlock," focused on capacity needs in metropolitan areas. (see April 30 AASHTO Journal story)