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Key findings of The Bottom Line report

Investment needs through 2015

An annual investment of $166 billion for highways and bridges is needed if travel grows at an expected rate of 1.4 percent per year. Total capital highway investment totaled $78.7 billion in 2006.)
For transit, if ridership jumps by 3.5 percent from current levels, then investment would have to increase to $59 billion annually. (Total transit capital investment totaled $13.3 billion in 2006.)
Another $13 billion in investment needs has been identified for such areas as environmental mitigation, operations, safety and security.

User benefits from investment

Drivers will experience markedly smoother roads;
Speed levels will increase by about 5 percent.
Hours of delay will decline by 16.5 percent, meaning drivers will save about 12 hours per year they would otherwise spend sitting in traffic.
User costs would drop by about $27 per 1000 miles driven, for a savings of more than $400 per car each year.

Travel trends

While travel declined in 2008, in keeping with the economic downturn, motorists still logged some 2.9 trillion miles on the nation’s highways.
Future travel is projected to grow at 1.0 to 1.4 percent per year. U. S. population is expected to grow by 1 percent per year.
The American Public Transportation Association reports that since 1995, transit ridership has grown from 7.8 billion trips annually to 10.3 billion trips in 2007, an annual growth rate of 2.4 percent. In 2008, however, APTA reported an increase in transit ridership of 6.5 percent from the previous year.