To kick off National Transportation Week, held May 13-19, the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) released some “fast facts” about the nation’s transportation infrastructure and its relationship to the national economy.  The data, part of a larger economic profile authored by the association’s chief economist, Dr. Alison Premo Black, paints a picture many in the business community understand all too well: transportation moves the U.S. economy.

Here are a few noteworthy statistics:

• Annual Output Value—The annual value of transportation construction in the U.S. surpassed $120 billion in 2010. To put this in context, it exceeds the output value of the following U.S. industry sectors: auto repair & maintenance ($116.8 billion); advertising ($106.9 billion); farming ($97.5 billion); motion pictures ($82.7 billion); aircraft manufacturing ($82.4 billion); and coal mining ($29.8 billion), to name a few.
• Annual Contribution to U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP)—As the money invested in transportation construction industry employment and purchases moves through the economy, it generates over $380 billion in total annual economic activity for the nation—nearly three percent of the U.S. GDP.
• Creating & Sustaining Jobs—Transportation construction in the U.S. supports the equivalent 3.4 million full-time jobs.  This includes 1,685,000 direct jobs in transportation construction and related activities and 1,698,000 jobs induced, or sustained, by transportation construction industry employee, firm and agency spending throughout the economy.
• Dependent Employment—Nearly 80 million American jobs in just tourism, manufacturing, transportation and warehousing, agriculture and forestry, general construction, mining, retailing and wholesaling alone are dependent on the work done by the U.S. transportation construction industry.  These dependent industries provide a total payroll in excess of $2.8 trillion and their employees contribute more than $233 billion annually in state and federal payroll taxes.
• Accommodating Business Shipments – The U.S. transportation infrastructure network makes possible the shipment each year of over 16.4 million tons of goods and materials between American companies, or companies and their customers. This freight has a value of $14.4 trillion. Over 77% of this value is shipped via trucks.

The first National Transportation Week (NTW) was observed in March 1953 to draw public attention to the importance and benefits of transportation.  Learn more at www.transportationcreatesjobs.org.