Once-in-a-Generation Economic Benefits

Improving the congestion and safety of the corridor alone will provide tangible economic benefits across the region through more reliable travel times, improved safety, and improved access to goods and services. In addition, the effects to the economy as a result of an infusion of potentially billions of federal grant funds distributed through the construction of the IBR program has the potential to provide our region a once-in-a-generation economic opportunity. Tens of thousands of jobs across multiple industries will be generated during the construction period—benefitting workers, local businesses, and families.

?Along with being the region’s largest and most complex infrastructure projects in decades, the Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) program brings once-in-a-generation economic benefits that will last for years to come. When an investment—of any kind—is made, one of the first questions is usually: “What’s the return?” With IBR, the simple answer is $11.6 billion in gross economic activity during construction and $5.9 billion in project expenditures. That means a total economic impact to the region of nearly double the cost to build the program.?

?So, where does that economic return occur? The dollars invested in the IBR program will reap major impacts in three distinct ways: direct, indirect, and tertiary. The project will mean approximately 18,700 engineers and construction workers hired through completion (direct), with an additional estimated 24,600 positions (indirect) through contractors and firms that provide raw materials, support services, and logistics. That all leads to tertiary impacts when the earnings provided are extended out into the economy in the form of rent payments, groceries, utilities, and all of the other ways that salaries and earnings flow through the community.

This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to boost our regional economy by providing a multimodal transportation corridor benefiting all travelers, from local community members to long-haul drivers traveling on I-5 between Canada and Mexico.?