POPULATION ADJUSTMENT TO TRANSPORTATION INVESTMENT AND TRANSPORTATION PLANNING

Accurately evaluating the benefits of state transportation investments requires knowing how such investments affect population growth. This report seeks to answer three questions concerning the relationship between transportation investments and population for Florida. First, does Florida's population respond to transportation investments quickly relative to the life of transportation investments? Second, what is the difference between planning in an open, versus closed/partially closed framework when trying to maximize net benefits to Florida residents? Third, is the difference between investment decisions under the two frameworks large enough to worry about? A quality-adjusted measure of state-level road capital stocks for the 48 contiguous states suggests that a 10 percent increase in Florida's transportation infrastructure would cause a 4 percent increase in Florida's equilibrium population. The authors also find that transportation investment options are evaluated differently if an open economy perspective is adopted rather than a closed economy perspective. In an open economy, most of the net benefits of state transportation investments to state residents are reflected in increases in property values. If population is closed with respect to transportation infrastructure, transportation investments boost wages and reduce commuting costs without attracting more workers to compete with existing residents for the better jobs or recongesting roads. The loss of net benefits to Floridians from making transportation decisions as if the economy were partially closed could be quite large and the difference between the two frameworks is significant enough that Florida's planning efforts should be explicit about the relationship between transportation infrastructure investments and population. The authors conclude that a regional open economy framework is the appropriate setting in which to formulate Florida's transportation investment policy. Further, the benefits of Florida's transportation investments to the state's residents must be measured explicitly through their impact on aggregate property values.

• Record URL:
  https://fdotwww.blob.core.windows.net/sitefinity/docs/default-source/research/reports/fdot-bc354-44a-rpt.pdf
• 
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Revised edition, originally published 2002/03/28.
• Corporate Authors:

  University of Florida, Gainesville

  Bureau of Economic and Business Research, P.O. Box 117150
  Gainesville, FL  United States  32611-7150

  Florida Department of Transportation

  Haydon Burns Building, 605 Suwanee Street
  Tallahassee, FL  United States  32301
• Authors:
  • Dewey, J F
  • Denslow, D
  • Irwin, E
  • Baldwin, G
  • Bevins, C
  • Christensen, K W
  • Dai, C
  • Martinez, Sébastien
• Publication Date: 2003-2-10

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 47 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Decision making; Economic analysis; Economic benefits; Investments; Population forecasting; Population movements; Property values; Regional economics; Residents; Transportation planning
• Geographic Terms: Florida
• Subject Areas: Economics; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Society; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00941148
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: Revised Report
• Contract Numbers: BC-354-44
• Files: TRIS, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Apr 5 2003 12:00AM