Rural America: No Escape for Highway Capacity Crisis, Study Says

. But they will create capacity issues for our infrastructure, as well,” said Kansas Transportation Secretary Deb Miller.

Existing businesses and industries also depend on a well-functioning rural highway system.

“Rural roads are critically important to the success of our industry,” said Marvin Childers, president of The Poultry Federation. “Getting feed delivered to our farms and the chickens, turkeys, and eggs delivered from the farms to our processing plants in a timely manner must take place for our industry to succeed. Trucking is a critical mode of transportation for rural America. It carries 70% of agricultural and food products and provides the link between farmers, manufacturers, processors, and markets. We cannot survive without a quality transportation system. Improving and keeping our transportation infrastructure in good repair is very, very important to the economy of this region.”

Connecting Rural and Urban America is the third in a series of reports generated by AASHTO to identify the need to increase capacity in our transportation system to unlock gridlock, generate jobs, deliver freight, and connect rural and urban America. For more information and to see state examples of rural capacity needs, go to http://ExpandingCapacity.transportation.org.