Infrastructure Bill Kickstarts States’ Road Projects
The Mississippi Department of Transportation has begun the long-awaited $200 million expansion of State Route 15, funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which has enabled states like Mississippi to advance previously stalled road projects. The IIJA’s boost in federal funding has jumpstarted similar transportation projects across the country, despite inflation limiting the number of new projects.
According to Governing, more than two decades after first drawing the project on a map, the Mississippi Department of Transportation broke ground earlier this month on an expansion of State Route 15 in Tippah County, near the state’s northern border with Tennessee.
Transportation planners say the $200 million Ripley Bypass project, which will expand about 10 miles of road from two lanes to four, will ease frequent congestion in the area. State leaders have framed it as an economic development project — a “massive investment [that] will help further solidify Mississippi as a transportation hub for the country,” according to Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves.
The project is finally underway thanks in part to a bump in highway funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. Mississippi is receiving about $200 million more per year under the IIJA than it did in recent years, says Brad White, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Transportation. That has made it possible for the state to start a handful of capacity-building projects — new roads, interchanges, and lane expansions — that have languished in planning documents for years.
The same is true around the country. The IIJA added $110 billion in new spending on roads and bridges over five years, on top of the $305 billion authorization for the previous five-year period. That money has kickstarted several road-building projects in states. Oklahoma has used IIJA funds to restart a stalled highway interchange project, for example. Texas is using IIJA funding to extend a portion of Interstate 14 between Austin and Waco. Minnesota has restarted an interchange reconstruction project near Duluth. Every highway construction project in the country is largely paid for with federal money, supercharged by the 2021 law.
“IIJA funding has enabled projects that might have been delayed due to financial constraints to continue progressing,” says Jim Tymon, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. “However, due to inflation, the increased IIJA funding (except for discretionary grants) has essentially allowed states to build about the same number of projects as originally anticipated pre-IIJA.”