List of Tables
Transportation infrastructure generates economic activity by making new connections and/or by reducing transportation time and cost. These savings and new connections have value for households and businesses that use the new infrastructure. Depending on whether the facility serves passengers or freight, these trips result in new expenditures at retail stores and restaurants, better workforce access for employers, and more efficient access to inputs and customers for manufacturers, suppliers, and warehousing and distribution businesses. The need for investment and maintenance in the system requires new dedicated forms of funding to fill the $8.2 trillion need by 2039 in infrastructure funding across the US.13 This need will stifle economic growth and mobility without these investments.
Value capture enables districts, neighborhoods, municipalities, counties, States, and nations to generate needed funding for transportation projects or programs. Value capture is a more equitable way of generating funds for infrastructure as a portion of the windfall or appreciation can be dedicated to pay for infrastructure that will benefit residents and businesses in the project area by creating economic value. Value capture revenue can be more flexible than Federal or other local funding and be used to fill in funding gaps, pay for specific projects, or be put to uses those other funds are not eligible for. Given the persistent and growing back log of transportation needs, value capture can be a long-term solution to closing local gaps and worth the short-term startup efforts.
The development and implementation of value capture techniques may require more planning than increasing rates or modifying existing traditional sources of transportation funding and finance. Value capture will require upfront investment for research, communication, and developing support prior to implementation. However, once enabling legislation is available it can be implemented with support and administered efficiently while generating flexible funds. Education and outreach will be important to demonstrate the benefits of generating local funding to deliver more projects, projects sooner, or projects and maintenance that would not have been funded otherwise.
Finally, value capture helps align transportation investments with other public policy goals including job creation, affordable housing, growth management and congestion reduction. An evaluation of the impacts of a transportation investment on other public policy areas, including how the funding plan affects the private sector response to the new or improved infrastructure, is a key component of the business case for that investment.
13 American Society of Civil Engineers, 2021 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, https://infrastructurereportcard.org/.
