Trends in State Capital Investment in Highways, an E-supplement to GAO-03-744R

Background

This publication presents state-by-state information on trends in state and local expenditures for capital projects on highways, state and local levels of investment compared with measures of highway use and income, and state sources of funding from 1982 through 2000. The trend information is also compared with federal levels of investment and state averages. Our report, Trends in Federal and State Capital Investment in Highways (GAO-03-744R), discusses total highway capital funding nationally, the levels of federal, state, and local investment in highways, and illustrates variations in individual states' levels of effort over time.

Scope and Methodology

We obtained data from the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Highway Statistics and the Bureau of Census for the period from 1982 through 2000, adjusting expenditures to 2001 dollars. We compared expenditures with vehicle miles traveled, registered vehicles, and the gross state products (GSP) of individual states. We performed our work from August 2002 through May 2003 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. See Trends in Federal and State Capital Investment in Highways (GAO-03-744R) for a more detailed discussion of our scope and methodology, including limitations of the data. Although this report presents data from 1982 through 2001, this publication presents data from 1982 through 2000 because local government expenditure data for 2001 were not available by state.

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• Click on the Table of Contents link located to your right and again in the lower right of this screen. To read to the bottom of the screen, you may need to use your scroll bar on the right side of this screen.
   
• The Tables of Contents will enable you to view tables on 5 topics of information. These topics are:
  
  (1) Highway Capital Expenditures, (2) Level of Effort, (3) State Sources of Funding, (4) Motor Fuel Taxes, and (5) Highway Trust Fund Apportionments and Payments.
  
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