Transportation Infrastructure Bonds Win Landslide Approval in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nearly Everywhere Else

Whatever economic issues may have been bothering them, voters in the most recent election overwhelmingly approved a wide array of bond issues for state and local infrastructure projects, says a new analysis.

According to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, voters gave a thumbs up to exactly 77% of the ballot-listed bonds, funding everything from road and bridge work to walking and biking trails and railroad projects.

And the bonds were approved in regions of the country where either Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump carried the day.

“The support for these ballot measures during one of the most consequential national election cycles in modern history proves that transportation investment continues to transcend partisan politics,” remarked Carolyn Kramer Simons, a senior director of state funding policy with ARTBA.

Altogether, voters approved more than $41 billion funding 370 individual projects. The approval rate was above that recorded in the 2016 presidential election, when 74.2% of all measures proved successful, but less than the 94.1% recorded during the 2020 election.

Voters in Arizona approved the renewal of two half-cent sales transportation taxes in both Maricopa and Pinal counties; while a big nine proposals in Colorado won voter approval, including a $65 million bond for transportation improvement projects in Greeley, and a proposal to use sales taxes for infrastructure projects in Aspen.

Voters in Grand Junction, however, by a 57% to 43% margin, turned down an $80 million bond targeting a road interchange project.

Both Bernalillo and Santa Fe County voters in New Mexico overwhelmingly gave their support to bond transportation improvement projects.

Voters in Texas, meanwhile, gave their approval to around 60 individual city and county bond proposals across the state.

The result, with bond approval margins beyond the 70% mark in both blue and red states, continued Simons, showed that voters from “all parties and geographic areas agree on the need to invest in roads, bridges, and transit infrastructure.”

November 19, 2024

By Garry Boulard


Photo Courtesy of Pixabay

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