Title: Public Spending on Transportation and Water Infrastructure | Congressional Budget Office
Headings: Public Spending on Transportation and Water Infrastructure
Public Spending on Transportation and Water Infrastructure
Summary

Content: and by the type of infrastructure. State and local governments account for about 75 percent of total public spending on transportation and water infrastructure—even after subtracting from their gross spending the value of grants and loan subsidies that the federal government provides for such purposes—and the federal government accounts for the other 25 percent. That split has remained roughly constant over the past two decades. In recent years, not quite half of total public funding for transportation and water infrastructure in the United States has been devoted to capital spending for activities such as construction and equipment purchases. State and local governments have accounted for about 60 percent of those expenditures, and the federal government has accounted for about 40 percent. A little more than half of total public spending for such infrastructure has been used for operation and maintenance, of which state and local governments have provided about 90 percent. Although the federal government has played a limited role in the funding of operation and maintenance for transportation and water infrastructure as a whole, it has provided much of the funding for operating and maintaining the nation’s air traffic control system. Spending on highways at all levels of government accounted for 43 percent of expenditures for transportation and water infrastructure in 2007. Expenditures on water supply and wastewater treatment systems accounted for 28 percent of spending; aviation, mass transit and rail made up 23 percent;