An updated report from AASHTO illustrates how investments in transportation are delivering exceptional results for travelers and communities across America.

According to the report, released today by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), as of August 31, 2010, the US DOT reports that work is underway on 4,200 mass transit projects totaling $5.4 billion and 11,978 highway and bridge projects, totaling $24.1 billion. A total of 13,000 highway projects worth $26.4 billion have been approved for construction, that when completed will improve 35,399 miles of highways, and 1,200 bridges.

"These are big numbers," said AASHTO Executive Director John Horsley. "Billions of dollars being invested in transportation projects that are creating paychecks for hundreds of thousands of construction workers hard hit by unemployment rates that were well above 20 percent earlier this year. And when you consider that more than 6,000 highway and bridge projects and nearly 25-hundred transit projects have already been completed, you can see first hand how states are delivering for the American people."

The full report, More Projects and Paychecks: Transportation's Summer of Recovery including state examples of recovery projects and the people they employed, is available at the website http://recovery.transportation.org.