REMI was engaged by the Rhode Island Department of Revenue’s Office of Revenue Analysis on behalf of the Rhode Island Department of Transportation to analyze and model the economic and demographic effects of the RhodeWorks transportation infrastructure improvement and restoration plan. Rhode Island’s transportation infrastructure had reached a point of dilapidation where if many of the failing bridges were not repaired in the short term, the costs of bridge improvements will grow as a state will soon be required to replace, instead of restore, its transportation infrastructure. The assessment included the economic and demographic impacts over an 11-year time period associated with: 1) the construction of transportation infrastructure capital improvements; 2) project financing options; 3) avoided costs of bridge closings and postings to the state; and 4) benefit programs to support the trucking industry included in the RhodeWorks proposal. All eight modeled scenarios displayed an increase in all the economic measures tracked for this analysis.
