This article is the fourth in a seven-part series that Agri-Pulse is publishing to give readers perspective on the history and status of the many parts of America's infrastructure and improvements needed to help farmers and ranchers remain competitive and prosperous.

 

The next time you bite into a piece of fruit, grill a steak, or spoon into a carton of yogurt, consider how the item got from the farm to your home - and who paid for the trip. Let's take a broad look at how the country finances the highways, runways, railroads, ports and river navigation structures, and who pays for the trucks, rail cars, ships and barges that move the nation's cargo. The answer is that we all pay, but in much more varied ways even than the country's assorted transport modes themselves.

 

Just how large is transportation infrastructure anyway? By way of total asset value, investments in all of those transport modes are about a fourth of all U.S. infrastructure investments as estimated in an analysis by the GailFosler Group, based on Congressional Budget Office data. The other three-fourths are for the whole gamut of schools, colleges, water and sewer systems, communications and electric power systems, and other utilities.