State DOTs aspire for improvement, but in practice effectively reinforce the status quo

From Connecting the DOTs: A survey of state transportation planning, investment, and accountability practices, Adie Tomer and Ben Swedberg, Brookings Metro

State DOTs and their staff have enormous responsibilities to manage America’s expansive transportation network. They raise and spend almost half of the over $300 billion of capital invested in the network each year. State officials must report-up to their federal colleagues, preparing long-range plans and stewarding tens of billions of dollars in formula funding. They also must forge partnerships with their local colleagues to co-design safe and economically competitive communities. It’s not an exaggeration to say state DOTs are the hub of American transportation governance.

States frequently present an image of public accountability to carry out these responsibilities, often going beyond federal law. Almost every state’s LRTP includes generalized implementation plans to achieve each major goal. Almost every state hosts a public portal to communicate details related to every project they’re building, and most states include an option for the public to submit comments on those projects. A clear majority of state legislatures authorize independent commissions of some kind.

Yet in practice, most states develop plans, select projects, and commit funding with little functional oversight and often minimal collaboration with their local partners. Too few states link their selected projects to either long-range goals or public-facing selection methodologies—a known gap for at least a decade—and states rarely publish evidence for how public comments or statewide meetings impact their project selections.

In theory, the LRTP and STIP should operate in tandem to ensure long-range planning informs project selection. But since there’s no requirement for state officials to demonstrate how each project on the STIP advances goals within a LRTP, states can functionally construct any project they’d like as long as they follow technical requirements such as environmental permitting or structural design