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States spent an estimated $131 billion on transportation in fiscal year 2010, but many cannot answer critical questions abot what returns this investment is generating, according to a new report by the Pew Center on the States and the Rockefeller Foundation. The study comes at a time when some members of Congress are proposing that the next surface transportation authorization act, the law that governs the largest federal funding streams for states’ transportation systems, more closely tie dollars to performance.

The report, Measuring Transportation Investments: The Road to Results, found considerable differences among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in linking transportation systems to six key goals particularly important to states’ economic well-being and taxpayers’ quality of life: safety, jobs and commerce, mobility, access, environmental stewardship and infrastructure preservation.