WSDOT Stimulus Projects Peak with Construction Season

Olympia – Construction activity on Washington’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) highway projects is in high gear.

The Federal Highway Administration provided $492 million for state and local highway projects in Washington state, advancing projects and jobs to address high-priority highway preservation needs and fund low-cost, high-benefit transportation system improvements.

WSDOT reports monthly on a range of measurements to the U.S. Department of Transportation and to Congress. The most recent report showed that contractor payrolls doubled for the second month in a row, with labor hours increasing by 150 percent from June to July. The employment data shows workers on Recovery Act-funded projects logged more than 144,000 labor hours in July, compared to just less than 58,000 hours in June.