Transportation in Rural America: Issues for the 21st Century

In the last 25 years, transportation in rural America has been transformed by deregulation, devolution of Federal responsibilities to State and local governments, and traffic growth created by the booming economy of the 1990s. All modes of rural transportation—highways, passenger service (transit, intercity bus, and passenger rail service), trucking, inland waterways, rail freight service, and passenger air service— have been affected. By linking rural residents with distant jobs and services and by enabling commercial shipping, transportation is a cornerstone of rural economic development. However, rural transportation is still beset by higher commuting and shipping costs due to widely dispersed population and industry.