The Economic importance of Transportation - Essay Example

ailure at any point of the transport network that we have could be disastrous as the IRU (2002) tells us that, “Any transport network failures may be assimilated to ‘blood clots’ obstructing free movement of people, goods and services, and hindering sustainable development of world economy (IRU, 2002, Pg. 1).” For America in particular, there exists an extensive road, rail, air and sea based transport network that links all the cities and towns within the continent from New York to Juno.

However the vast transport network in America was not built overnight but rather it took decades of planning, positioning, regulations, infrastructure development and a tremendous monetary investment before the network could take a useable form. Of course, for the majority of the citizenry, the most commonly seen and perhaps the most often used system for transport remains the road and highway networks that cut across the land. Economic concerns certainly come up when the road network is planned or even when a new road/highway is to be made by the government.

These economic criteria define the goals of such an element of the transport network. For example, the economic goal of the road could be to alleviate pressure and thus save time for individuals who are driving from one point on the city to another. It could also be to provide more routes for accessing a point of economic interest such as a shopping mall. Even the nature of what is going to be transported by the route is an important consideration since roads going in or coming from an industrial zone may have different specifications as compared to the roads that are in use in residential zones (Weiner, 2004).

An established transport network can even guide the economic development of a region since industries may be more interested in locating to a region that has an extensive road network permitting the easy movement of heavy trucks or other equipment. Access to railroads or airports may be important for