JAMESVILLE, Wis.—Last month, Presidential candidate Barack Obama may have helped make transportation infrastructure a critical issue leading up to this November’s election when he called for the establishment of a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank that would invest $60 billion over a 10-year period for highways, technology, and related projects.

Obama proposed this concept as part of his $210 billion economic stimulus package when he made an economic policy address at a GE Assembly Plant. “This investment will multiply into almost half a trillion dollars of infrastructure spending and generate nearly two million new jobs—many of them in the construction industry that’s been hit hard by the housing crisis,” said Obama Funding for this endeavor, he said, will be made available by ending the war in Iraq.

Obama’s pronouncement comes at a time when transportation infrastructure has received a fair amount of attention, following the January release of a report from the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission. The report focused on the state of surface transportation in the U.S. and addressed the infrastructure improvements necessary to meet the expected demand in domestic freight transportation growth in the coming years.

Overdue attention for surface transportation in an election year is good news for shippers, according to transportation officials inside the Beltway.

“Obama’s plan reflects the need we have for finding a way to invest in infrastructure and invest with federal leadership,” said Leslie Blakey, executive director, Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors. “This [amount] would be over and above what we are already investing into transportation infrastructure,” she said, adding that the plan represents “good strategic thinking” from an economic point of view.

“The issue of changing goods movements and logistics patterns, fixing capacity problems and tackling issues of economic importance are things important to shippers,” said Mort Downey, chairman of PB Consult and former U.S. Department of Transportation secretary. “It is timely and also all connected.”