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Abstract
Transport of commodities in rural areas is an important issue and an area where research is
needed. As trends for rural road funding decrease, the need for improvements and maintenance
of rural roads used for rural freight transportation increase. Although rural roads are in need of
improvements, uncertainties exist about what type of improvements road users think are most
important and whether or not they would pay more for bettering services to these roads.
The objective of this report is to develop a profile of rural road users’ opinions of rural road
services. More specifically, what are rural agricultural producers willing to pay for local road
service improvements and what financing methods would they be most agreeable to? Local
government decision makers have limited budgets for roads, and thus are faced with difficult
allocation decisions. Data about what producers think is important in rural road services can
help determine options for these roads and assist in forming conclusions beneficial to rural road
users. This data will be helpful in local government budget decision making and appropriation
decisions, state DOT planning, and economic development strategies.
Survey data for this research was collected in a case study analysis. The survey included
questions about producers’ perceptions of roads used to haul commodities to market. Although
the participants of this survey were restricted to producers from the state of North Dakota, results
are applicable to other rural states. To define a specific farm to market route, surveys were
mailed to producers who haul or have hauled product to two facilities in Enderlin, North Dakota:
the Plains, Grain, and Agronomy grain elevator shuttle facility and the ADM Northern Sun
oilseed processing plant. The survey questions were divided into three sections including farm
operation description, rural road usage, and rural road services perceptions.
The two rural road service issues that appear predominant from response analysis are rural road
surface quality and vehicle weight limits. These services show up frequently in survey
responses. Producers are concerned about, want improvements to, and are willing to pay for
these services. Load limits stand out as especially important to producers. When asked about
willingness to pay for improving various road services, the greatest number of participants
indicates they would pay for improvements that would increase load limits (36 percent).
Gravel road surfaces are an area producers would like to see money used for in rural road
improvements. Other areas where producers indicate they would like to see money spent for
improvements include paved road surfaces and signs & safety. Survey respondents also say they
are most willing to use cost participation, fines, or sales tax to finance rural road improvements
when questioned about innovative financing methods.