In a report released last summer, Idaho Governor Butch Otter’s Workforce Development Task Force found that access to good transportation infrastructure is one of the top two factors businesses consider when deciding where to locate, the other being a skilled labor force.

Funding for transportation infrastructure projects of corridor-wide significance that deliver benefits across modes and across states is a priority for the Great Northern Corridor Coalition and was the key topic of discussion at the Idaho Freight Summit in Boise on April 10, hosted by the Idaho Transportation Department.

Indeed, the same is true all across Great Northern Corridor and the nation, which explains why there has been so much talk about the need to increase strategic investments in transportation infrastructure. This includes both the public and private sectors getting creative and rolling up their sleeves.

Unfortunately, Idaho, like most other states and the federal government, cannot find the money needed to take care of our infrastructure backlog. Tax dollars are scarce, and Idaho’s investments in highways, roads and bridges are hundreds of millions of dollars short of what is required to keep up with needed maintenance, expansion and improvements.

But while elected officials at all levels struggle to fund our publicly financed infrastructure, one private sector industry has provided a shining example of how to get the job done: our freight railroads.

Many people do not realize it, but U.S. freight railroads are private companies. They use their own money to pay for the equipment, technology and people it takes to run a railroad – as well as covering the costs for their own track and other infrastructure. This sets railroads apart from trucks and barges that operate on highways and waterways funded by taxpayers.

It is extremely expensive to run a railroad. To stay competitive, railroads reinvest a lot – more than any other U.S. industry. They churn more than 40 cents of every dollar they earn back into the rail system. Overall since 1980 – when freight railroads were partially deregulated – American railroads have invested more than $660 billion of their own money to build, maintain and expand the nation’s freight rail system. This is why America has the safest, most efficient, affordable and productive freight rail network in the world.

Here in Idaho, railroads connect our farmers, ranchers, manufacturers and consumers to markets across the nation and worldwide. Railroads bring in the supplies that keep Idaho competitive, and they get what we produce to markets here in America and abroad.

In 2018 alone, BNSF Railway and Union Pacific will churn tens of millions back into the Idaho rail network. And because the rail system is a vast 140,000-mile interconnected network, greater productivity brought on by investment in Idaho reverberates across the Great Northern Corridor and the nation – from Washington, Oregon and California to the East Coast.

Union Pacific’s planned $22.3 million expenditure on its Idaho network in 2018 – which brings the total amount the railroad has spent in Idaho since 2013 to $205 million – stands to further benefit all who depend on rail in the state while helping to accomplish exactly the goals of the governor’s task force.

Similarly, BNSF spent over $55 million on capital projects in Idaho last year and its project to build a second bridge over Lake Pend Oreille stands to provide huge benefits to Idaho communities and businesses that depend on rail. Adding a second bridge across the lake will make shipments more efficient for our job creators while also reducing wait times at crossings by allowing trains to run more smoothly in both directions.

Transportation is a “team sport,” a linked system of roads, rails, ports, rivers and seaways, and while the governor’s task force is focused on fixing desperately-needed highway infrastructure, the railroads are also doing their part proactively – ponying up their own money and providing the transportation options our businesses and consumers rely on to get their products to and from global markets.

So, across the Great Northern Corridor look no further than our freight rail partners for a pay-as-you-go success story that is building infrastructure, moving our economy forward and supporting taxpayers.

Curtis Shuck is executive director of the Great Northern Corridor Coalition.