The Information Age, that glorious, mythical time that is forever about to begin, will someday arrive via tractor-trailer, if a new government study is correct. It predicts a 65 percent increase in freight traffic on the nation’s highways by 2020, and it further examines which states are preparing for it by investing in roads and bridges and which are not. To which group do you suppose Maine belongs?

The study by the Government Accounting Office examines the effects of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). That act, passed five years ago, raised highway spending by 27 percent but was exceeded by state investments in their highways. State and local investment, on average, grew at twice the rate of federal spending over the last 20 years: $14.1 billion to $37.6 billion in real terms.

This is so because most states long ago grasped the importance to their economies of getting people and goods from one place to another safely and quickly; other states, not quite comprehending, told jokes about not being able to get there from here. And the difference can be seen in the level of economic activity in the high-spending states vs. the low spenders. The GAO slices the numbers several ways, but two fair ways to look at the state effort are to examine state funding as a percent of gross state product and the amount spent per 100 vehicle miles traveled.

Maine is not especially egregious in either measure, but nor is it particularly good. The national average spent for each 100 miles of travel was $1.45 in 2000; in nearby Massachusetts, it reached $3.85; in Maine, it was 80 cents. As for effort, the national average of investment for each $1,000 worth of goods produced was $4.17; Maine’s effort was $3.05. Worse, it exceeded the average mark only twice in the last two decades and did this well in part because its gross product is small compared with other states. If it cannot move goods more efficiently, it may get smaller.

Maine should be concerned about this disparity because it could soon get worse. This year marks the congressional reapproval of the transportation act, during which all kinds of goodies are offered to states that are paying attention. And diligent states will notice that the Federal Highway Administration recently said the nation would need to spend 18 percent more than it did in 2000 each year for the next two decades just to maintain current road and bridge conditions. To measurably improve them, it would need to increase spending an average of 65 percent.

Some states, having understood that their businesses cannot succeed beyond low-end service work without good roads, will spend the money and be ready; others will repeat the joke about not being able to get there from here, which doesn’t seem to get any funnier with age.