NATCHEZ — Investing in infrastructure is a key component in creating economic development and improving quality of life, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx said Saturday.

Foxx’s remarks were made Saturday at the Natchez campus of Alcorn State University, where he formally announced the approval of a $17.8 million grant to Claiborne, Franklin and Jefferson counties that will be used to upgrade 41 miles of road and 18 bridges.

“Every day in America, whether we are talking about rural or urban America, our 300 million people are using our trans system in one way or the other,” Foxx said. “However you move in this country, you cannot get anywhere without using our trans system.

“One of the things about transportation is when it is working well, you don’t think about it, like when you turn on the water faucet in the morning, but when it doesn’t work well, you think about it. When you have roads that are too congested or roads that are falling apart or — as I understand it — bridges that are in too poor condition for school busses to drive across them, it creates a quality of life issue.”

The joint application, which was submitted with the help of ASU, was considered in part because roads and bridges continued to downgrade while county governments were hamstrung because of funding constraints, Foxx said.

“We saw that you have some serious mobility challenges here, getting people from point A to point B,” he said. “You have bridges that are rated deficient, roads that aren’t built to standard and you need more investment to get that fixed.”

The tri-county grant package is part of a larger, $600 million package for 72 projects across the country. More than 800 applications were submitted, Foxx said.

The funding will create approximately 200 jobs, he said.

During his remarks, the Secretary urged Congress to fully fund the four-year, $302 billion transportation plan his department has put together. The U.S. Department of Transportation is currently working on a temporary funding extension that will expire in May.

“Are (Congress) going to continue to patch things along and make it difficult for you to move things along?” Foxx said. “This is not just an issue of pretty roads.”

The president of Franklin County’s Board of Supervisors, George Collins said the funding would help economic development in his area.

“We are a logging and timber county, so good bridges and good roads are good economic development for us,” he said.

Jefferson County Board of Supervisors President Trent Hudson said Jefferson County, which has more than 20 bridges below sufficiency rating, would be good stewards of the money.

“Lives will be enhanced by those bridges,” he said.

Claiborne County Board of Supervisors President Eddwin Smith said the grant application may be the first time the three counties have partnered on something, but it shouldn’t be the last.

“Let’s don’t stop today with the collaboration,” he said. “Let’s shoot for other projects, because in the end our citizens benefit from our progress.”