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Crumbling Infrastructure Needs Bold Vision, Action

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 6, 2008

The Mississippi River pushed relentlessly past dozens of levees this month. Towns were submerged, their buildings tiny islands in murky water. Ducks paddled on ponds that had once been farmland. Some flooding was inevitable, given the force of the swollen Mississippi. But a poorly managed flood-defense system did not help.

For the past few years it has been hard to ignore America's crumbling infrastructure, from the devastating breach of New Orleans' levees after Hurricane Katrina to the collapse of a big bridge in Minneapolis last summer.

In 2005 the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that $1.6 trillion was needed over five years to bring just the existing infrastructure into good repair. This does not account for future needs. By 2020 freight volumes are projected to be 70 percent greater than in 1998.

If America does not act, says Robert Yaro of the Regional Plan Association (RPA), a body that plans for the New York-New Jersey- Connecticut region, it will have the infrastructure of a Third-World country within a few decades. Economic growth will be constricted, and the quality of life will be diminished.

It is not surprising that the floods have put infrastructure in the spotlight, but this time it might remain there. Droughts have shown the need for better long-term planning.

Thanks to the soaring oil price, a surge in demand for buses and trains has exposed aging transport systems in big cities and meager investment in small ones. And the Highway Trust Fund, which provides most of the federal money for transport projects, will be at least $4 billion in debt next year.

Momentum for change exists. Will politicians respond?

America has a grand tradition of national planning, from Thomas Jefferson's vision for roads and canals in 1808, which influenced policy for the next century (and led to America's first transcontinental railway) to Dwight Eisenhower's Federal Highway-Aid Act of 1956, which created the interstate system.

Such plans stand in stark contrast to the federal government's strategy today. America invests a mere 2.4 percent of GDP in infrastructure, compared with 5 percent in Europe and 9 percent in China, and the distribution of that money is misguided.

The more roads and drivers a state has, the more federal money it receives, explains Judith Rodin of the Rockefeller Foundation, which funds infrastructure research. This discourages states from trying to cut traffic. And because the gas tax pays for transport projects, if America drives less, there is less money for infrastructure.

Even worse is the influence of the pork barrel. Only around 20 states use cost-benefit analyses to evaluate transport projects. (The benefits of investment would be felt in many ways. Terence O'Sullivan, president of the Laborers' union, says 47,500 jobs will be created for every $1 billion the government spends on infrastructure.

"Make no little plans," said Daniel Burnham, one of America's great urban architects. "They have no magic to stir men's blood." It's time to think big again.

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