[SButtonZ button="digg"]
You know the “Top 100 ” for most other important aspects of life–literature, film, hot people, Canadian diddies, the British meat industry–why not US public works projects? Why not, indeed, says infrastructure development firm CG/LA which has pulled together just such a list for 2009.
As a sign of the times, the projects are heavily weighted toward rail and urban mass transit this year, with rail alone occupying four of the top eight positions by project value:
California High-Speed Rail High Speed Rail Passenger – $45 billion (creating 686,250 jobs)
Northeast Corridor HSR Upgrade – $32 billion (488,000 jobs)
I-69 Trans Texas Corridor Highway – $30 billion (600,000 jobs)
Natural Gas pipeline from Alaska to Chicago – $26 billion (520,000 jobs)
Networx program – East Coast – $20 billion (1,000,000 jobs)
NextGen Air Traffic Control System, East Coast – $20 billion (360,000 jobs)
Midwestern HSR Initiative – $20 billion (305,000 jobs)
Electric Freight Rail – $20 billion (400,000 jobs)
There are also 18 urban mass transit projects, including the ARC “Trans-Hudson passenger rail tunnel” between New Jersey and NYC, the FasTracks network in Denver, and the Dulles airport rail link in DC.
The electric freight rail initiative is an interesting one — especially if it includes money for the I-81 “Steel Interstate” plan (nott clear from the listing). This promises to see a lot of investment, as Congress seems to be finally embracing the idea that we need to start moving freight no rails, not asphalt.
CG/LA breaks the projects are broken down into three categories: “Smart Grid”-related infrastructure (14 projects worth $43 billion); “New” infrastructure–inlcuding new rail and urban mass transit–of the sort intended to make the country greener and more competitive (25 projects worth $164 billion); “Traditional” infrasturcture like water and sewer and pipelines (47 projects worth $160 billion). It’s not a perfect sorting device, and the numbers don’t add up to 100 (?), but it does give a good idea of the general idea of what “infrastructure investment” means in a practical sense these days.
(Sorry, can’t find a linkable version of the list.)
Tags: HURRAY!
Here is the link to the list of projects
http://cg-la.com/top100usprojects
Thanks for including the Alaska gas pipeline on the list. Two points (1) the line will route from Alaska to Alberta (not Chicago) and (2) the price will approach $40B which moves the project up on the list.LINK : http://www.denalipipeline.com/
How about MoCo – the Missouri to Colorado Aqueduct.
Too Big – they say. So how long do you think the Imperial
Valley can last without water? How good is seeing the Colorado dry up
and produce litte power?
Sure all these will generate lots of new jobs for USA and the spin-off of new technology can be useful for developing and emerging countries India. I would like all such companies engaged in these project may please contact me.. thanks
[...] of infrastructure projects from a list of 100 that need to be done in the country (yes, we have a top 100 projects in need). Pick the ones in key states that desperately need the money and then see if Republicans from [...]