Archive for the ‘U.S. Infrastructure’ Category

The Reason Foundation’s Unreasonable Highway Report

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

crumbling-infraToday, the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank, released its 19th Annual Highway Report. It takes an unusually sunny view on U.S. infrastructure as a whole, relying on data such as traffic fatalities in 2008 fell to their lowest levels since the 1960s (a decrease that is mostly explained by decreases in driving due to the recession), the percentage of congested urban Interstates fell below 50% for the first time since 2000 (also the recession), and 23.7% of U.S. bridges — the lowest percentage since 1984 — were structurally deficient or functionally obsolete (though this doesn’t mean much either — fewer obsolete bridges doesn’t mean more safe bridges).

Overall, the data appears to be sound — it’s the interpretation of it where things go awry. The report makes the sweeping statement that its results indicate that state highway conditions are the best they’ve been in 19 years. Which simply doesn’t follow, when you look at where these conclusions are coming from:

“We’re seeing several factors combine to produce significant improvement in highway conditions,” said David T. Hartgen, author of the report and emeritus professor of transportation studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “Over the last several years, states invested a lot more money to improve pavement and bridges. Spending increased 8 percent from 2007 to 2008, and per-mile spending on state roads has almost tripled since 1984, so you’d hope and expect to see improved performance.”

Ok, except that the report then goes on to essentially null this statement by highlighting the skewed relationship between spending and actual results. In the rankings of most cost-effective state roads, the bottom 15 states basically make up around 90% of the U.S. driving public. New Jersey, which came in at a miserable 45th in the cost-effectiveness rankings, spends dramatically more than every other state on its roads — $1.1 million per mile, to be exact. Florida, ranked 39th, was the second biggest spender, spending $671,000 per mile, while California, ranked 48th, came in at third with $545,000 per mile. In other words, higher spending in no way automatically equals better roads.

There’s also this bit of info, which comes as less than no surprise:

California also squanders a massive amount of transportation money that never makes it onto roads, spending $93,464 in administrative costs for every mile of state road. New York ($89,194 per mile), Massachusetts ($71,982), and New Jersey ($62,748) also compare poorly to states like Texas ($6,529) and Virginia ($6,370) that spend dramatically less on administrative costs.

Then there’s the simply irony of the report as a whole: The largest libertarian group in the country is arguing that an increase in state government spending on infrastructure has led to safer, less crowded roads, despite the fact that many of these states have proved themselves totally incapable of spending their money wisely. So is the implication here that the federal government doesn’t need to step in?

Urban Parks Invade Texas: Main Street Garden Opens [Gallery]

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

The Dallas Urban Garden Invasion

We’ve discussed the many benefits of urban parks quite a bit — including, for one, their potential to combat obesity, as well as a list of the best new urban parks in the country. Dallas’s Arts District was featured prominently, including the aspects that were still under construction.

Now, the city has added a new urban park to its arsenal. Designed and built by landscape architects Thomas Balsley Associates (you may remember them as the designers of the less-than-lauded Chelsea Waterside Park in Manhattan), the new Main Street Garden — which is being hailed as part of the “Main Street Miracle” of downtown rejuvenation — is the first urban-core public park in Dallas. All in all, the proliferation of urban parks marks a significant push by the Texan city to create and rejuvenate communities and redefine the city’s use of public space. Click on the gallery above to get a first look at the new two-acre space.

All Images Courtesy Thomas Balsley Assoc.

Attention iPad Users: Get Your Infrastructurist Fix on FlipBoard

Friday, August 27th, 2010

flipboard

Got an iPad? Well then you may have heard about FlipBoard, the latest app that organizes the content from your Facebook, Twitter, RSS, and other feeds into a gorgeous, easily navigable online magazine. If you’re already a user, Infrastructurist looks great on FlipBoard! And if you haven’t checked it out yet, you can do so for free, to read and share your favorite Infra posts with Twitter, Facebook and e-mail.

Once you’ve got FlipBoard, just select “Add Section” and search for “Infrastructurist” or “Infrastructurst” (our Twitter name). Happy flipping!

The Future of Commuting: Meetings on the Train?

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

We know that our current system of life — get in the car (or, in far too few cases, take public transit) then sit in traffic, commute to work, enter an office, repeat the process in around 8 hours — is severely taxing our infrastructure, our resources, and, as commutes in some areas reach levels approaching insanity, our emotional health. So maybe it’s time to start changing our ideas from the ground up about how our workdays should be structured.

In part, this is already being done — as the skyrocketing popularity of telecommuting indicates. But everyone working from their home or local coffee shop has never really been considered a viable option in the developed world. We build office buildings to house workplaces, and then we fill them with workers. It may not be the most efficient or resource-friendly way of running a society, but up ’til now no one has really launched a successful campaign to change it.

Though the winds are beginning to change — or at least, come under closer scrutiny. Over at Good, Mathias Crawford has a thoughtful piece on the trickiness inherent in designing cities for the future — that is, tryin to plan for problems that we don’t even recognize as problems yet. One such issue is transportation — we know that we’re burning through our available energy sources, but just as horse manure removal was the primary worry of urban planners in the turn of the century, what will our biggest problems be in 2030?

One notion that’s being shaken up is the idea that work must take place in designated work spaces, and cannot be combined with transportation. The above video shows a business meeting taking place on the Barcelona metro. The idea was created by a social and digital innovation firm called Citilab, which describes itself as an “incubator for business and social initiatives.”

Granted, the idea has a few snags — unless you and all your relevant co-workers are taking the same train, coordinating meetings on public transit may be difficult. And what about all the commuters who still doggedly rely on cars? Presenting Powerpoints while driving isn’t really an option. Still, as the developing world continues to expand exponentially, it’s worth asking these questions sooner rather than later.

Now at JFK: A Virtual Smarter City

Friday, July 30th, 2010

Headed through JFK? You can now stop on your way to the pre-boarding Starbucks and spend some time learning about the Smart Cities project. IBM has come up with an interesting new way to get people involved with their smart-energy/building/transportation initiative — through a giant interactive display. And they put it smack in the middle of a place where one can’t help but think about improving our infrastructure: Terminal 8 at JFK Airport in New York, which sees 8 million passengers come through per year.

The point of the Smart Cities project is clear: By 2050 there will be 27 cities with over 10 million inhabitants, and the equivalent of 7 new New York Citys are added to the planet every year. All of which means we need to get a lot better about figuring out how to smarten up transportation, streamline utilities, increase public safety, and more in urban areas.

Through a series of slide-through neighborhoods guided by touch icons that use gesture technology, the display offers insights on education, transportation, energy, economic development, healthcare and more. There’s even a soporific-voiced narrator who warbles instructions on how to navigate and get more information. It may not be enough to stop millions of busy air travelers in their tracks, but it’s definitely an engaging entree into the discussion about how to build more efficient and sustainable cities.

Should We Scrap the Gas Tax and Simply Have More Tolls?

Monday, July 26th, 2010

tollboothplazaFor the past 50 years, we’ve been relying on the gas tax to pay for U.S. roads, bridges, tunnels, and more.  And as we’ve been reiterating for, well, ever since this blog was launched, that method of payment is no longer working. Infrastructure in the U.S. is fast approaching critical levels of disrepair and technological obsolescence, The gas tax is too low to make any serious dent in these problems, and the political barriers to raising it are too high to achieve any real gas-tax coup. Meanwhile, the dogged lack of funding sources has kept the federal surface transportation bill — which is already nearly a year overdue — stalled in its tracks.

So perhaps it’s time to get creative about solutions. Yes, there’s the option of introducing private-sector dollars into the infrastructure fray, through public-private partnerships — a movement that may or may not gain ground in the next few years. But there’s also the option of pulling a little behavioral-economics trick — if people hate paying a tax for gas so much (presumably because they have trouble linking those pump payments to the health of the nation’s infrastructure, and the roads they drive on) then maybe there’s another way to get them to pay the same amount of money for the same goals, but complain about it less.

Which brings us to tolls. Unlike gas taxes, which come on you all at once as you sit there at the Exxon station watching the numbers rise, tolls are more gradual and can be more directly and easily related to the purpose for their existence: You are driving on this road, and this road requires maintenance, so in order to drive on it you need to pay a small toll.

While many might leap to shoot down any pro-toll movement, there’s some evidence that American drivers are far more likely to pay more tolls than they are more taxes. The latest America THINKS poll by HNTB Corp. found that the 1,005 people surveyed supported tolls on roads and bridges to generate transportation revenue, especially those that save them drive time. And when given a choice between 1) new roads funded by a higher gas tax, 2) new roads funded by new tolls, or 3) no new roads at all, the survey respondents preferred tolls (41%) or no new roads at all (41%) over increased gas taxes (18%).

Granted, this potential love for tolls isn’t unlimited — 61% of respondents said they’ve purposely avoided a road or bridge with tolls at least once. (more…)

The World’s Sexiest Parking Garage

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

sexy-parking-garageLeave it to Miami to build the world’s most extravagant parking garage. Located in Miami Beach, the uber-garage at 1111 Lincoln Road boasts seven stories of open-air floors, an all-glass rooftop restaurant, and a soon-to-be-completed penthouse residence. Bloomberg reports:

This $65 million bravura composition of intersecting planes and angular piers, called 1111 Lincoln Road, does indeed park 300 cars in its mostly wall-free structure. It includes fashion retailers and residences.

The different levels rhythmically jut forward and recede a bit. The floor heights range from the parking standard of about 7 feet to as high as 34 feet. The tall floors are best for parties….

The architectural allure and the view are why the garage is in demand for weddings and other fetes. Developer Robert Wennett, president of Urban Investment Advisors LLC, cooked up an idiosyncratic commercial formula: Architecturally spectacular parking structure attracts high-end retail, which helps sell a penthouse residence and attract events.

While you might induce an eye-roll or two with the idea of super-luxe parking, the Lincoln Road garage does present an interesting idea: Take a necessary structure that is generally the biggest eyesore on a block, and turn it into an architectural statement that visually enhances the area  and subsequently attracts the upscale patrons and businesses that make a community successful. Parking-as-art, if you will. Granted, we’re still shocked they haven’t already done this in Dubai.

The Hidden (And Massive) Costs of Letting Our Roads Deteriorate

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

pavement-deterior1

We’ve argued that a compelling reason to raise the gas tax (which is still absurdly low) is that it’s actually costing drivers money to keep it so low — more specifically, the damage being done to roads from inadequate maintenance (a result of state and federal governments not having any tax-generated money to fix the roads) is costing drivers more than actually paying a slightly higher tax for gas.

Well, as it turns out, those crummy roads aren’t just forcing more cash out of our pocket books for repairs — they’re also compounding the costs of fixing them. As the above graph, known as the “pavement curve,” indicates, the cost to fix pavement increases dramatically when initial repairs and maintenance are delayed beyond a reasonable time frame. A recent study by the New Hampshire DOT found that if you apply a treatment to preserve pavement within the first 15 years, the treatment will generally restore the pavement’s condition. But if this maintenance is delayed for another 3 years, the cost of rehabilitating the roads will be 4 to 5 times more than the cost of the original treatment.

So basically, our low gas taxes are costing everyone money on all sides: The federal and state governments suffer from lack of tax collected and exponentially increasing expenses of fixing roads, while the taxpayers suffer from cruddy roads that damage their cars as well as increasingly-strained government coffers that have to spend more just to keep roads functional, and therefore have even less to spend on things like budget deficits and other services. Not to mention all the negative externalities of keeping gas artificially cheap.

So D.C., still not convinced?

When Will NextGen End Air Travel Delays? A Guest Post

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

air-travelThis is a guest post by David Melcher, a retired Lieutenant General in the U.S. Army and the President of ITT Defense and Information Solutions.

This afternoon at the 2010 Farnborough International Airshow in London, I had the pleasure of hosting a panel of experts from the aviation industry that discussed the critical need for modernizing air traffic management (ATM) systems around the world.

As I wrote a few months ago, efforts are underway to transform the U.S. ATM system through the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) NextGen program. But the growth of air traffic congestion is a problem beyond the United States, and inefficiencies in existing ATM systems worldwide are causing billions of dollars in losses related to delays and increased fuel consumption. This results in higher operating costs for airlines, higher ticket prices for passengers and unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions.

I’m glad to report that progress has been made to address this challenge during the past year. In the United States, NextGen is proceeding on schedule, and we now have a firm timetable for full program implementation by 2020. In Europe, the Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) program has taken steps toward substantial fuel reductions and safety improvements.

And within the past month, the European Union and United States have signed a pact to collaborate on harmonizing SESAR and NextGen to help ensure a seamless, interoperable transatlantic system.

There are issues that remain, however, for both NextGen and SESAR. Among these are the cost of equipping aircraft with the technology needed to communicate with satellite-based ATM systems and integration of the capabilities of new technology into existing ATM operations to allow delivery of the promised benefits.

I am grateful to each of these panelists for reminding us of the vital need for investment in the next generation ATM systems that will meet the needs of aviation in the 21st century.

Revamping Cities to Attract the Elderly

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

elderly1America is aging. The Baby Boomers are moving into their 60’s, and the U.S. population age 65 and over is expected to double in size within the next 25 years. By 2030, nearly 1 in 5 Americans — some 72 million people — will be 65 or older.

This aging population also has significant economic clout — according to the AARP, about a third of the nation’s population is currently over 50, and they control half of the country’s discretionary spending. As a result, major cities, like New York, are looking for ways to make themselves more elder-friendly, in the hopes that a larger percentage of the elderly demographic will choose to spend their retirement, and their retirement dollars, living there.

These efforts include everything from budgeting more public funds for elder-assistance to catering public transit to older people to lengthening the “walk” times at crosswalks. The New York Times reports:

New York City has given pedestrians more time to cross at more than 400 intersections in an effort to make streets safer for older residents. The city has sent yellow school buses, filled not with children but with elderly people, on dozens of grocery store runs over the past seven months.

While longer walk times may evoke groans from the city’s drivers, NYC officials have plenty of incentives to make changes like these — particularly given that pedestrians over 60 years old, and especially over 75, are far more likely to be killed by cars — as well as add park space and other amenities that are geared toward attracting older residents:

The Department of City Planning predicts that in 20 years, New York’s shares of schoolchildren and older people will be about the same, 15 percent each, a sharp change from 1950, when schoolchildren outnumbered older residents by more than 2 to 1. By 2030, the number of New Yorkers age 65 and over — a result of the baby boomers, diminished fertility and increasing longevity — is expected to reach 1.35 million, up 44 percent from 2000.

New York isn’t alone — the aging trend is a nationwide phenomenon, and will no doubt affect other large cities. Traditionally, the Big Apple has been thought of as a friendly place for seniors (in some ways, anyway) due to the high density of goods and services (there’s a grocery store on every corner) and accessibility of public transport. So will the rapid aging of America be yet another push for other major cities to up their spending on public transit? We’ll be hoping that all those seniors, and their dollars, can make it so.

Big Names Take to the Media to Stump for Infrastructure

Monday, July 19th, 2010

stimulus11It’s Political Action Day in the media, with big names stumping for more infrastructure spending. Over at Politico, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe called for a new highway bill, as well as more room for public-private partnerships. In a co-authored op-ed, they describe the nation’s woes as follows:

Substandard road conditions, obsolete road designs and roadside hazards are responsible for nearly one-third of the 37,000 U.S. highway fatalities each year. This is particularly true for the more rural areas.

From 1980 to 2006, the total number of miles traveled in cars increased by 97 percent; in trucks, by 106 percent. Yet over that same period, the number of highway lane miles grew by only 4 percent.

The 2005 federal highway and transit funding bill that provides about 40 percent of spending expired almost a year ago. It has been limping along under a series of extensions.

The remaining 60 percent of spending comes from state, county and local governments, which, generally speaking, have been forced to slash transportation investments as a result of the current economic crisis.

It is no wonder the public is fed up with governments’ inability to take action and meet the challenges of upgrading and modernizing our transportation systems.

The answer, they contend, is a big upswing in public-private partnerships:

To provide the kind of infrastructure that Americans need and deserve, we must find innovative ways of paying for it. One tool — private investment — must play a larger role in delivering projects.

Instead of creating obstacles to private investment, as some in Congress are proposing, we must embrace the private sector to help leverage scarce federal and state dollars.

Meanwhile at the Daily Beast, sixteen big-name economists and historians, including Joseph Stiglitz, Alan Blinder, Robert Reich, Laura Tyson, and Sir Harold Evans, have produced a manifesto calling for more government stimulus funds and tax credits. Making deficit-cutting a top priority, they argue, is precisely what got us into such huge trouble in the 1930’s:

The urgent need is for government to replace the lost purchasing power of the unemployed and their families and to employ other tax-cut and spending programs to boost demand. Making deficit reduction the first target, without addressing the chronic underlying deficiency of demand, is exactly the error of the 1930s. It will prolong the great recession, harm the social cohesion of the country, and continue inflicting unnecessary hardship on millions of Americans.

Granted, there’s been plenty of debate over whether the ARRA has in fact created jobs — but we’ve come out strongly on the side of the “yes, it has” evidence, and these major minds in economics and policy clearly agree.

Is Infrastructure Our Economy’s Only Hope for Recovery?

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

us-infraThe U.S. economy remains in highly-questionable shape, and many experts are asking where the source of recovery will come from. Over at Salon, Michael Lind has come down firmly on the side of domestic public growth — more specifically, infrastructure.

Here’s the crux of his argument: American consumer demand has shrunk, and will never really recover to its former levels. So Washington’s solution has been to turn to foreign demand as the savior of our economy. But neither foreign private demand nor foreign public demand will solve our problem, since other countries don’t want to buy our exports and our pesky rules about free markets, industrial espionage and human rights — which aren’t shared by major exporters in, say, Asia — will keep us from really competing in foreign countries.

Granted, we’re hardly against an increase in infrastructure spending to battle the nation’s troubles. In fact, one could argue that our very existence is geared towards seeing this possibility become a reality. But we also believe that the path to growth isn’t by calling for mini-revolutions — it’s by evincing change from a grass roots and policy level.

Though on this point, well, we couldn’t agree with Lind more: “Infrastructure spending and improved public healthcare increase the productivity of America’s businesses and workers. Trophy houses and day spas do not.”

So what’s left? Domestic public demand — aka infrastructure. For the next decade or so, Lind says, the American government will need to fill in a good chunk of the missing demand for American businesses and labor, and thereby compensate for all the private sector deleveraging that occurred when the asset bubble burst. Here’s how he thinks it should all go down:

To avoid competing with private enterprise, the government should produce public goods that increase overall productivity and that the private sector has no incentive to provide, in good times or bad, such as infrastructure and social services like policing, health care, education and care for the young and old. In addition to mobilizing idle resources and labor directly, both infrastructure and public service spending could help business in general by boosting the purchasing power of Americans who are now unemployed.

Infrastructure-led growth could boost private-sector productivity if it lowered energy costs for businesses and households, reduced freight and passenger congestion or increased the efficiency of telecommunications while lowering the cost. At the same time, infrastructure-led growth could bolster American manufacturers and suppliers and prepare for an export rebound in the future, as long as Buy American laws required that all infrastructure inputs like steel, concrete and electronic components, and all equipment used to construct infrastructure, including machine tools and construction vehicles, must be made in the U.S.

All of which sounds pretty great, in theory. Except there’s the one glaring issue that needs to be dealt with: How do we pay for it? Lind’s answer is pretty much guaranteed to make him very unpopular with a large number of people: “By more borrowing and by higher taxes that fall disproportionately on the rich. Both would channel now-idle savings into enhancing the infrastructure networks and manufacturing base of the U.S.”

Increasing our already-staggering national debt is a popular idea with very few people. Raising taxes is popular with even fewer. (more…)

The Unstoppable Value of the Small-Town Movie Theater

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

last_picture_showWe spend a lot of time here at Infrastructurist discussing big urban centers. We do that for several reasons, high among them that the majority of people (and readers) live in them, and all trends indicate that in the future they will only grow in size and become the predominant way in which human beings live on this planet.

But we are not blind to the fact that much is happening in small, rural communities, and that their way of life is still a major source of American culture. And that the trends occurring in small towns are affecting, in aggregate, millions of Americans.

Take movie theaters. Towns with a single movie house have long been a symbol for closed-minded intolerance and resistance to change, not to mention the inexorable decline of the small-town lifestyle (think of the dusty, dying Anarene, Texas in The Last Picture Show). But despite the seeming-unstoppable rise of home theaters, cable, and Netflix, the local movie theater is enjoying a revival, maintaining its grasp as a powerful place in rural American communities.

As New York Times reports, these theaters are reclaiming their throwback role as vital community centers — the Saturday night destination for teenagers and couples seeking quality time together, as well as the meeting place where locals can discuss farming practices and watch highlights from the high school football game.

These one-theater towns aren’t limited to a specific region of the country — they’re in the Midwest, New England, and the Sun Belt alike. They all provide something unique and  valuable: the physical space to create a sense of cohesion and community participation. In the Dakota theater in the 1,000-person town of Crosby, North Dakota, “[the Oscars are] shown live. Everyone in town gussies up and walks a red carpet donated by a local furniture company.” They also toss an economic lifeline to nearby businesses, such as restaurants and cab companies. The Times reports:

To Tim Kennedy, a professor of landscape architecture who has traveled across the state to survey little theaters for a book, the communal will of rural towns that keep theaters going represents “buildings as social capital,” forged “outside the franchise cinemas and their ubiquitous presence at the malls.”

Of the 31 operating historic theaters identified by Mr. Kennedy, 19 are community-run, little changed from the days when itinerant projectionists packed their automobile trunks with reels of film and hit the road. Many retain the upstairs soundproof “cry rooms” for fussy babies.

While these theaters aren’t tipping Hollywood box office numbers, they are providing focal points for thousands of people who choose to make their homes in small towns. The movie houses are also putting an interesting economic model to the test, relying on town volunteers for maintenance work and other tasks — the town electrician fixing the wiring, for example. Just imagine if such a value-added barter system could be accomplished in a big city — people with special skills donating them to social centers for the good of the community.  While those of us in major urban centers may not see much in common with residents in a 2,000-person town, that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from them.

The Latest Employment Report: Construction Jobs Get Hammered

Friday, July 2nd, 2010

abandoned-siteThe latest jobs report was released at 8:30 AM today by the U.S. Labor Department, and while very little in it was positive — nonfarm payrolls shed 125,000 jobs in June compared with a gain of 433,000 jobs in May, while unemployment dipped to 9.5%, from 9.7% — by far the biggest blow was for the construction industry.

The number of construction jobs fell by 22,000, in a second straight month of decline. Which means that construction unemployment is still teetering near Depression-era levels at 20.1%. Nearly 1.8 million construction workers are still looking for work. Brutal.

In a statement, Terry O’Sullivan, General President of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, said:

The 1.8 million construction workers looking for a job are ready to report to work to rebuild our roads, fix our bridges, repair our water systems and renovate our aging school facilities – things America has put off for too long at too great a cost.

We face a choice today. Either we can continue down the path to a Third World infrastructure, or we can invest in our workers, in our country and in our future. The right choice is obvious – but we can’t get there unless Congress shows some initiative by passing legislation that will allow America to compete in the 21st century while leaving a legacy for future generations.

A tad hyperbolic? Perhaps. But his point is certainly valid.

Could the Gulf Disaster Be a Good Excuse to Beef Up the Region’s Infrastructure?

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

There’s not much to say that’s positive about the Gulf Coast disaster. And with thousands of displaced workers watching their industries crumble and their families despair, something needs to be done about jobs, and fast. Simply paying people out of a giant BP reparations fund isn’t enough — workers need to be put back to work. And one possibility for job creation (yes, it’s safe to say that construction projects do create jobs, at least in the short-term) is infrastructure. Then there are the long-term benefits — large investments in infrastructure could benefit the region’s economy for decades to come. Here’s Infrastructurist editor Melissa Lafsky discussing this issue on Fox Business.

What’s the Best Way to Create Jobs? Spend More on Roads and Bridges (We Think)

Monday, June 28th, 2010

arra-signWhether or not it’s a fact, the public certainly seems to believe it’s true (which, in an ontological sense, arguably makes it so).

The latest Pew Research/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll asked 1,009 adults which government actions would best improve the current job situation. The poll, which was conducted earlier this month, found that while there was general disagreement on the issue, the most agreed-upon answer, with 37% of respondents saying it would help “a lot,” was “additional spending on roads, bridges, [and] public works.”

Other popular (but not as popular) answers include: cutting taxes for businesses (36%) or individuals (31%); budget cuts to reduce the deficit (34%); or providing money to state and local governments to help them avoid layoffs (33%). Several said that the proposals would not help the job situation at all, although slightly more say this about cutting personal income taxes (29%) than the other options.

As for whether the stimulus bill has done any good so far, the results skewed heavily partisan (80% of Republicans said the stimulus hasn’t helped the job situation at all, while 53% of Democrats said it had). Socioeconomic class also played a heavy role in opinions on the bill — just 28% of those with no more than a high school education agreed that the stimulus has helped, compared with 44% of college graduates. Concurrently, less than a third of those with family incomes of less than $30,000 think the stimulus had a positive impact, compared with 39% of those with family incomes of $75,000 or more.

Whether or not infrastructure projects are a true boon for the job market is still up for debate — though plenty of evidence shows jobs have been created, the number, quality, longevity, etc. of these jobs has not been definitively measured. Still, looking beyond the job market in the short-term, the argument can be made that putting Americans to work building roads and bridges is an investment that will benefit the nation’s economy — and as a result, the job market — in the long run. (Though let’s not forget public transit as well!)

Divide and Conquer: Should States Impose Region-Based Gas Taxes?

Monday, June 28th, 2010

atlanta-trafficSo is our best chance of raising the gas tax on a state level (which we all know needs to be done) to carve up each state, and let the smaller regions decide on the tax for themselves? Officials in Georgia are putting a similar idea to the test.

The Economist reports that Georgia, a state that houses drastic urban diversity (there’s Atlanta, home of Dante-esque traffic, and then a smorgasbord of tiny rural towns surrounding it) is dividing up and letting regions set gas taxes based on road use. Their reasons for doing so are logical — while Georgia was the third fastest-growing state between 2000 and 2006,  it’s infrastructure spending is 49th out of 50 in infrastructure spending per capita, while its gas tax is the second-lowest in the country.  And, as with most states that have a staunch urban-rural divide, the legislature has been bitterly divided over which infrastructure projects to spend money on — and how to pay for them.

As such, Georgia governor Sonny Perdue found himself looking for a compromise, which he eventually signed into a transportation bill. The Economist describes the bill as follows:

[It] divides Georgia into 12 regions, and gives each the power to decide on its own transport projects. Voters in each region will decide by referendum whether to approve a one-cent increase in the sales-tax to pay for those regional projects. Atlanta stands to see as much as $790m through the new tax.

The bill will also help MARTA, Atlanta’s woefully inadequate urban-rail system. It is the largest in the country to receive no state funding; it relies instead on passenger revenue and a 1% sales tax in the two counties it serves. It has long been required to spend half its sales-tax revenue on capital projects, which has starved its operating budget. The bill removes that requirement for the next three years. That will not make MARTA any more effective, but it may stave off some of the service cuts it faces.

While it’s not a boon for public transit, it is a start — and a move that makes a lot of sense when you consider that more and more people are moving to urban areas, necessitating more infrastructure investment in those high-population regions. Meanwhile, the political structure can stonewall urban regions from getting the funding they need, by voting against state-wide measures — like tax raises. So why not allow high-population regions of a state to legislate transportation as they see fit?

Granted, Atlanta residents may have an objection — the urban areas of a state are key economic drivers in the state’s GDP, and provide economic benefits for every resident of the state whether or not they pay Atlanta’s higher gas tax. But the alternative is to keep letting Atlanta lag behind in infrastructure development, and funding.

UPDATE: This post has been appended. We originally stated that the new bill would allow the state subdivisions to raise their gas tax if they saw fit. It does not. Still, would it be so bad if high-traffic urban areas were allowed to collect a higher gas tax if they so chose?

The Future Comes Down to Where We Live v. Where We Work

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

future-cityThis week, the Atlantic hosted its “Future of the City” conference in downtown D.C. The speaker list included a roster of heavy hitters like Valerie Jarrett, Volkswagen Group President and CEO Stefan Jacoby, the Brookings Institution’s Christopher Leinberger, and the obligatory high-charisma appearance by Richard Florida.

Among the best speakers at the event was Shaun Donovan, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He made the crucially simple yet often ignored point that the future of urban living (or any living, really) depends on one thing: We need affordable housing near workplaces.

If anything, he argued, the economic crisis has highlighted that when Washington fails to address our sprawl epidemic, all the problems that result – obesity, congestion, foreign oil dependence – share a common element: There is a fundamental mismatch between where we live and where we work. Whatever we do to address these problems, he stated, the U.S. must find a way to attach housing to jobs.

The figures he gave to illustrate this point were stark: The costs of commuting to work in the U.S. have gone up 1000% in the past few decades. In Atlanta, the costs of driving totals 61% of family income in Atlanta, while cars eat up to 70% of family budgets in parts of California. Meanwhile, many cities face a huge shortage in affordable workforce housing.

But Donovan didn’t dwell on the depressing figures — he also offered up some solutions and signs of hope:

1. We must continue to recognize that cities and suburbs share an economic future – right now, cities house more than 80% of our population, and have a major economic impact. Chicago produces more than three quarters of Illinois’ GDP, and houses two thirds of the state’s population. Metro areas large and small are where the action is.

2. People are abandoning sprawl by moving back into central cities and inner-ring suburbs — and governments are responding, through measures like expanding transportation options and preserving the affordability of neighborhoods.

3. Challenges we once associated only with cities – like homelessness – have moved to the suburbs, and communities are coming together to deal with them. Recently, the first ever federal strategic plan to reduce homelessness was introduced, and it needs a real movement at the local level in order to be successful — particularly since the economic crisis led to the family homelessness growing 51% in a single year.

Flight Delays in U.S. Airports: The Dirty Truth [Graph]

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

flight-delays-graph

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Air travel in the U.S. is pretty abysmal when it comes to on-time flight schedules — this we know (and if you haven’t yet experienced the joy of commercial flight delays, just wait until the summer vacation season deepens). We also know that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel — in a word, NextGen, which promises to make major headway in streamlining flight schedules, and thereby eliminating many of the delays that plague major airports.

Of course, implementing NextGen in all U.S. airports will require a level of funding that causes many to balk. The quesion is, what’s the alternative if we don’t pay for it? Well, here’s our answer. And it’s not pretty.

Graph by Martha Kang McGill

We Need New Infrastructure. So How Do We Pay For It?

Monday, June 21st, 2010

fundingThis is a guest post by Steve Loranger, Chairman, President and CEO of ITT Corp.

As awareness of the need for infrastructure investment broadens, the natural question is, “How do we pay for it?” This question of who should foot the bill has been a major barrier to progress in the U.S. and other Western nations, as I mentioned in a piece I wrote for the Huffington Post about the importance of channeling infrastructure funding toward water and air traffic management systems. I believe the path forward is through partnerships among government, businesses, and consumers — a point I addressed at the Milken Institute Global Conference in April of this year.

For years, Western governments have been unable to provide the funds necessary to build and upgrade infrastructure at a sufficient level. During the Milken conference, Martin Koffel, Chairman and CEO of URS Corp, pointed out that over the past decade, China has invested 5% of its GDP in non-residential infrastructure, while the U.S. has invested less than 1.5%. This deficit may very well affect our ability to compete on a global stage.

During the past few years, some governments have begun to recognize the need for a renewed investment in infrastructure. Consider NextGen, the new GPS-based air traffic control system here in the U.S. This project is among the most ambitious and important aviation infrastructure investments in U.S. history, as evidenced by the massive investment the FAA is making to fund this wholesale revamping of the National Airspace System.

But as national debts grow in Western nations, government financing of infrastructure is forecast to become even more challenging. I believe public-private partnerships play a key role. Here also, we can look to NextGen as an example. The program requires a long-term investment for which the FAA required a great deal of initial capital. To address this challenge, ITT is investing more than $200 million of its own capital to help make modernized air traffic a reality in this country. In exchange for that investment, the FAA has granted ITT the rights to manage the NextGen program’s ADS-B ground infrastructure during the next 10 years.

Consumers must also play a significant role. In regards to water, most Americans do not pay the full cost for their water consumption. In Germany, water tariffs are nearly three times the U.S. average and closer to the true cost-of-service. Until we are willing to raise tariffs — broadly — our funding structure will remain unsustainable. This inadequate investment for maintenance and growth is unfortunately not restricted to the U.S., and is a prime contributor to the growing global crisis of water scarcity.

Another issue raised at the conference was the process by which infrastructure projects are prioritized for funding. Failure to measure and demonstrate return on investment is one of the major speed limits in allocating government and private capital toward infrastructure investment. (more…)