Citiwire.net

For Release Sunday, May 23, 2010
Citiwire.net

America has an infrastructure problem: crowded highways, leaking pipes, collapsing bridges, and aging transit systems. Lots of people have been talking about the infrastructure problem, although given the deep and ongoing state and federal budget crisis we haven’t really done much about it.

Sure the Obama administration recently directed $8.5 billion to high speed rail and billions more for “shovel ready” projects in the stimulus bill, but considering that the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimates that the nation faces a $2.2 trillion infrastructure backlog, this is just a drop in the bucket.

Infrastructure will lay the foundation for America’s future prosperity but our elected leaders have failed to level with the American people about how the country is falling behind our global competitors or explaining the true costs of making required upgrades and building new systems.” Leveling with the American people” is just one of the key recommendations of Infrastructure 2010: Investment Imperative, the fourth in a series of annual reports produced by the Urban Land Institute and Ernst and Young on U.S. and global infrastructure trends.

Mass transit is just one area where the rhetoric doesn’t meet the reality. While the U.S. has provided “seed funding” for high speed rail in a few important travel corridors, China has leaped far ahead of the US and other countries, including Japan and France and is now the world leader in high speed rail. After years of investment in new highways, China is now investing billions in a cutting edge network of train and subways designed to boost exports and revolutionize the flow of people and goods. By 2012, China will have over 5,000 miles of high speed rail and is currently building 60 new subway lines in more than 20 cities. Next year when a new Shanghai to Beijing high speed line opens (a year ahead of schedule) the journey between China’s two most important cities will be reduced to just 4 hours for a 600 mile trip.

Our problem, in addition to a lack of funding, is the U.S. lacks a national vision for infrastructure improvements that would integrate rail, road, transit, airport and seaport networks to serve major economic hubs and propel growth. The ULI/E&Y report makes clear that America’s future prosperity, world economic standing and ability to accommodate over 100 million more people by 2050 depends directly on “bolstering its primary economic gateway cities and metropolitan regions which produce 90 percent of national GDP.”

Similarly, the Brookings Institution’s recent report on the State of Metropolitan America says the U.S. faces a “decade of reckoning.” After years of subsidizing and effectively hiding the real costs of building and maintaining infrastructure for users and taxpayers, government leaders must now decide whether and how to pay for necessary massive infrastructure improvements at a time when the public is calling for belt-tightening.

The National Highway Trust Fund has nose-dived into insolvency and the federal gas tax (the major source of funding for roads, bridges and transit) hasn’t been raised since 1993 – yet Congress and State Legislatures say “no new taxes” while also resisting other funding mechanisms such as tolls or user fees. One solution, according to the new ULI report, is to establish “a national infrastructure bank” similar to Europe’s successful model. This would help promote investment-grade decision making and attract more private capital into infrastructure investments. One thing is clear, inaction has it own price: “The more you let things go, the more expensive the costs to fix and rebuild.”

The other key recommendations in Infrastructure 2010 are first, to “move toward merit” rather than formulas in allocating federal funding to state and local governments for infrastructure, and to encourage integrated infrastructure, environmental and land use planning. This recommendation is consistent with the Obama administration’s new federal sustainable community’s partnership and livability initiative. However, it runs headlong into the Congressional tradition of pork barrel funding for transportation and other infrastructure projects.

The final key recommendation in the new report is to “raise revenues through user fees,” not only to pay for improvements and upgrades, but also to help gain economic efficiencies and environmental benefits through encouraging changed behaviors, such as less driving, greater water conservation, and reduced per capita energy consumption.

Unfortunately, political will appears in short supply to tackle our mounting infrastructure problems. The American public seems to think that we can get something for nothing: high quality roads, transit and water systems without having to pay for them. The truth, however, is very different. When it comes to infrastructure we are in a slow motion meltdown. The high standard of living that Americans have taken for granted can not be maintained without significant investment. Sadly, it seems that only a crisis will shake us out of our infrastructure lethargy.

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Edward T. McMahon is a senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute and the Charles E. Fraser Chair for Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy.

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