Obama's Stimulus Projects Won't Amount to Major Infrastructure Overhaul
Describing the $787 billion stimulus package, President Obama evokes the 1950s construction of the interstate system, conjuring images of highways, bridges, and orange cones. "Throughout our history, there have been times when a generation of Americans seized the chance to remake the face of this nation," he said last month. "And that's what we're doing today: building a 21st-century infrastructure."
But as projects are chosen, it's becoming clear that the program may amount to little more than an infrastructure face-lift. Owing to the need for speed and to institutional obstacles, most stimulus transportation projects are small and localized. "Here and there, people will notice things," says Robert Poole, director of transportation policy at the libertarian Reason Foundation. He cites repaired potholes and new streetlights. "But I don't think the country as a whole will say, 'Wow, transportation is so much better,' " Poole says.
This stems from the law's main purpose: creating jobs quickly. It prioritizes projects that will be completed within three years. Major highway construction typically takes 13 years from start to finish, reports the Federal Highway Administration.
So more than three quarters of the approved highway projects' funds will go to repaving and widening roads, while less than 6 percent will pay for new construction, according to the investigative nonprofit ProPublica. Other reports show that smaller, rural projects, like bridges, often receive funding priority over those that might get more traffic, largely because they can be launched more quickly.
That doesn't necessarily make the spending ineffective. One quarter of major urban roads, for example, are in poor condition and would benefit from repairs. But it does mean that few projects will have sweeping effects.
One project that experts say could be "transformational" is limited by a lack of funding. High-speed rail, which Obama says could benefit 10 major corridors between cities around the country, was slated for $8 billion in the stimulus, and Obama has asked Congress for $5 billion more over five years. But the Government Accountability Office estimates that constructing high-speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco alone will cost about $33 billion. Similarly, while the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials estimates that the nation's highways and bridges need an annual investment of $166 billion through 2015, the stimulus package has only $27.5 billion. Overall, the law allots $48.1 billion to the Department of Transportation, or just 6 percent of total stimulus funds.
An even bigger problem, experts say, is how that funding is doled out. Decisions are often politicized and are rarely coordinated between levels of government. Transportation dollars are traditionally spread thinly, "like peanut butter," says Robert Puentes, senior fellow in the Brookings Institution's metropolitan policy program. "We don't do cost-benefit analysis in this country." That is a systemic problem, unrelated to the stimulus. But it could be addressed in the next big infrastructure battle. The so-called highway bill, which maps out funding for the country's roads, bridges, and transit over the next five years, is due to be reauthorized this fall. America may not have a clear vision for its transportation system, but infrastructure advocates, not to mention Americans who have ever sat in stalled traffic or bumped over a pothole, hope that will change.
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Reader Comments
Unemployment
I do not understand how creating 3 million jobs will help the 30+ million people actually out of work. 345,000 job loss is not an improvement and not even a stabilizing affect on employment. I can't help but wonder if our government even understands how much pe0ple are realy suffering out here. A few years back I had a heart attach and had to think long and hard whether to get it treated or not. Recently I was informed I will not be accepted for recieving essential medications. If someting happens again I will have to make a choice between my life and my families well being. I would rather die than allow my family to suffer. Unlike our government polociy makers and corporate heads I do not feel I have the right to cause the suffering and death of inocent people before tier time. I also think the govenment must look very hard at whether corporations
are not using the recession as an excuse to move mass quantities of jobs overseas.
Chinese investment in US Railway rehab may be crucial
If the Oil wise guys like Boone Pickens and Matthew Simmons are right about gasoline & Diesel rationing near & mid-term, we shall certainly need to get to work on railway rehab and connectivity. Countries looking for investment with solid collateral gravitas shall help pay for US Railway Rehab. The developed countries all have an interest in USA economic viability, all the more if renewed American prosperity does not mean drawing down the oil supply.
Christopher C. Swan writes in "ELECTRIC WATER" of ways and means of emphasizing local energy generation, linked to an electric propelled freight & passenger railway matrix. Dubbed "Retail Railway", the methodology employed can be compared to US Interurban Electric Rail lines that flourished until after WWII. Chicago Aurora & Elgin, and Chicago, South Shore & South Bend are two examples easy for Mssrs. Emmanuel & Goolsbee to show & tell. A famous western system, the Hydropowered Pacific Electric Railway, was probably the world class example of day passenger, night victuals & freight rail service to city center stations and produce terminals. Just add renewable power.
Mr. LaHood's visits to bus manufacturing sites is a beginning of involvement to demonstrate the Federal interest in alternative transport. Please, Mr. LaHood, begin your education in rail mode. Peaking Oil is upon us, masked in the present downturn. We must begin deliberate rehab of railway lines and local warehousing, container handling and refigerated facilities. If it were possible to elevate the discussion between the President and the former V.P, the topic of choice should be the Peaking Oil phenomenon, not elements of interrogation.
Richard Cheney is among the most knowledgeable men in America on oil supply, and we are witnesses to a tragic waste of leadership talent, hung up as both sides are on this waterboarding claptrap. If I may make a prediction, it will probably be a lady from Alaska who comes into view as a savvy energy & infrastructure proponent. Girls have the answers, the boys enjoy fighting...
Over fifty years of transport employment has given this writer some background, as an eyewitness of America's transition from energy independence, to a sad position of motor fuel vulnerability. As we entered the freeway age circa 1956, America was a lending, not a borrowing nation. "Progress" mistakenly ripped up the rail branchlines as the ubgraded roads went into the small towns. "Just In Time" distribution methodology and punitive inventory taxes gave birth to fleets of trucks making daily trips to stock shelves. Old timers like me remember weekly loads, goods kept in large back rooms in markets and drugstores. Rail served warehousing meant fewer trucks were needed.
President Obama needs railway savvy people in his cabinet meetings. Mr. Biden, please get hold of the US Rail Map Atlas volumes from spv.co.uk and do your stuff! Interested parties, please see ASPO Articles 374 & 1037
中国
Guangdong
Chinese Communist Party is the people's party, representing all the Chinese people's fundamental interests, but a small part of the corrupt elements to discredit the party and undermine the credibility of the party against the ruling party, for example, Zhaoqing City, Guangdong Province, the former deputy secretary of Municipal Party Committee, Political Science and Law secretary of the 黄平方 is such scum, not uprooted him (him and he had been led by corrupt elements) is not the平民愤. Hu total support for the Communist Party of China led the anti-corruption efforts!
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