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Infrastructure, Again ... let's start spelling it with a small "i" - iNFRASTRUCTURE

Nearly seven months after a highway bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, a federal commission put a jaw-dropping price tag on starting to attend to America's crumbling foundations: $225 billion a year for the next 50 years just to maintain and upgrade surface transportation.

That report, like the bridge collapse, should have sparked a serious policy debate everywhere people rely on bridges, roads and transit systems - which is everywhere. It hasn't, and that makes taking on this critical work of national repair even tougher.

Of the presidential candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have plans for repairing the nation's crumbling infrastructure - but no persuasive explanation for how they would pay for it. Mr. Obama would use money saved from ending the Iraq war; Mrs. Clinton would apply savings from more efficient government. Before Another Bridge Falls - New York Times

Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure ... generations ago, the word "infrastructure" represented making real progress into the future. Candidates embraced the issue as a positive to help them get elected. Now they run away from it - it's like a houseguest that won't leave - it seems as if they find it irritating, in a word. "Why won't the issue just go away?" they seem to say. By now we should all realize that no amount of ignoring this problem will make it go away. Ignoring infrastructure just makes the situation worse.

Whenever a problem appears insurmountable, I believe it's wise to go back and reconsider the underlying assumptions that make it so. Some infrastructure problems won't go away, but other aspects can be reconsidered, such as the need to build more and more roads. Why not move ideas instead of people? Why not address the peak periods and live within our current infrastructure boundaries? We will still need to maintain, but we may be able to avoid upgrading and building ever bigger infrastructures if we focus instead on developing broadband infrastructure and changing the way we manage the flow of people and ideas.

The federal panel called for paying for a large part of the bill with an increase in the federal gas tax of 25 cents to 40 cents over five years. So far no candidate has had the courage to suggest that.

The next president will have to show a lot more leadership if there is any hope of reversing the damage from decades of underfunding and inattention. Washington invests less than $90 billion a year on surface transportation. That means states and cities have to pick up more of the burden, and more expensive projects go unfunded.

Ensuring safe and dependable roads, bridges and transportation systems, as well as water systems, sewage treatment plants, dams and even schools also requires long-term planning. Unfortunately most politicians prefer quick fixes.

Representative Earl Blumenauer, Democrat of Oregon, has been pushing for a real national infrastructure plan, and he has a good hook. He reminds anyone who will listen that President Thomas Jefferson's administration wrote America's first national development plan - calling for building roads and canals - in 1808. In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt charted a second plan, which foresaw the need to invest in electrical generation.

Another hundred years later, the country is overdue for a new plan, one fitted for the times. In addition to repairing roads and power grids, it will have to encourage the development of alternative energy and find ways to secure critical sites against potential acts of terrorism.

As this discussion gets underway, I urge you to encourage your local, state, and federal government representatives to look long and hard at new ways of doing things, including making investments in broadband infrastructure and finding ways to work with private sector players who would also invest in broadband infrastructure.

Posted on February 26, 2008 at 08:40 AM

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