You know things are bad when the Brits start talking about America’s looming infrastructure crisis.
Rupert Cornwell of The Independent takes on America’s woeful state of repairs and leaves little room for any emotion save embarrassment.
Comparing the completion of Switzerland’s Gotthard Base Tunnel–now the world’s longest–with the standoff over New Jersey’s ARC Tunnel project, Cornwell says that the Swiss were willing to tax themselves $1,300 per living resident to build a tunnel that will help Swiss rail travelers, but will also provide and important North-South link for freight transfer and the transfer of riders beyond the nations borders. In New Jersey, Republican governor Chris Christie pulled the plug on the ARC Tunnel into Manhattan because he said that in the wake of a tightened budget his state could not afford its contribution the project in spite of $3 billion in federal money set aside, and in spite of the fact that $500 million has already been spent.
The Access to the Region’s Core project–ARC–is emblematic of transportation infrastructure fights taking place across the U.S. Although the tunnel is meant to ease congestion on a rail line where packed trains enter or leave New York every 30 seconds, according to the Los Angeles Times, money is seen as the critical issue.
Cornwell blames the The Tea Part movement, or at least Tea Party sentiment for the infrastructure morass.
Whatever you think of the Tea Party movement, the hottest thing in American politics right now and which holds the Republican party to ransom, one thing is sure. Tea Partiers are not into building bridges and modernising airports out of the public purse, or endowing the US with a state-of-the-art passenger rail system.
Rail is perhaps the most visible of the infrastructure issues currently being debated. However, less sexy projects, such as sewers, bridges and roads also need to be addressed with the same urgency.
In total, $2.2 trillion it is estimated, must be spent to get the U.S. up to speed, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Here’s the thing; there’s never a good time to spend $2 trillion dollars. Oh, well there was that war in Iraq, and another one in Afghanistan. So there’s $1 trillion or more that we could have spent here.
Snide remarks aside, the longer we wait, the worse the problems will get and the more expensive they will be to fix, both from cost perspective and due to their complexity. The purpose of the American Community Reinvestment and Recovery Act, aka the stimulus bill was to flush money into construction projects and get people back to work at a time of desperate need. The money is not being spent quickly enough, but it needs to be matched by states.
President Obama last week said that there’s no such thing as a “shovel-ready project.” It’s true. From The New York Times:
“Infrastructure has the benefit of for every dollar you spend on infrastructure, you get a dollar and a half in stimulus because there are ripple effects from building roads or bridges or sewer lines. But the problem is, is that spending it out takes a long time, because there’s really nothing — there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects.”
A lot of the money spent on federal infrastructure projects goes to make sure that money isn’t being misspent. Accountability comes with a high price tag. However slow the money is going out the door, it is vitally important, even if the benefits are long term.
Given the stark financial situation, it’s perhaps less worthy of ridicule to look for foreign donors to help fund California high speed rail, and Chicago’s proposed high speed rail link between downtown and O’hare International Airport.
However the choice is not one between profligacy and fiscal responsibility as the Tea Party suggests, but between an obsolete, “third world” infrastructure and one that keeps America moving.
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