For anyone looking to boost the coronavirus-addled economy, or to create sustainable, multigenerational improvements in America’s roads, bridges, transit, water supply, flood management and power grid, pandemic induced stimulus funding is a rare opportunity. But there’s a catch. Like all good ideas, the value of infrastructure spending lies in its execution. Spending alone is not enough. America made that mistake during the last economic crisis; it can’t afford to repeat it.
In 2009, the United States spent about $140 billion on infrastructure as part of its fiscal rescue efforts. Politicians and pundits talked of a new New Deal, invoking the sprawling building programs under Franklin D. Roosevelt. The largest infrastructure line item was $28 billion for highways and bridges. At first glance, that makes sense: For many the first thing that comes to mind when you think“infrastructure” is roads.
And it’s true that good roads were historically critical fuel for the nation’s economic engine. Even today, Senate Republicans are promoting their own version of an infrastructure plan, focused on reauthorizing the Highway Trust Fund. But the emphasis on road development is outdated.
Most developed countries already have effective road systems; they can be maintained, but the economic benefits of expansion are marginal and the downsides significant. Road construction is environmentally destructive, and it promotes urban sprawl, congestion, air pollution and
inequality.
The same 2009 stimulus bill included $8 billion for rail, with an emphasis on high-speed trains. But 11 years later there is still no high-speed rail in the United States, in part because $8 billion is a drop in the bucket — enough to cover a few miles of subway in New York or Los Angeles.While the 2009 package created some jobs, it fell far short of its New Deal predecessor — and, more important, it came nowhere near meeting the infrastructure needs of 21st-century America.
The challenge, then and now, is how to balance the political and economic demands to create jobs immediately with the forward-looking demands for meaningful steps toward a sustainable future. America failed that challenge in 2009. Can it get it right this time?
While physical infrastructure is not directly affected by the coronavirus epidemic, we can learn a lot from the way we recover from natural disasters. Above all, recovery comes in phases.
That means that a first step should focus on job creation, but without saddling it to shortsighted, status quo projects we will later regret — highways, for example. The same goes for projects that emphasize technological infrastructure, which risks becoming rapidly obsolete. Such projects should be “shovel ready” and “shovel worthy,” and sufficiently funded so that they don’t linger in aspirational planning documents. In the immediate term, this means emphasizing lots of small projects. They can quickly be planned, discussed and constructed once virus spread conditions allow. This will look different than 1930s New Deal images of heavy construction everywhere.
Other countries have set a good example, insisting that post-Covid-19 infrastructure stimulus must simultaneously address equity and environmental challenges. The Canadian government is providing money to its oil sector to
clean up abandoned wells. In France, the government is providing financial support for Air France, the national airline, in exchange for
a halt in its competition with intercity rail, which is less environmentally harmful. Cities around Europe are spending money to reorient urban travel through dedicated infrastructure for bicycles — a citywide bikeway network can be built for about the cost of a single highway junction.
New Zealand is a global leader in disaster recovery, having recently rebuilt sections of the city of Christchurch after an earthquake in 2011. Its greatest lesson was how to set priorities. This year, it is setting out with a Covid-19
“rebuild” plan that begins with shovel-ready investment, to be followed by transformational, generation-defining projects. In New Zealand as well as Australia, those projects include investment in kindergartens, busways, cycleways, urban pedestrian lanes and flood protection improvements.
Such short-term, socially oriented projects create the political and economic space to tackle the next, much larger phase.
National infrastructure needs more planning, more money and more time than immediate stimulus spending can provide. In our race for impact and change, megaprojects — like intercity high-speed rail — should not be fast-tracked under the guise that there is no time to deliberate. In too many places, past efforts at infrastructure stimulus have fizzled after the immediate crisis has passed, leaving ambitions for improvement unfulfilled. In 2009, discussions for a high-speed rail link between Tampa Bay and Orlando reignited, only to be shelved again a few years later.
In other words, it’s not enough to aim big. We need to pair immediate spending with a discussion about what are worthy infrastructure investments, along with a commitment to long-term follow-through. There’s no doubt America needs better rail as well as large-scale renewable-energy generation. But none of that will happen without political buy in by key players and durable, repeated investments.
Transformation is a long-term process. But there is now a window of opportunity to change the discussion around the built environment. It has been a long time since America led the way in infrastructure ambition or construction. This crisis is an opportunity to build back better.
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