Whither the Infrastructure?

Among my ‘pet’ concerns is the state of the U.S. transportation infrastructure. No need to belabor the woeful condition here. Get a few logistics types together and it isn’t long before they lament the unexpected highway delays that are no longer unexpected. And I live in Washington, DC---most any hour, night or day, it’s a wild card whether you’ll get stuck in grid-lock on the Beltway.

I’ve written in my column Inside World Trade about how, for all the hoopla surrounding the stimulus bill’s transportation component, we’re in real danger of blowing this chance to re-think the way things and people move. In the absence of a ‘master plan’, or even a rudimentary coordination between different modes (and geographical entities), the risk is that we’ll get a million unrelated piece-meal improvements to specific roads and bridges but we’ll be no closer to creating a system that is sustainable into the future.   

Well, we’ll keep an eye out on the seeds of a plan and report back as events unfold.

Meanwhile, on this fine April morning, here’s the update of where we stand.

$38 billion of the $387 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (don’t you just love that! Get a bunch of Congressmen to write a law and you get a title that sounds like it was carved out of concrete) is designated for capital projects that could be “started immediately” (ha-ha).

Well, according to findings by the House Transportation Committee, as of March 31 less than 1,300 jobs have been “created or sustained” by projects authorized by the Act. Nobody expects miracles overnight so I’m not prepared to shake a nagging finger of disapproval at this slight number---and I know that it takes time to get projects moving forward---but  1,300 jobs!?!

I won’t say this but I can imagine some hard-core cynics suggesting that we’re heading for the worst of both worlds if the powers that be don’t get cracking: an infrastructure system that lacks coherence and sustainability combined with a lot less expansion of construction payrolls than had been promised.

Stay tuned.