faced issues similar to what Obama will face,” says LePatner, partner
at LePatner and Associates. “Back then, the nation was suffering
with 25% unemployment, so a $3.3-billion public works program
was put in place to put Americans back to work and jump-start the
economy, which it did.”
The problem was that after a few years, Congress put pressure
on Roosevelt to halt these types of programs and slow down government spending. Roosevelt did and as LePatner notes, “In 1937,
there was another recession.”
He says the Obama administration is mindful of this history. The
new administration accepts that this effort is not just about pumping money into infrastructure work. He adds the nation’s infra-
“I'd be very concerned about the
ability of the water mains and
sewer lines to keep pace with the
city's growth.”
SAM SCHWARTZ
SAM SCHWARTZ ENGINEERING
structure is in such bad shape, a short-run stimulus will not make
much of a difference. “The Obama administration has to be very
careful, not only to start the engine with infrastructure, which is
certainly needed, but also to keep it running by having a game plan
for fixing the massive amount of existing infrastructure problems,
which is vital to our nation."
A recent survey by BAF disputes long-running assumptions
about public indifference over infrastructure, saying that 94% of
Americans are concerned about infrastructure and 81% are willing
to pay 1% more in taxes to rebuild the systems involved.
“They know this plan is not a quick fix; they know the problems
didn’t happen overnight; they want the investment because we’re
all in this for the long haul,” says Polly Trottenberg, executive director at BAF. The group was founded in 2008 by Rendell, Mayor
Michael Bloomberg and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to
“bring about a new era” of US investment in infrastructure.
But BAF’s survey also said that accountability was the public’s
greatest concern. Trottenberg says the stimulus bill satisfies many
of those transparency concerns. “Details will be posted online, governors will have to certify and that in itself will make a wonderful
change in this process.”
Undoubtedly, there will be heated competition over who gets
the limited funds. “We’re just in the beginning throes of it, and lots
of people are pushing for their own particular interests,” says Anne
Canby, president of the Surface Transportation Policy Institute.
Calls for transformative infrastructure have increased as well.
Kelly defines these projects as those that create new capacity and
facilitate economic development. They include foundations of
what some call the inspiring visions of the future: cities connected
by networks of high-speed rail, more efficient mass transit within
those cities, a landscape dotted by solar or windmill farms, a nation
where technological advances provide easy access to high-speed
Internet connectivity regardless of location.
“What would a brilliant, forward-looking vision for America’s
infrastructure be, and how can we show those visions to the public and get them excited about them?” Canby asks. For example,
“What if we had a national rail system, where would it go, what
cities, what would the routes look like? If we were to build light rail
systems in every metropolitan area with over one million residents,
what would that look like? This sort of visionary thinking is incredibly important and we don’t do enough of it.”
Why are transformative infrastructure projects important? “Two
examples: we don’t have one inch of high-speed rail in this country
and we’ve only built two new airports since 1975,” Hudnutt says,
adding that parts of Asia and Europe have left us in the dust. The
United States trails other developed nations in necessary mechanisms for healthy global trade. Some say it’s essential for gateway
cities like New York City to have high-speed rail access to the interiors of the country for trade purposes as well as the choice of rail
over congested skies. And there’s renewable energy and green
architecture: what some see as a path to energy independence and
perhaps an energy revolution providing thousands of jobs.
“Some people will gripe and grouse that a commitment to green
raises the costs,” says Hudnutt. “But I’ll tell you, if people aren’t
building green office buildings, soon they aren’t going to have class
A rental space.”
Recently, New Jersey Transit and the Port Authority of New York
and New Jersey have been preparing to build a new $8.7-billion
trans-Hudson tunnel into Penn Station.
“From congestion relief on the trains to greater access on Manhattan’s West Side, look at how this will change the face of the
region,” says Kelly. “What’s remarkable is that you’ve got two states,
New York and New Jersey, that support this project. It’s unique and
politically bold, a regional effort,” he says. (Parsons Brinckerhoff is
a design contractor on the project.)
Kelly points to projects that will transform life for New Yorkers, like the East Side Access project, which would divert Long
Island Rail Road passengers through a tunnel offering an option
from Queens to Grand Central Terminal; and the Second Avenue Subway line, among others. “When you make these kinds
of investments, a city becomes an even more attractive place to
live and work."—RENY
AdIndex
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CBRE, 1 PWC, 23
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