By: Jeff Kosseff
The Oregonian
June 30, 2008
Link to original article
WASHINGTON -- To understand the nation's infrastructure problem, consider two bridges: the Gravina Island bridge and the Mississippi River Interstate 35W bridge.
The Mississippi bridge in Minneapolis carried as many as 140,000 vehicles a day before it collapsed during rush hour last August, killing 13 people and injuring more than 100.
The Gravina Island bridge, better known as the "Bridge to Nowhere," was a proposal to spend $315 million to connect Alaska with an island of 50 people.
Canceled after strong public outrage, the Gravina Island project received initial approval because of Alaska's powerful congressional delegation. Minnesota's bridge, like more than a quarter of all bridges in the United States, was structurally deficient yet did not get enough money for upkeep.
Congress has a bias in favor of members' pet projects rather than routine maintenance.
The nation's public works problem is not just about how much money the federal government spends; it's about where the money is spent. The nation has no plan for building roads, bridges, water pipelines, fiber-optic lines and other physical projects that connect the nation. Because of an entrenched political system, nobody has stepped back to see what projects need the money most and how they connect.
"We need to have a focused, rational and responsible conversation about infrastructure," said Robert Puentes, a fellow at the Brookings Institution. "Right now there is no purpose for the infrastructure money on the federal level."
The government has not considered how different types of investments interact with one another: For example, do investments in fiber-optic lines increase telecommuting and reduce the demand on highways? Or would traffic congestion lessen with an investment in a bus fleet?
"Our roadway system, national rails, energy transmission, waterways -- these aren't things that stop at city boundaries or county or state lines," said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who has pushed for a national infrastructure plan. "They're national in scope. Not only should there be -- there has to be -- a national approach to this."
Vision "a little old"
The government's transportation thinking is rooted in an era when the goal was to connect the nation with a highway system, said Art Guzzetti, vice president for policy at the American Public Transportation Association.
"That vision has gotten a little old," Guzzetti said. "So the federal program became more of a block grant program to states and perhaps more recently, some would say, an earmarking thing."
Earmarking means that the politicians with the most power get the most money, regardless of need.
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., says he doesn't oppose earmarks, as long as they are made public and members of Congress are held accountable for them. He's proud of a $200 million earmark he secured in the most recent highway bill to repair some of Oregon's bridges -- $160 million was for bridges along Interstate 5.
"I'm fully willing to vet any and every earmark I got for its benefit," DeFazio said. "If you let the bureaucrats in Salem and Washington, D.C., determine the priorities, there will be a lot of parts of the country that will be left out."
Puentes, who studies transportation at Brookings, said that "at least earmarks represent some kind of purpose." But most transportation money is doled out to states through an arcane formula. That, he said, prevents the kind of assessment and coordination that Blumenauer and others are pushing.
"We don't know anything about the system," Puentes said. "It's easier to figure out how private banks are lending money than it is to find out how state transportation departments are spending federal dollars."
Seeking solutions
As chairman of the House subcommittee for surface transportation, DeFazio will oversee a reauthorization of the national highway and transit bill.
"It's going to be not just incrementally different than those of the past," he said. "It will take a different approach."
For example, DeFazio wants to try "least-cost transportation planning," which focuses less on the type of transportation and more on the results.
"It becomes more mode-neutral, as opposed to saying that this money has to be spent on buses, or that money has to be spent on more concrete," DeFazio said. "We need to get beyond that."
DeFazio said he generally agrees with a recent federal report that says the United States spends about one-third of what it should on its transportation system. But he says setting priorities should come first.
"What bridges are about to fall down that need investment now?" DeFazio asked. "What roads are critically, unbelievably congested? Quantify that. And back into a bill and say, 'OK, here's what we need. Now, how the heck are we going to pay for it?' "
Blumenauer notes that, nationally, voters pass 75 percent to 80 percent of local initiatives for open space, transportation and parks.
"If the public is convinced that they're getting value, they'll be supportive," he said. "Even though people are being asked to increase their property taxes and sales taxes, they pass when people have a sense of value."
Still, the price tag is painful: A federal commission recommended raising the gasoline tax by as much as 40 cents a gallon over five years to pay for highway improvements.
With gas already well over $4 a gallon, that idea is politically dead.
"There aren't a lot of rallies outside my office to raise taxes," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., notes wryly.
Wyden has proposed a different solution: $50 billion in federal bonds that would be used by states to pay for transportation projects.
The Oregon senator attempted to include money for road resurfacing in the recent economic stimulus package. Although 23 senators supported it, that wasn't enough to push it through. Some raised concerns that it wouldn't have an immediate economic impact.
But through that experience, Wyden said, he saw that roads and other construction and maintenance projects are increasingly on his colleagues' minds.
"A country that goes through $10 billion to $12 billion a month on the war in Iraq and is doing all this reconstruction overseas ought to get serious about doing some reconstruction here," Wyden said. "To some extent, this is a question of national priorities."
Jeff Kosseff: 503-294-7605; jeff.kosseff@newhouse.com
