Not too long ago it appeared that the United States was gaining steam in the pursuit of high-speed rail. We finally had a White House that made passenger rail a high priority. With Obama calling for $8 billion in 2012 and $53 billion over six years for passenger rail projects, and a goal to provide 80 percent of Americans with access to high-speed rail in the next 25 years, governors and the transportation industry were licking their chops.

And then we hit the skids. Florida Governor Rick Scott, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, all newly elected Republicans, abandoned high-speed passenger rail projects, rejecting a combined $3.6 billion in federal funds in the process. That figure is more than the gross domestic product of some small countries, like Fiji, Somalia or Guam.

And then Congress eliminated about $1 billion that Obama wanted in the current budget for rail projects, and $400 million from the $2.4 billion already set aside for high-speed rail in Florida.

It “makes no sense” Obama said, referring to the abandoned rail projects. He’s right. Transportation infrastructure projects help the country stay competitive. And they create jobs. The abandoned rail plans would have generated at least 35,000 jobs combined, according to news reports. That squandered opportunity was a bitter pill for some lawmakers in Florida, where the unemployment rate is 12 percent. The state had not even received bids on their project when the governor decided to turn down $2 billion in federal dollars earmarked for an 85-mile high-speed link between Tampa and Orlando. Among the disappointed were U.S. Rep. John Mica, a Florida Republican and new chairman of the Congressional House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.  Another 26 state senators rebuked the governor for turning down the money, writing in a joint letter, “Politics should have no place in the future of Florida’s transportation.”

Gov. Scott’s decision, announced in February, was a slap in the face to the Obama Administration, coming a little more than a week after Vice President Joseph R. Biden unveiled the president’s rail plans. The Florida project was a centerpiece of those plans. It was one of two high-speed lines already approved by Congress. Like his fellow governors who rejected federal rail aid, Scott argued that his state might have been liable for billions of dollars, claiming that ridership estimates were too optimistic, and worried that taxpayers would be left with a  $3 billion tab to pay if the line wasn’t successful.

Scott’s pronouncement was described by Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, who, according to The Florida Times Union, compared the rail project to the interstate highway projects of the 1950s. “Can you imagine if the governor had tried to kill Eisenhower’s interstate highway system? That’s what we are facing today,” Nelson was quoted as saying in the newspaper. The senator raises a good point. Some of our nation’s greatest infrastructure was built in precarious financial times.  The United States Congress approved construction of the transcontinental railroad – one of America’s great technological achievements – during the American Civil War.

The governors who turned down the billions in high-speed rail may be making short political hay out of their decisions. Their states may feel the sting of jealously, as the funds they snubbed are funneled to other states eager to create jobs and build a world-class transportation network for the future.

In California, which received the largest portion of redirected money from the abandoned projects in Wisconsin and Ohio, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, at the time, was only too happy to take the funds. California voters have already approved almost $10 billion in bonds to build a high-speed rail system from San Francisco and Sacramento to San Diego. They’re going to need a lot more to meet the anticipated $45 billion price tag.

There were plenty of others vying for those $2 billion in abandoned Florida high-speed train dollars.  In fact there were 90 proposals from 24 states, the District of Columbia and Amtrak. “This is a knock-down drag-out fight over who is going to get it,” said Kevin Brubaker, Deputy Director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center in Chicago. Among the eleven Republican governors seeking a slice of the pie was Gov. Walker of Wisconsin, who would have liked to get back $150 million of what he had initially rejected. “We’re glad that Gov. Walker has recognized the value of high-speed rail to the Midwest,” Brubaker said, “and is seeking funds to support it.”

Recently Ray LaHood, the federal transportation secretary, announced that Amtrak and 15 states will be awarded the $2 billion that Florida gave up. The biggest slice of that money, about $800 million, will be used to improve train speeds on the Northeast Corridor, as well as improve the reliability of commuter lines.

The New York projects may not sound sexy but they are the type of projects that need to be done to get us on the right track to high-speed rail, according to Darnell Grisby of Reconnecting America. “Part of the problem with American passenger rail is that a lot hasn’t been improved in many years and getting us to high speed requires getting us up to the speed of other countries,” he said. We need to improve existing rails so that they can handle high-speed trains.

The good news, Grisby says, is that about half the states that applied for the rail money are states governed by Republicans. “Opponents of high-speed rail may have been more successful about getting their message out, but it’s not entirely factual information. There is still demand for high-speed rail and it’s bipartisan in nature,” he said.

Why do we need high-speed rail? Because, Grisby says, with gas rising above $4 per gallon, Americans need more convenient travel options. High-speed rail will also relieve stress on our roads and airports. Small communities, like those in upstate NY, will benefit from rail lines that allow residents to commute to the big cities where the jobs are, without abandoning their hometowns. Those communities that know how to market themselves can leverage a new high-speed rail line into a big economic plus for the local economy. And let’s not forget about job creation. As Grisby points out, Brazil, Russia and Southeast Asia are building high-speed rail right now and if America can build a high-speed rail construction industry, we can export our products, creating long-term jobs.

The industry needs proof that that our nation has a long-term commitment to high-speed rail and the best way to do that is to include funds for it in the next transportation reauthorization bill. Congress really needs to step up.  Over the next four decades the U.S. can expect our population to grow by 100 million Americans. With our current transportation infrastructure, Grisby says, we cannot accommodate that growth.

Our nation needs to have a long-term strategy for our transportation network, a strategy that transcends politics. If not, we will pay for shortsightedness and veer off track while other countries speed ahead.

Samuel I. Schwartz is a former New York City Traffic Commissioner who currently writes the Gridlock Sam column for the New York Daily News and is CEO of Sam Schwartz Engineering.

Every time I drive over the General Pulaski Highway in New Jersey I am reminded of the I-35 bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis.  Both bridges were designed as “fracture critical,” meaning that if just one beam fails, the bridge collapses – there is no redundancy.  If there were just two bridges designed that way it would be no problem to monitor them.  But, as pointed out in a new book, Too Big to Fall by Barry LePatner, there are tens of thousands of fracture critical bridges in the United States and nearly 8,000 are structurally deficient, which is a recipe for disaster.

Using the tragic collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis as a starting point, Barry LePatner lays out how our nation has neglected a majority of our 6,000 spans. LePatner presents a complete, well-researched story about the nation’s transportation infrastructure. This book is a must read for anyone in engineering, construction, architecture, and planning. Frankly, it is a must read for any American who is concerned about the continuing strength of our economy and our quality of life.

What’s particularly compelling is not just the history of our road and bridge building and maintenance, infrastructure funding, and local decision-making, it is also the story we have yet to write. LePatner presents a thoughtful review of elements, which can create a well functioning, financially (and structurally) solid, efficient national transportation system.

LePatner rightly raises the fire alarm for the nation’s spans with nearly a quarter of the nation’s 600,000 determined to be structurally deficient or “functionally obsolete.” Even scarier, as I pointed out in my opening, are the 7,980 “fracture critical” bridges that are structurally deficient.

Getting the money is the most pressing concern (although in the long term, if we spend wisely on capital reconstruction and properly maintain our bridges, total costs will go down). You’ve heard about the $2+ trillion price tag necessary to repair and maintain the nation’s infrastructure.

Freedom Fees, which I’ve written about in a previous No. 13 Line column, are one part of the mix. We need to dust off and polish up some familiar strategies for raising transportation funds. These include the gas tax, which should be raised and pegged to inflation, and tolls, which should be increased where necessary and expanded to cover more essential, yet underfunded roads, bridges, and tunnels.

Less familiar strategies include a charge for vehicle miles travelled, emissions charges, and congestion pricing, which are necessary to expand funding options and also reduce congestion.

Once we get the money, how do we get a bigger bang for our buck? Too Big to Fall delves deeper than Freedom Fees and tackles the problems in our process for distributing funds on a state and federal level, and our delivery method for implementing maintenance and repairs.

LePatner points out that we need more accountability on the part of our states to use federal transportation funds a) for transportation projects and b) in a manner that provides the most long-term benefits of our money.

In 2004, the Government Accountability Office found that the rate of increase in federal investment in highways was nearly twice the rate of increase in state and local investment in highways. That means that after the passage of ISTEA in 1991, states were moving their dollars for highways to fund other things and substituting federal dollars into their highway budgets.

After the passage of TEA-21 in 1998, the rate of state and local investment had actually decreased, indicating that even more local funds were being shifted out of highway budgets. That may look good on the books, but it doesn’t fix our bridges and fill our potholes.

Several strategies exist to increase accountability, which need to be given thoughtful consideration. A National Infrastructure Bank can provide investment opportunities to projects which fill the most pressing gaps in our transportation network and which give the best return on investments.

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are another way help close transportation budgets and oftentimes obtain better efficiency and maintenance quality out of our roads and bridges. The Federal Highway Administration has reported that PPP’s can save anywhere from 6% to 40% of the cost of construction, and limit the potential for cost overruns.  And PPPs can keep maintenance costs in check as well, by incorporating life-cycle costs of projects.  A survey of PPP’s in the UK concluded that private partners build higher quality facilities in order to reduce the long-term costs of operating and maintaining those facilities.

As you can read in the book, I’ve had my own experiences with the hard choices that engineers must make in the face of inadequate funding for maintenance and repair. We need to stop digging this hole that we are in and free engineers and planners from having to consider the price and the politics in making crucial repairs and regular maintenance.

LePatner does a great job of describing the dysfunctional financing maze which engineers are confronted with, which lead to faster deterioration and higher life cycle costs of our roads and bridges. They stem from the lack of accountability of federal funding requirements, outdated bridge inspection and reporting, and the management structure of our cities and DOTs which continually discount the professional opinion of our road and bridge engineers.

Anyone who cares about the health or our cities, states, and country should become familiar with the situation we’ve put ourselves in. As LePatner points out, there is no silver bullet. But we can be smart about the choices we make.

Morgan Whitcomb contributed to this article.

Samuel I. Schwartz is a former New York City Traffic Commissioner who currently writes the Gridlock Sam column for the New York Daily News and is CEO of Sam Schwartz Engineering.

How can we at once reduce our dependency on foreign oil, improve our environment, reduce the need to be at war in the Middle East, improve relations with the rest of the world and demonstrate our patriotism? The answer is simple: Freedom Fees.

Freedom Fees are what I propose we call those things that raise revenue for our world class (but poorly maintained) transportation system in the United States, including gas taxes, road tolls, emissions, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) charges and all the other methods we employ or may employ to pay for our country’s roads, bridges, tunnels, highways, transit and aviation infrastructure. It must also be a “lock-box” system which guarantees the fees would be used for transportation only and there be no concomitant reduction in existing government contributions to transportation. The fees must be free from the grips of the bean counters, who would play three-card Monte with the funds and treat it just like a tax!

This isn’t simply semantics. This is about taking a politically toxic concept like a gas tax hike and fundamentally changing the way we think about it. A gas tax has the negative connotation of a burden, whereas a Freedom Fee reflects the true reward for the price we pay. Freedom from foreign oil. Freedom from air pollution. Freedom from increased carbon footprints and global warming. Freedom from crumbling highways and bridges. Freedom from traffic jams.

The phrase Freedom Fees may sound a lot like Freedom fries, and that’s the point. Remember Freedom fries? That’s what Americans started calling French fries as a symbol of their anti-French sentiment when France frowned on the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Others led campaigns to boycott French goods. It was considered patriotic to stop selling French wines and change your restaurant menu to include Freedom fries. Even Congress changed the cafeteria menu to include the renamed fries. It was all a relatively symbolic sacrifice compared to the gas rationing during World War II, but the idea is the same: we all need to sacrifice for a better future for our country.

What we need today is that same political and patriotic will to do what a number of congressionally mandated bipartisan panels have concluded: raise the gas tax now and develop a long-term financing plan for the future. Supporting a higher gas tax, or imposing Freedom Fees, I would argue, is as patriotic as eating Freedom fries or gas rationing. An increase in the gas tax would not only generate the financial resources we need to keep our transportation infrastructure globally competitive, but would also encourage us all to consume less fuel, making us less dependent on the oil-rich Middle East countries that threaten our interests, as well as petroleum-rich dictators like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Freedom Fees could pay for the development of alternative energy technology, also further weaning us off our oil dependency. In the words of George W. Bush in his 2006 State of the Union address, “America is addicted to oil.” It’s about time we kicked the habit.

The refusal by Congress to raise the federal gas tax, which has been 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993 (the last two increases were under President Bill Clinton in 1993, by 4.3 cents per gallon; and by President George H. W. Bush in 1990, raising it 5 cents per gallon) despite proposals from both political parties to do so. The National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission has recommended a gas tax increase of 10 cents per gallon and 15 cents per gallon for diesel, both indexed to inflation. Late last year, President Barack Obama’s bipartisan National Debt Commission also recommended a gradual 15-cents-per-gallon increase in the federal gas tax. Also, Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio) last year proposed a 25-cent per gallon tax increase – one cent per month for 25 months – suggesting that 10 cents of the tax hike should go toward debt reduction and the rest should fund transportation infrastructure. There has also been a call in the states to raise state gas taxes. In New Jersey, the Sierra Club, New Jersey Future, and other groups have urged Gov. Chris Christie to raise the gas tax. In Arkansas, a blue ribbon commission on highway finance recommended indexing gas and diesel taxes.

During the last fuel crises in 1979 President Jimmy Carter recommended a 50-cents-per-gallon gas tax to get us weaned off foreign oil and get more efficient in transportation. The nation didn’t take his advice. Imagine if we did.

We need to catch up to developed nations around the world. Currently in the UK, the petrol tax is about $3.50 USD per gallon, not including a 20% VAT on top of that. With today’s price of fuel, these taxes make up about 175% of the cost of fuel. Not only does the UK peg fuel taxes to inflation, they have, since 1993 enacted a Fuel Price Escalator, where the price of fuel rises ahead of inflation. There are also tax reductions for trains, buses (local and long distance) and for some construction and farm vehicles. The average tax on gas in Canada is about $1.20 (USD) per gallon, which makes up almost 1/3 of the cost of gas. We shouldn’t be afraid to increase our own much lower gas tax.

Freedom Fees could include much more than gas consumption fees. They can include a package of tools used to generate funding for transportation infrastructure and to reduce fuel consumption. A vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) charge could be one type of Freedom Fee. This much-debated tax method would harness the power of modern technology by using onboard tracking devices such as a Global Positioning System (GPS) to count the miles a car is driven. Other Freedom Fees could be in the form of gas emissions charges, expanded road tolling or congestion pricing. There is also pay-as-you-drive insurance, an idea proposed recently in New York that would charge drivers insurance based on the number of miles they drive. A Brookings Institution report found that if drivers paid for insurance by the mile, total driving would drop by eight percent.

It is a critical time for the nation’s transportation infrastructure. With a change in balance of power in the newly elected Republican Congress, transportation experts are predicting a slashing of the federal transportation program. High-speed rail projects, livability programs, uncommitted stimulus funds and executive earmarks could be on the chopping block. The proposed National Infrastructure Bank won’t likely be getting approval by this new Congress.

Freedom Fees are something the new Congress can embrace. It’s a fiscally sound, politically palatable, patriotic idea that many Republicans and Democrats can support. Freedom fees are as American as baseball and apple pie.

Ana Maria Lima and Morgan Whitcomb contributed to this article.

Samuel I. Schwartz is a former New York City Traffic Commissioner who currently writes the Gridlock Sam column for the New York Daily News and is CEO of Sam Schwartz Engineering.

When I travel to East Asia these days as a civil engineer I feel pangs of envy. I find myself at a new gleaming airport or I ride a high-speed train that makes our Amtrak look like the Pony Express. The countries I visit seem light years ahead of the United States when it comes to transportation infrastructure. Clearly I’m not alone in my sentiment. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently wrote that, “We are the United States of Deferred Maintenance. China is the People’s Republic of Deferred Gratification. They save, invest and build. We spend, borrow and patch.” I couldn’t agree more.

The rapid expansion of China’s roadways, railways, metro systems and bridges over the past two decades has astounded and inspired me. Yet it is a constant reminder how behind the times the United States has fallen with our crumbling bridges, train delays, and poorly maintained roads and highways.

Even in the most rural parts of China you can see the bulldozers crawling the hillsides as new development springs up. The country has plans to build some 80 mass transit rail lines over the next five years, and is planning more new airports in addition to the multi-billion dollar airport they built for the Olympic games. The Beijing Airport looks like something straight out of a science fiction movie with shiny marble arched glass ceilings. The new bus terminal in Kunming is “hyper-modern” with light-up displays above commuter bus-loading areas that give riders real-time information about where each bus is going. Even some of the smallest towns have modest, yet adequate bus terminals, with ticketing, waiting areas and restrooms.

When it comes to alternative transportation, China has been a bicycle culture for a long time, with wide bicycle lanes and facilities. While on my recent trip to China I was disappointed to see how they have squeezed the bike lanes to make more room for cars, the country is still way ahead of us in this mode of transport.

It’s not just China that’s speeding ahead of us when it comes to transportation infrastructure. The Swiss are building the longest tunnel in the world at 35.4 miles. Scheduled to open in 2017, the $10 billion Gotthard Base Tunnel system will run high-speed passenger and freight trains through the Alps. Swiss voters each paid $1,300 for the tunnel. Could you imagine that happening here in the U.S.? In the UK, bridge systems are being retro-fitted with dehumidification systems to prevent corrosion, a prevention strategy to help decrease the need to replace bridges and rehabilitate them – a technology that was first used on the Kaikyo Bridge in Japan.

It was in Japan, in fact, about two decades ago, where I learned an important lesson about how impeccably they maintained their bridges and how little tolerance they had for anything less than perfection. In Tokyo I acted like a typical Westerner, which translated into an embarrassing faux pas. After inspecting about ten bridges, I was very impressed with how superbly maintained the structures were and thought I’d make that point after seeing a tiny smudge of graffiti on one bridge. I casually offered my version of a high complement by noting, “This is the first graffiti I’ve seen in Japan,” to a high-level Japanese official. Much to my surprise, and consternation, the bridge engineer was reassigned. I felt terrible, but the story has a point: The Japanese treat their bridges like an obsessive compulsive would take care of her living room.

It’s time that we started to own up to the fact that other countries are passing us by. We need to swallow our pride and take their approach. We can learn from their ingenuity. We don’t need to reinvent things. We can emulate them as they did us. If we look carefully we find it was the Asians and Europeans who learned from the U.S. post World War II. We don’t need a war to study their successes with high-speed rail, livable streets and intelligent infrastructure. I’m convinced we can do it better.

Let’s face it, we’ve lost our competitive edge, our “mojo.” Let’s get it back. One way to do this is to increase spending on infrastructure. America only spends about two percent of its GDP per year on infrastructure investment, while China spends between 9 and 12 percent, and Europe spends about 4-5 percent. India is set to double its infrastructure spending next year. Here in the United States, it would take a shift of increasing our expenditures by just one or two percent of our GDP to see dramatic results. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has reported we need a five-year investment of $2.2 trillion in our nation’s infrastructure. That may sound like a lot of money but it’s not much more than the government spent in the past couple of years to bail out the banks and stimulate the economy. (By the way, only 17% of the stimulus plan was ever designated for infrastructure.) Imagine what our country would look like in a decade if we could put those kinds of dollars into our roads, bridges, rails and mass transit systems.

If Congress really wants to take our infrastructure seriously and stop this country from falling behind in the global market, it will support the bi-partisan and President Obama-supported proposal for a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank, which would invest more than $50 billion in transportation infrastructure, including high-speed rail, highway improvements, and mass transit to be leveraged into $500 billion or more. If we fail to act, we will continue to lose investors to the rest of the world. Right now, public-private partnerships of non-American firms are taking the lead in transportation infrastructure spending. The U.S. private market needs more incentives to participate. With their partnership, we can hope to achieve the bipartisan plan’s goals to rebuild 150,000 miles of road, lay and maintain 4,000 miles of rail track, restore 150 miles of airport runways, and improve air-traffic control technologies.

I am very proud of our country and what it stands for. I just want to make sure it has solid and gleaming girders to stand on.

Ana Maria Lima and Morgan Whitcomb contributed to this article.

Samuel I. Schwartz is a former New York City Traffic Commissioner who currently writes the Gridlock Sam column for the New York Daily News and is CEO of Sam Schwartz Engineering.

It’s so easy to get on the bandwagon: lower my taxes, smaller and more efficient government, don’t touch my liberties, throw the bums out, etc. But what if that bandwagon has to cross a bridge? And what if that bridge hasn’t been maintained in years?

The Tea Party has captured the imagination and spirit of many Americans and may very well turn that into a powerful voting bloc come November. But, that bloc may not have a leg or girder to stand on as our nation’s infrastructure continues to crumble. I am very concerned, from what I have read so far, and what has been ignored to date, that the Tea Party movement will throw our public works overboard with the tea.

The Tea Party stands for smaller government. I’m not going to argue with that. There are things that the government can’t repair all by itself. We can argue about laissez faire vs. public intervention when it comes to poverty or jobs. But, there isn’t much arguing that not painting a bridge leads to corrosion. Or that 100-year-old water mains need attention to protect them from leaks or worse – collapses. Infrastructure is not going to repair itself without government leadership and intervention (which to date has gotten only a D from the American Society of Civil Engineers). And the responsibility is on all politicians regardless of party affiliation. A broken bridge isn’t going to distinguish between a Democrat, Republican or Tea Party candidate driving by when it crumbles. As Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, a Republican, was quoted recently in the New York Times: “The infrastructure needs are real. We can argue about how to pay for it.”

A fiscal conservative must look at the short and long-term costs. Study after study, including Fragile Foundations commissioned by President Ronald Reagan’s National Council on Public Works Improvement, found that deferring maintenance led to much higher costs down the road (if there were a road left). It’s like your car: if you don’t get the oil changed regularly, the bearings will eventually seize and the engine will fail, forcing you to buy a new car – a much pricier option that could have been avoided. Similarly, allowing a bridge to corrode to a danger point and then building a new bridge is the far more expensive route. I’m worried that discussions about transportation issues are essentially absent from the Tea Party rhetoric. There is a startling lack of specific solutions. As New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman recently wrote, the Tea Party movement is “…all steam and no engine. It has no plan to restore America to greatness.” Tea Party candidates like to speak in one-liners, outdoing opponents with promises reminiscent of “no new taxes” on their lips. That could be dangerous if they win and voters hold their feet to the fire.

Public works industries and all concerned citizens need to start engaging Tea Party candidates like Rand Paul, the Kentucky Senate nominee, Christine O’Donnell, the Delaware Senate nominee, and Tea Party cheerleader and GOP darling Sarah Palin. We need to start a conversation with the Party about the critical importance infrastructure plays in our nation’s economic future, and how important funding is. Why? Because if elected, Tea Party candidates will influence the actions of the next Congress, which will most likely take up the long overdue reauthorization of the multi-year surface transportation law. The law, known as the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETY-LU), is the current authorization of federal transportation policy that expired in 2009. Congress has been dragging its feet on the bill. Looking for ways to fund the measure, Democrat Rep. James Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has wisely proposed an increase in the federal gas tax, which hasn’t been raised since 1993. Maybe he should stop calling it a tax right now, and start calling it a user fee, because Tea Partiers would not vote for a hundredth of a penny increase in the gas tax. We have to get them over the idea that no tax is a good tax, or tweak the semantics.

When it comes to our nation’s transportation infrastructure, we are in deep trouble. In his new book, Too Big to Fall: America’s Failing Infrastructure and the Way Forward, author Barry B. LePatner makes a compelling case for funding to fix our roads and bridges that every candidate should read. He examined the collapse of the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis in August 2007, which killed 13 people and injured 145 others, showing us that the tragedy could have been prevented. He also warned that it could happen again at thousands of bridges across the country, with more than 50 percent of our bridges past their intended lifespan. In a recent conversation, LePatner posed a question for Tea Party candidates, turning an issue too often seen as one about bricks and mortar into a question about life and death. He asked, “If I tell you that your children, your grandchildren, and your nieces and nephews are going over bridges that are `structurally deficient’ and `fracture-critical,’ which any engineer will say can go down at any minute, does that mean anyone can tell you you’re safe? Absolutely not. Are you telling me you don’t care because you are trying to shrink the budget?”

If the Tea Party wants smaller government, they may turn to corporate America to pay for our roads, bridges and rails. The concept of privatizing transportation infrastructure was recently touted by Clifford Winston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He wrote that privatizing infrastructure would “help cut the federal deficit by raising revenues and reducing expenditures.” But the government should be wary of taking this route, or it could wind up like the driver who blindly follows his GPS onto a recently closed bridge and ends up in deep water. As my friend Joe Giglio, a Professor at Northeastern University, who has written extensively about transportation issues, and served as the chair of Reagan’s National Council on Public Works Improvement, puts it, “Privatization is as American as handguns or bourbon and branch water.” But don’t be fooled, he adds. The big argument for public-private partnerships is that private corporations have “skin in the game,” while in fact many companies are as shortsighted about revenue as the politicians are. “What is a CEO concerned with? Long-term profitability or short-term?” Dr. Giglio asks. Too often, it’s the latter goal, and that’s not good for the public when we’re talking about transportation infrastructure that’s supposed to last lifetimes. That’s not to say there aren’t times when privatization won’t work. When it comes to projects involving new technology and financial risk, let the private sector do it, Dr. Giglio said. But we must be careful about selling off our highways and roads, lest willy-nilly tolling schemes lead to unintended traffic congestion. If Americans are grumbling now about a 5 cent/gallon gas tax increase, just wait until privately managed companies start charging market rates for using roads. The year 2010 will be known as “the good old days.”

If we can’t appeal to the Tea Party’s good sense, then perhaps we could try appealing to their sense of history. This is a party, after all, whose main reference point is the Boston Tea Party. Craig Ruyle, an engineer at NYS Department of Transportation who is a history buff, points out that the conservative parties actually have a history of supporting funds for transportation infrastructure. In the pre-Civil war era, he notes, it was the Democrats who were against anything they considered “internal improvements” like building railroads and canals, claiming it was unconstitutional. It was the Whigs who pushed to invest in transportation. Why? It was all about commerce. Merchants had to move goods and prosperous commerce was vitally important for the country’s future. President Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, authorized the Transcontinental Railroad. And don’t forget, a century later, it was Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower who fathered the Interstate Highway System. Fellow GOP President Ronald Reagan later imposed a five-cent-per-gallon gas tax hike for the Highway Trust Fund.

The Tea Party candidates have adopted the historic “Don’t Tread on Me,” Gadsden flag for their cause, a bright yellow flag with the coiled timber rattlesnake poised for attack. But let’s remember that this flag has been known as a symbol of patriotism as well as conflict with government. Hopefully we can harness the Tea Party’s patriotism without losing support for those things that make this country so great, including a world-class transportation system.

Samuel I. Schwartz is a former New York City Traffic Commissioner who currently writes the Gridlock Sam column for the New York Daily News and is CEO of Sam Schwartz Engineering.

For too many years cities have been paying for transportation projects with their hands out to Congress, lobbying for dollars even as funding bills grow moss stuck in the sluggish legislative process. It’s time to stop all the bellyaching! There are good reasons to push for funding, but sitting back and waiting for the federal government to cough up the money isn’t going to fix infrastructure very quickly. There is however, an excellent model of innovative transportation funding that we can all learn from if we look to our friends on the West Coast, where Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is championing the 30/10 Initiative. His funding plan to extend light rail, subway and rapid bus lines promises to change the face of his city and the rest of Los Angeles County. With the support of Congress, the initiative has the potential to be one of the most transformative transportation programs for cities since President Dwight D. Eisenhower fathered the Interstate Highway System.

The 30/10 Initiative is essentially a plan to use funds raised through a half-cent sales tax increase to secure federal loans for transit projects to pay for 30 years worth of construction in 10 years (hence 30/10). The first part of the plan, known as Measure R, required a public referendum whereby a two-thirds majority vote was needed to levy the tax. Mayor Villaraigosa launched a herculean lobbying effort convincing 68% of the voters to pass the tax and improve the Los Angeles transportation network. The mayor was successful because he pushed for a countywide plan, rather than one focused his city or a particular county neighborhood. The vote showed that Angelenos, tired of bottlenecks, recognize the need for transportation improvements and are willing to tax themselves for transit, not roads, to get there – no small feat in the region known as the car capital of the world. But the projected 30-year construction plan for the transit projects wasn’t fast enough for the mayor, so he proposed the 30/10 Initiative to leverage the tax revenues in order to build a dozen critical transit projects in a decade rather than the projected 30 years.

This bold initiative promises to revitalize Los Angeles, create jobs, reduce greenhouse gases and traffic congestion, and save money. The plan has won over important supporters including California’s United States Sen. Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. During the mayor’s campaign for Measure R, he put together a broad coalition of business, labor and environmental leaders, a testament to the initiative’s broad appeal. Officials estimate some 166,000 jobs will be created by the projects, a promising lifeline in this sour economy. By speeding up the construction schedule, officials have estimated they can cut the construction costs to $14 billion from $18 billion, and the savings could be higher. With construction work at a snail’s pace right now, bids are coming in at 5 percent to 25 percent below original estimates, according to transportation officials. And when it comes to the environment, the project’s annual impact on traffic and pollution could be dramatic according to official estimates: 77 million more transit passengers; 521,000 fewer pounds of mobile source pollution emissions; 10.3 million fewer gallons of gasoline used and 191 million fewer vehicle miles traveled.

To properly appreciate Mayor Villaraigosa’s vision calls for a trip back in time. His city, now famous for its highways and car culture, was once considered a transit Mecca. In the early half of the 1900s, the Pacific Electric Railway’s “Red Car” system of streetcars, light rail and buses connected Los Angeles to Southern California cities in Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties. The system inspired some memorable dialogue in the 1988 film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” when a child asked the character Eddie Valiant “Hey, mister. Ain’t you got a car?” to which Valiant replies: “Who needs a car in L.A.? We have the best public transportation system in the world.” That famous system, however, was slowly dismantled, and tracks paved over to make way for superhighways where people could travel faster in their cars, until there were so many vehicles, the city became infamous for its traffic jams.

Today, some may wax poetic about the Red Cars of yesteryear, but Villaraigosa isn’t exactly lobbying for a journey back to the future. His ideas for transit are rooted in his experiences growing up poor with a single mother and taking public mass transportation, by rail and bus, to get around the city. Later in life, during his three campaigns for mayor, he would crisscross his congested city, becoming even more familiar with the transportation system. He sits on the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which recently posted his comments from a city hall meeting where the mayor, who has three years left in his term, indicated that the 30/10 Initiative could become his legacy. “I’ve got three years left, I’m not going out on a cot here,” the mayor said. “I want to go out on a train.”

Among the dozen projects that would be on the fast track include light rail extensions to Los Angeles International Airport; a long-envisioned subway extension to the city’s Westside providing a high-capacity, high-speed alternative for the 300,000 people who travel to the L.A.’s “second downtown” every day from throughout the county; the Crenshaw Corridor light rail line; a Metro Green Line extension in the South Bay; an Eastside extension of the Metro Gold Line from East Los Angeles; and transit projects serving the San Gabriel and San Fernando Valley.

The mayor has done a terrific job building support for such a creative plan. Now it’s Congress’ turn to come up with a novel way to help fund it. There’s no reason to hesitate. The mayor’s bold plan is a bargain and comes at a time when transportation funds are dwindling due to a reduction in gas tax revenues. Under the mayor’s initiative, the Measure R sales tax would generate $5.8 billion over the next decade, but another $8.8 billion is needed for the total cost of the 12 projects. The mayor wants to use the future sales tax revenue as collateral for low interest loans or long-term bonds, and then repay those debts over the next two decades. One way Congress can step up is to support a national infrastructure bank to make federally funded low-cost loans available to local governments for transportation projects. President Barack Obama recently revived the idea as part of his plan to spend $50 billion next year on highways, airport and railway construction. What better project to invest in than the 30/10 Initiative? This is a county that is trying to help itself! Another way Congress can step up, a potentially faster way considering the opposition that the infrastructure bank idea is up against, is to support the use of Build America bonds for Los Angeles’ transit projects. These special municipal bonds, created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, provide a federal subsidy of 35% of the interest paid on the bonds to the issuer.

The 30/10 Initiative may be a gamble, but it’s one worth taking. Los Angeles has the opportunity to create a new model of transit funding as our country careens toward a crossroads on transportation. Metro areas that are car-centric risk eventually choking themselves to death, both economically and environmentally. As Christopher Steiner discussed in his new book, “$20 per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better,” gas prices are bound to rise dramatically based on a gas supply and demand relationship where demand is directly tied to the size of the middle class. The world’s middle class is expected to quadruple by 2020 largely due to China’s emergence into the consumption world. Gas prices may quadruple themselves to $20/gallon by 2020. Cities that have modern mass transportation transit infrastructure in place are sure to have a competitive edge in the future. We applaud Mayor Villaraigosa’s efforts to make sure Los Angeles is among them and to track the way for a new model to get there.

This column is told in the first person of the late Dwight D. Eisenhower, our 34th president, as a viewpoint proposed by Sam Schwartz.

As the father of the Interstate Highway System, I was recently asked to look down on Earth from up here in Heaven and offer my opinion on the state of things. I am delighted to see that the system

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, father of the Interstate Highway System, coming to you in Technicolor

I fathered more than 50 years ago is so beloved by the American public. Look at all those cars and trucks zipping along ribbons of roads, 45,000 miles of limited access highways crisscrossing the continental United States, the largest infrastructure program in the world! At the same time, I am shocked and dismayed that many of our roads and bridges are in such a deplorable state of disrepair. I am deeply concerned about how the country is not adequately funding the system, and I am worried that the country is not planning and modernizing for the future.

Some things have changed for sure. Tail fins are out and hybrids are in. I never could have imagined the lifeline that the highway system has become, handling about a quarter of all vehicle travel in the country and roughly half of all large commercial truck travel. And it’s about twice as safe to drive on the federal highways than other roads. Nor could I have foreseen the highway system’s impact on the American psyche. Look at all the songs it inspired, from “Highway to Hell,” to “Midnight Highway.” The nation has come a long way since I was president. Look who’s in the White House now! It’s too bad my old VP Nixon isn’t up here with me to look down on this.

The Interstate Highway System exceeded my expectations, yet at the same time, I am very disappointed. Highways and bridges have been neglected. Some chunks have been sold to private entities. Other parts slice through urban areas; I never really meant for my highways to destroy center cities. Sadly, the system simply isn’t paying for itself as intended. The congestion is troubling. Forty-one percent of the nation’s urban Interstate Highways and ten percent of the nation’s rural Interstates are considered congested, according to TRIP, a nonprofit national transportation research organization. All of these vehicles are consuming alarming amounts of fuel and spewing harmful pollutants into our environment. The nation’s dependency on oil puts all Americans at risk in the long run.

The situation calls for imagination and modernization. I would like to offer my humble advice on how to make the federal highway system world-class once again. We need to turn this gridlock mess into something better, because our national security and commerce depends on it.

First fix the roads. It is clear that the increase in congestion and neglected maintenance has taken its toll on the decades-old bridges and roads. Four percent of Interstate Highways are in poor condition and an additional 13 percent are in mediocre condition, according to TRIP. More than 2,000 bridges on the Interstate Highways are in need of an overhaul, according to Frank Moretti, TRIP’s director of research. Deficient roads and bridges cause traffic jams and cause accidents, or worse. In 2007, the I-35 bridge collapse took 13 lives and injured 145. Substandard roads cost time, money and diminish our quality of life. 1955, when I was championing the creation of the Interstate Highway System, the poor road conditions cost American drivers a total of roughly $39 billion a year in today’s dollars. It’s sad to discover that not much has changed. In fact, the situation is worse. Today, the deplorable roads cost drivers $67 billion each year, according to Road Work Ahead! I believed at the time, that the Interstate Highway System would work to relieve Americans of this financial burden and increase mobility, but it seems like maintaining the roads I championed hasn’t been a priority since I left office.

Hey, I know what it’s like to get stuck on the road. In 1919, when I was a lieutenant, I crossed the country from Washington to San Francisco in a military truck convoy. The trip was extremely slow, taking 62 days. We encountered dirt roads, narrow roads, sandy roads, and other practically impassable routes. In a report to Chief Motor Transport Corps in November of that year, I wrote: “In western Utah, on the Salt Lake Desert, the road becomes almost impassable to heavy vehicles. From Orr’s Ranch, Utah, to Carson City, Nevada, the road is one succession of dust, ruts, pits, and holes.” We had 230 breakdowns and incidents. The trip got me thinking about “good, two-lane highways,” I later wrote in a memoir. Many years later, as Supreme Allied Commander during World War II, I experienced firsthand Germany’s autobahn network of superhighways. Even after heavy bombing of German roads during World War II, military convoys managed to get through because of the design of the autobahn. These two experiences had a great influence on me, and with the backdrop of the Cold War, I urged Congress to enact the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, creating the Interstate System, which is today called the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. I once said, “This was one of the things that I felt deeply about, and I made a personal and absolute decision to see that the nation would benefit by it.”

Here is some more advice: fix the funding. The country should not be going into debt to pay for the Interstate Highway System, and it should not be building new roads before it fixes what’s broken. As a fiscally conservative, socially liberal Republican president, I knew that a federal highway program should be able to pay for itself, and I also recognized the high costs of maintaining this road infrastructure. In a message to Congress in 1955, I said, “A sound Federal Highway program, I believe, can and should stand on its own feet, with highway users providing the total dollars necessary for improvement and new construction. Financing of interstate and Federal-aid systems should be based on the planned use of increasing revenues from present gas and diesel oil taxes, augmented in limited instances with tolls.” I supported the use of the Highway Trust Fund, not the General Fund, to maintain roads.

Today the Highway Trust Fund pays states 90% of the cost of building and maintaining the Interstate Highway System and is funded by primarily the Federal fuel tax and also by taxes on vehicle and tire sales, diesel etc. In 2008, the Highway Trust Fund had depleted and Congress dipped into the General Fund to pay states for highways. I do not support this. The government needs to raise the fuel tax immediately and peg it to inflation. The federal fuel tax has not been raised since 1993 (currently at 18.4 cents/gallon). Also, adopt fix-it-first policies. Tie these policies to funding requirements for the states, and provide more oversight to close existing loopholes in “repair and maintenance” funds that are often used to expand roads. If you are feeling really progressive, create a tax based on VMT (vehicle miles traveled). This way, drivers are taxed regardless of how efficient their car is. Electric cars may reduce oil dependency but do nothing to relieve congestion. Until a VMT tax system is created, road tolling should be expanded wherever necessary.

My final advice is to modernize. When I took my cross-country road trip in 1919, the railroad reigned supreme. But at the time I was looking ahead. As a military man, I knew that what was good for commerce was good for the military, and good roads were associated with great empires. I also thought every family should own a car, and I thought this would liberate Americans and give them earning power and better quality of life. But that was at a time when fuel was more plentiful and affordable and trains didn’t go as fast as they do today. Today our dependence on oil will diminish our quality of life in the long run, both environmentally and economically, and, as many politicians have recently pointed out, it is a matter of national security. I always said that the highways couldn’t be widened forever and that congestion would choke our productivity and mobility. Now, our leaders need to look into their future, and the future is high-speed rail.

Consider this: one passenger train has the potential to remove 500-600 cars from the road and one freight train can eliminate up to 200 trucks. By decongesting the highway system, we can transport goods more easily by both rail and truck. A national rail network can also aid the military transport of freight and people, in the event of a national defense crisis or natural disaster. Also, becoming less dependent on oil will go a long way to lessen our dependence on foreign nations for our mobility and livelihood. One way to achieve a national rail network is to utilize the existing right-of-way used for the highway system. The land is a national asset that should not be squandered.

My fellow Americans, after more than a half of a century in the service of your country, the Interstate Highway System needs your help. I urge Congress to create a bipartisan panel to study the system and come up with innovative, responsible solutions for the funding, maintenance and modernization of this national asset. If we realize that we shouldn’t spend what we don’t have, we could get support for a much-needed gas tax increase in the near term. Look to the future. Whether it’s roads, rail or runways, remember that a world-class transportation system is the key to great commerce and national security.

A note of thanks to Dan McNichol, author of The Roads That Built America.He was an invaluable source in researching this column, and my inspiration for the connection to Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1919 trek came after I heard Mr. McNichol speak.

First the bad news: gas will rise to $20 per gallon. Now the good news: gas will rise to $20 per gallon. It’s going to happen whether you like it or not. It doesn’t matter if the Democrats are in control, the Republicans, or even Ron Paul. It doesn’t matter if you believe in global warming or disbelieve in evolution. Christopher Steiner, in his new book “$20 per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better”, points out that in the gas supply and demand relationship, demand is directly related to the size of the middle class. Prior to 1960, that pretty much meant the U.S. middle class. By the 1970’s, Europe’s middle class burgeoned as did car growth. In 2010, experts are predicting that the size of the world’s middle class will soon quadruple, as the masses in China, ex-Soviet bloc countries, and other Asian countries move up the economic ladder and repeat all the West’s same mistakes, promoting the car as the solution to transportation needs. As evidence of this, on January 11, 2010, the New York Times reported that China surpassed the U.S. as the world’s largest car market. The subsequent rise in gas prices will happen rather fast, Steiner predicts, so that by 2020, $20 per gallon gas is quite possible. More importantly, this future change is inevitable.

Soaring fuel prices will trigger a domino effect. Cars will get smaller, public transit use will soar, some airlines will perish, and almost everything will be made more locally. These changes, Steiner argues and we agree, will have an overall positive social and environmental effect. Mind you, though, that many people and businesses will be harmed and lifestyles upended in the process. For that reason, and because we sincerely believe it is better for our country and world, we should start weaning Americans off petroleum now.

The longer we delay, the more could be lost in the inevitable march toward $20 per gallon prices. We will lose opportunity most of all, but also money. People will be paying out of pocket for higher energy prices while they wait for technology and policy to react to the new reality. They will pay at the pump and in their increasing airfare, but many people simply won’t be able to afford mobility. They will have to wait for taxing schemes to change, wait for high speed rail to become a reality, wait for dense, walkable neighborhoods to be built, wait for bike lanes, wait for food distribution to become regional—wait for mobility. We say, why wait?

Well, there are a few people planning ahead. There are significant migrations from suburbs to cities, especially among the very mobile 25-35 year old cohort, where public transportation makes driving less necessary. High speed rail subsidies are beginning, SUVs are rapidly becoming anachronisms, hybrids are wildly popular, and the local produce movement has exploded. Even the most progressive actions taken so far can’t do much to plan for rising gas prices. In fact, in our existing transportation financing system, reductions in fuel use will actually add to the transport infrastructure deficit. The gas tax is charged as a fixed rate for each gallon sold, so even though you will spend more money to fill your tank less often, the government will receive even less in taxes. We should be concerned that this tax is the primary federal funding mechanism for transportation. Roads and bridges already in poor condition will receive less money for maintenance and repairs. Figuring out how to maintain this infrastructure is a big elephant in the room. There are many relevant road infrastructure financing schemes, including a VMT (vehicle miles traveled) tax and regional tolls, but one way that can reasonably sustain road and bridge maintenance is a tax pegged on the price of gas, as a percentage of the price, just like other sales taxes. That way, less driving won’t mean more deteriorating roads. This can be put into place soon, as a safeguard against the plight of decreased gas purchases in the future, by creating a more reliable source of revenue as prices soar. The naysayers will call such tax regressive; we say, why should all the additional money go to OPEC instead of U.S. transportation?

We need to be thinking about how people will get around once car and plane travel become expensive enough to be considered luxuries. Funding for Amtrak has increased recently, thanks to stimulus funding, but while the $8 billion allocated is a big help in maintaining the system, it does little to expand transportation routes nationally. A national rail system needs to be built in a fashion akin to the president’s plan—before people are desperate for it. Without a useful high speed rail network in place when plane travel prices spike, choice will be severely limited. For instance, sending your daughter to another city to attend college can be a burden if it is exorbitant to fly or drive there, especially for school breaks and holidays. Travel within the nation for business and pleasure could come to a standstill. Sure, we could limp by, by limiting our children’s choices to local colleges and relying on conference calls, or we could build a network that will keep our quality of life propelling forward.

Local officials need to legislate and plan for these realities in their jurisdictions. More flexible and forward thinking zoning codes need to be enacted in most areas, which allow for mixed use, so that one day people can walk to the store to get groceries, which they will prefer when driving for even the smallest errand becomes a burden. Greater density should be allowed around transportation hubs so more trips, say to work, can be performed quickly without a car.

If these transportation hubs don’t exist, plans should be made for them. For cities thinking about creating a light rail, subway, or bus rapid transit system, now is the time. These investments take time to plan and build, and they should be completed before large numbers of people need to drastically reduce their car use (and abandon ill-equipped towns, suburbs and cities), not after. National support for local transportation needs to be bolstered and made more accessible so funding for these projects can be a reality. National funding should be used to support more balanced transportation systems rather than prioritizing highway plans over everything else. To complete the picture, transportation departments should create streets that are easy to walk and bike around, extending the reach of the area served by public transit.

Let’s prepare for higher energy prices, whenever that may come, and make the “transition period” as painless as possible by not letting the price of gas dictate our future. Instead of waiting for the rising price of gas to change our lives for the better, we can do it ourselves. We can be in control of our mobility if we guide transportation policies in a sound direction—starting now. In addition to sidestepping a prolonged gas crisis, preemptive changes can also address global warming and stabilize our national economy. Thomas Friedman points this out nicely in his December op-ed:

If we prepare for climate change by building a clean-power economy, but climate change turns out to be a hoax, what would be the result? Well, during a transition period, we would have higher energy prices. But gradually we would be driving battery-powered electric cars and powering more and more of our homes and factories with wind, solar, nuclear and second-generation biofuels. We would be much less dependent on oil dictators who have drawn a bull’s-eye on our backs; our trade deficit would improve; the dollar would strengthen; and the air we breathe would be cleaner. In short, as a country, we would be stronger, more innovative and more energy independent.

We couldn’t have said it better.

By Samuel I. Schwartz and Morgan Whitcomb

The prophet, Yogi Berra once said, “The future ain’t what it used to be.” For those of us in the infrastructure world, Yogi Berra was not only prescient but, as he might say himself, able to predict the future. How else can we explain 100 year storms that occur every 10 years or so, or that bridges built to last 100 years will only see their 60th birthday?

A terrific example of how time ‘sped up’ in the past century, is a review of construction of New York City’s Second Avenue subway now in its 71st year since being proposed in 1929 (there have been many starts and stops). By the time the subway line opens, it will already be at risk for flooding in a storm surge. In 1929, no one could have guessed that global temperatures would rise 1.33°F by the end of the century and are projected to rise 10°F in the next. When tunneling finally began in 1972, only a few scientists were thinking that the world might be in danger. At the time of the most recent groundbreaking in 2007, we had already realized that sea levels will rise and that serious weather events like storm surges and hurricanes will occur with greater frequency.

The 2nd Avenue Subway, along with other transportation and civil engineering infrastructure, are designed against failure events according to their frequency. The 100-year storm is a mainstay in structural design. The 2nd Avenue subway, and most other civil infrastructure, was designed to resist a storm that should occur only every 100 years. Recently, experts are discovering that the “100-year storm” as we thought of it before, will begin happening more often, anywhere from every 40 to even every 4 years.

This and other effects of climate change need to be considered and planned for immediately without waiting for the code to catch up with reality and for lessons to be learned the hard way. Without thoughtful design and planning, great infrastructure projects of today may be investments in future disasters with monstrous repairs and rebuilds.
The infrastructure of yesterday is yet another problem we have to face. A few years ago, the New York City subway system was shut down for hours just due to heavy rain. A Category 1 storm surge would put dozens of subways stations underwater. And it’s not just underground transportation infrastructure that is at risk. There are high winds in storms that will rattle our already shaky bridges and buildings, waves which will send debris into our bridge piers and ports, floods that will wash away our roads and permafrost melting underneath Alaska.

A study released earlier this year written by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and partly by the US Department of Transportation only begins to address these concerns. Its main finding on transportation infrastructure is this: there are no studies in existence which analyze land elevation, population and infrastructure distribution accurately enough for local and region planning and decision-making. It also points out the severe consequences of this lack of knowledge. Even when small stretches of road or rail are hit by floods or storm surges, the effect ripples throughout the region. If a few meters of a highway leading to a major port are closed, the delivery of basic goods is crippled. A storm surge can reduce the clearance under a bridge, preventing imports from reaching our ports. Flooded roads will stop people from evacuating.

States need to know what will happen to their infrastructure when a climate change event occurs, how often events will occur and how to mitigate damages and disruptions and even prevent them altogether. Comprehensive studies, like the ones that the US EPA says we need, can give states the information they require to plan. The plans can include many mitigations, like how and where to evacuate, where will trucks be rerouted, which waterfront areas need to be protected by coastal engineering measures, which roads should be moved, raised, protected or redesigned. Even more importantly, it can also guide current and future infrastructure investments and repairs. Design criteria can be established so we don’t keep building vulnerable transportation infrastructure.

Some places aren’t waiting for anyone to tell them how to plan for the future. Alaska already knows that the effects of climate change will cause $40 billion in replacements and repairs in its transportation and utilities infrastructure by 2030. New York State is using the expertise of universities to find out how much damage will be done to transportation and communications infrastructure from events like storm surges and freezing rain. Studies need to be performed for every state and region and the information gathered should be synthesized and distributed.

There are federal guidelines for “State Climate Action Plans.” The plans are focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which is an imperative. But we are already beyond a few climate milestones and change is coming, no matter how many bus fleets we convert to hybrid electrics, how many bikes lanes we create or how many states adopt taxes on Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT). These action plans need to react to the consequences of climate change, in addition to efforts to slow it. The federal guidelines can include guidance for completing the studies that are necessary for local planning and options for subsidizing or funding these studies. States can also be compelled to act responsibly. To stir the movement toward responsible planning and design, federally funded transportation projects should be required to have the effects of climate change considered in the design. If we don’t act soon to understand how our transportation infrastructure will be impacted by climate change we could, quite literally, be under water.

We work for an engineering consulting company specializing in infrastructure. Everywhere we go people are asking us about how much of a boon the stimulus plan (formally the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, (ARRA)) has been for us. They seem surprised when we respond it has had little or no impact on our business. For us it conjures up the image of the famed Wendy’s commercial from the 1980’s used to blast the size of its competitors’ hamburgers with the question, “Where’s the beef?” Walter Mondale, on his way to the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination attacked opponent Senator Gary Hart with the same query.

In searching for the beef, one finds that although ARRA is a $787 billion program only about $130 billion or 17% is for infrastructure. Because construction takes more time to “rev up” compared to social programs, the 2009 share for public works is even less. The Government Accountability Office’s (GAO’s) latest bi-monthly report on the Recovery Act estimates that by the end of the 2009 fiscal year, 6% of recovery spending would be given to Highways Infrastructure Investment. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) reallocated $61-million (1.2% of 2009 fiscal year spending) to the Federal Transit Authority for transit projects. The bulk (76%) of the spending is going towards Medicaid and the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund.

ARRA has clearly created a windfall for paving contractors. Almost half the highway funds go towards pavement improvement, and 23% to pavement widening and new pavement. Another 12.5% goes toward bridge construction, replacement and improvement. The amount outlaid to highways this early in the game is not a surprise given the “shovel ready” requirement of the Recovery Act. The GAO points this out and observes that most of these pavement projects can be planned, engineered and executed within three years. Repaving the country clearly puts people to work (The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee attributed 48,000 jobs to ARAA by June 30th) but does it improve our country and help the economy in the long run?

We maintain that the shovel-ready paving jobs most likely were the easy ones to do (i.e. the road surfaces were a little cracked and uneven); really “bad” roads (having subsurface problems, safety hazards, going over bridges) would have required time-consuming engineering and are probably left to rounds 2 and 3 of ARRA. We offer reservations on the long-term economic impact of current ARRA spending on infrastructure for two main reasons. The current transportation bill just expired on September 30th and it could take months or even a year or longer for a new bill to be passed. Simultaneously, in a penny-wise pound foolish approach, half the states are cutting their transportation programs due to dire finances. This double-whammy could cause a drop in overall spending.

The good news for our quality of life is that nearly half the states are looking to improve and add rail transit. In July, states had submitted “pre-applications” for $102.5 billion to the Federal Railroad Administration for ARRA dollars. In August, about 20 states had submitted applications totaling around $7 billion. The ‘winners’ will be announced in October. But still rail spending appears to be a pittance compared to highway expenditures.

This is a shame, because the rail apportionment is the most forward-looking of the programs, and allows for work to continue for a decade. As opposed to the “shovel-ready” requirement of the FHWA dollars, it provides money for advanced planning, but only 50 cents on the dollar compared to 100% federal funding for construction. We think this is a mistake. It is the advanced planning and engineering that unleashes the progressive ‘big bucks.’

The ‘sexiest’ projects to come out of ARRA will be the high-speed rail corridors. Texas, surprisingly, has taken the lead in this race with the $1.7 billion “Texas T-Bone” plan connecting Dallas, San Antonio and Houston. California, New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania are among the states in the “hunt” for high-speed rail.

Not all ARRA funding is going towards hot-shot transit projects through the rail grant. We call for a leveling of the playing field when it comes to funding bus rapid transit (BRT) versus light rail. Until now buses were less efficient and more polluting than rail. But, the 2010 BRT vehicles match light rail for speed (when dedicated right-of-way is provided), pollution and energy use. They can be built at about a third the cost of light rail, and it is possible to take these projects from concept to completion in a short amount of time. Nonetheless, light rail can be a better choice for very heavy used corridors on city streets, like Manhattan’s 42nd Street, for the fact that on-street rail is less likely to be blocked by cars than bus lanes.

Highway projects can also have some pizzazz if they are thoughtful and reflect the need for our country to become more energy efficient and to lower our carbon footprint. We urge a “complete streets” approach to highway construction in which transit, pedestrians and bike riders are seriously considered in the design. Complete streets are also a smart investment (i.e. American Reinvestment and Recovery Act), as economic returns from transportation investments which are multi-modal and connect people to regional cores can have returns up to 100 more than other investments. Had Robert Moses, New York’s legendary bridge builder in the mid-twentieth century, thought in complete streets terms he would never have built the Verrazano Bridge in 1964 with no rail, bike access or sidewalks. As a sidebar, every major New York City bridge built prior to 1910 had rail; no bridges built in the past century have had rail! New streets design should also address other 21st century threats to quality of life, by being built completely from the sub-ground up, with trees to improve air quality and porous pavements or water capturing systems to prevent flooding and water pollution.

Speaking of bridges, we have a hefty bill just to get our bridges out of the “structurally deficient” categorically (12% of the nation’s bridges or more than 72,000 structures are rated as such). The federal program has historically supported the very expensive rehab of bridges but not the very efficient low-cost maintenance programs. We urge the feds to reinforce good maintenance for federal dollars.

ARRA has reached the six month milestone with mixed results for the public works of our country. The beef may be thin but we are guardedly optimistic that thicker burgers are on their way. And in our opinion we will have lots of toppings offered for rail passengers, bus riders, pedestrians, bikers and bridge builders. This may just be the best burger ever!

Two years ago, during the Wednesday evening rush hour in Minneapolis on August 1, the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 145.

Have we learned any lessons from this tragedy that help make us safer today?

Regrettably, the answer is no.

Built in 1967, the I-35W bridge is one of more than 12,800 bridges standing today designed as “fracture-critical” structures. Built for cost and construction efficiency, these bridges lacked redundancies. That means that the failure of any single structural component from corrosion, excess weight, or design or construction error, could cause the entire bridge to collapse.

In November, 2008, a National Transportation Safety Board report placed primary responsibility for the failure on improperly thin gusset plates, the steel plates fastening two or more beams together.

However, the report failed to explain the lack of action after photographs taken in 1999 and 2003 showed that these gusset plates had bent.

The state transportation department had used federal remediation funds received for the bridge in 1991 and had rated I-35W “poor” from a structural standpoint since 1993. Nonetheless, on the day of the collapse, state engineers had permitted construction crews to pile more than 587,000 pounds of roadbed material on a portion of the bridge positioned over the damaged gusset plates.

Lingering questions extend beyond the four-decade-long puzzle of why a fracture-critical bridge — with steel plates that were apparently too thin — did not fail for 40 years after it was built.

Why did inspectors not flag the bent plates and the too-thin plates and urge action? When consultants in 2006 recommended that the bridge needed to be repaired or replaced, why was the project designated a “budget buster” by state transportation officials and scheduled for replacement in 2020?

And what about new engineering reports that differ dramatically with the NTSB findings? These reports indicate that the failure was not triggered by faulty gusset plates but by frozen bearings that did not allow the bridge to expand in the summer heat.

Nationwide, inspection programs are largely visual and typically subjective. And while technology exists that can measure subtle, unusual movements in bridges, spot cracks in steel before they are visible, and acoustically “listen” to bridges to identify changes in patterns and much more, few state transportation agencies employ these tools. These technologies cost relatively little and would save hundreds of millions of dollars annually if widely adopted. (Disclosure: One of the authors owns shares in a company that makes these instruments).

There are now 72,000 structurally deficient bridges nationwide, a figure inclusive of the 12,800 “fracture-critical” structures cited above. At the very least, the collapse should have spurred the NTSB to call upon every state with similarly designed bridges to take immediate steps to rectify their deficiencies.

Disturbingly, I-35W was not an isolated case: studies show that nearly 600 American bridges have failed since 1989.

Previous generations starved bridges of adequate maintenance funds. Today, that bill is coming due. America spends about two percent of our GDP on infrastructure. China spends 9 percent and most of Europe invests 4-5 percent.

According to House Appropriations Committee figures, the President’s stimulus-focused infrastructure program allocates $52.7 billion toward transportation-related projects. But this is largely a job stimulus program that aims to do relatively little about infrastructure repair and maintenance.

We are nowhere near investing the amounts needed to address our ailing infrastructure. In 2005, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated the cost of bringing America’s infrastructure up to standard at $1.6 trillion. In 2009, the organization put the figure at $2.2 trillion. The longer the delay, the higher the cost — and the higher the chance of another calamity.

As we mark the second anniversary of the Minneapolis tragedy, our public officials ought to honor the memory of those who died by taking proper steps to prevent future such disasters.

- – - – - -

Barry B. LePatner, Esq., is founding partner of LePatner & Associates, LLP, a New York City law firm that specializes in construction. He is the author of Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets: How to Fix America’s Trillion Dollar Construction Industry, (University of Chicago Press, 2007) and the forthcoming book Roadblock: America’s Failing Infrastructure and the Way Forward, to be published by the University of Chicago Press.

Samuel I. Schwartz is president of Sam Schwartz Engineering, PLLC, a Professional Engineer and was New York City Department of Transportation Chief Engineer from 1986-1990. In 1988 he ordered the closing of the Williamsburg Bridge because of structural deficiencies.