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    We Built This Country on Infrastructure



    See more great art by Swedish artist Johan Thörnqvist at his website.

    While we argue over who deserves to say what to whom, our country is falling apart. In the 2011 Infrastructurist Forum Part II, highly-educated policy wonks try to figure out how to get government to invest in infrastructure for the rest of us:

    Christopher Leinberger, Visiting Fellow at Brookings, Founding Director of the Real Estate Program at the University of Michigan, and author of The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream :

    First and most important, we need to realize that there is an infrastructure crisis. The U.S. has been investing less than 2% of GDP annually in our infrastructure, which does not even maintain what we currently have. Europeans spend 5% and China 8%…we are being lapped. ...

    Second, the country is broke, and the Feds should understand what match they can provide; the days of 50-80% matches are long over — better to get real and provide 20-33% with the matches being the same for all modes.

    Finally, the Federal government should use the one thing it still has in abundance: credit enhancement. Through TIFIA or a national infrastructure bank, provide local and state governments, who have conducted their blueprint planning, with partial credit enhancement for transportation bonding.



    Joel Kotkin, author of The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050 and The City: A Global History :

    America has pressing infrastructure needs — driven by long-standing inattention as well as the demands of a growing population. Yet at the same time, our budget deficit threatens the very basis of our future and competitive position.

    This means we have to look at investment in infrastructure in a practical way. For example, the President’s obsession with high speed rail seems misplaced; it would serve few people, is fantastically expensive and will take a long time to construct. There are more immediate investments that make more sense for the economy: improvements of ports, roads, bridges, existing rail systems and water systems. These are needed now for our competitiveness and for the growth of our highly dispersed, highly diversified economy. ...

    Longer term, we should look at how to tax carbon in a slow, but increasing rate, which would give us time to shift to natural gas based power while using some of the funds for new research in conservation and renewables. This would be a pragmatic approach which might not please the green or coal/oil lobby but might benefit the country in the short, medium, and longer run.



    Deron Lovaas, Federal Transportation Policy Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council :

    First, ensure the federal program does no harm. Neglect by state transportation departments and politicians’ preference for flashy new projects instead of essential maintenance have put existing assets in danger of collapsing, as happened with the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis in 2007. Travelers across America are subject to similar dangers. An eye-popping 500 bridges failed between 1989 and 2003, and nearly 8,000 other bridges face the same issues as the I-35W bridge. Roads and transit also suffer from disrepair no one would tolerate in their own home.

    As such, we need a strong “fix-it-first” rule. Substantial investment should be allocated exclusively to repairs, and states and regions must meet a “state of good repair” performance standard to receive further funding. The era of wasteful earmarks such as the infamous “bridge to nowhere” must give way to a ensuring the safety of Americans by fixing our decaying infrastructure.



    William Schroeer, Policy and Research Director, Smart-Growth America :

    The most important action we can take is to transparently prioritize investments. Not because we “can’t afford” a certain level of spending, but because we can never afford to waste money. And that’s what we are now doing. AASHTO, in their report “Rough Roads Ahead,” says  that”$1 spent in keeping a good road good precludes spending $6-$14 to rebuild one that has deteriorated.” Anyone would love a 600% to 1400% return in an investment portfolio. Why do we not get those returns? Because we chase 16% returns. According to the Eno Foundation, annual return on highway investment peaked in the 1950s and ’60s at 35% to 48% but has dropped steadily since, to 10-16% in the 1980s. Letting repair costs go up 400% so we can get a 16% return wastes money.



    The common, and stunningly obvious, theme is that we are costing ourselves more in the long run by not maintaining what we have right now. But looking at the comments section, the conversation turns to the problems of ... wait for it ... union contractors and bidding practices.

    Chris Philips says:

    ... I’ve been numbed by the Washington State model, which involves choosing the highest bidder, reducing the scope of the project, then going back to the taxpayer for surprise 70 percent overrun. maybe in other parts of the country these things work better.



    Alon Levy says:

    Oh, hell, no. Things in much of the rest of the country work worse. In New York, they’re legally obligated to pick the lowest bidder. There’s no leeway allowed for quality and track record, so the MTA writes over-exacting specs to cover all its bases, as a result of which competent contractors avoid bidding and seek private sector work instead. Many contracts get just one bid, from companies like Skanska, which is currently facing trial for bribery in Argentina.

    If you look for competence in English-speaking countries, you’ll have to look very hard, and you won’t find it in the US. You’ll find bits and pieces in Canada and New Zealand, and a little in Australia. Calgary tends to build things cheaply just by planning ahead and reserving right-of-way ahead of time.


    Having to pick the lowest bidder has always been a problem in construction. I was walking a site with one of my first bosses once and he spoke briefly with a subcontractor. As we walked away he said, "Strictly From Hunger." He explained that it meant people who have no real skill, they just work for the money. Low bidders do often seem to spend more time trying to justify change orders than executing the project.

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    Comments

    So you'd rather Democrats go back to the Senate in Wisconsin and allow Republicans to gut unions?  That would be the better option?

    I'm well off and would not be financially affected by such attrocious legislation.  However I have respect for folks who would be.

    You clearly have none.


    I'm going to assume you posted this in the wrong place because your comment has nothing to do with what I posted..


    Oh that tricky reply dialog box...

    Having, with difficulty, fought down the impulse to post the Starship's rejoinder that we built this city on rock and roll, I am moved to refer back to my fantasy State of the Union post where Prez addresses just this issue (and when I wrote it, I had no idea about the 500 bridges--my eyes are popping)

    I was just pulling stuff out of my ass, but this post puts flesh on the bones, to mix metaphors..

    How is this not a FEMA worthy emergency?


    Low bidders do often seem to spend more time trying to justify change orders than executing the project.

    This strikes me as key to something bigger. In that sometimes hiring the more expensive guy ends up cheaper and more efficient in the end. Don't know how to express it well yet.

    Strikes me that environmentalists (used for want of a better word) and teaming up with the build-build-build-make-make-make-tear-down-build-again (you know, like China) crowd and it could bite them in the ass. Making for jobs, yes. Sustainable environment, maybe not so much (like China.)

    In checking Wisconsin media lately because of the union thing, it was interesting to run across some in agreement with Walker's turning down of the Federal rail project that were not all what I would expect. More like the anti-development crowd, the country mouse vs. the city mouse, the ones that hate those city folk coming and tearing up the woods with their snowmobiles....they'd probably be happy if you demolished Ike's interstate, too, go back to just having those leisurely state highways (where your only choice was locally produced food.)


    What we like to see is a tight group of bids. If someone is way low, it tells me they missed something. If someone is way high, it tells me they didn't have time to bid and threw a safe number at it to be courteous. But convincing a client not to take the way low number is very hard.

    Some architects are trying to promote the cradle-to-cradle idea, but it hasn't caught on as well as LEED, which is more of a laundry list than a holistic approach.

    I've been meaning to post about the Landscape Urbanists vs New Urbanists struggle, which sounds something like what you describe.


    I am keen for the cradle to cradle notion but work in the ala carte world of the LEEDS approach. It sucks but is better than watching re-runs of Leave It To Beaver. It is also better than having no pressure on manufacturers to make better stuff.  That is to ask: How far is anybody from the Starving Man motivation?  The people who get to work in the fully prepared work place are very few.

    The structure of the deal regulates how things get designed. Change orders are not always about extracting profit from the lack of the client's foresight. Some clients create a situation by having work proceed before important matters are worked out.  Others don't.


    On some big public construction project (years ago, obviously), after all the bids were gathered, the lowest and the highest were thrown out of the contest.  I do not recall how the selection was then made, but I remember thinking at the time that tossing out the bid on either end as being a step in the right direction.

    The penny wise, pound foolish policies legislatures are now flinging at the public are insane.  It's too bad  common sense, as in maintaining and mending what infrastructure exists now and still functions well, ain't all that common.


    Low bidders do often seem to spend more time trying to justify change orders than executing the project.

    I recently left a defense contractor who did one better than justifying change orders...they were able to get the contract amended so they would still be paid for services rendered so long and system performance did not drop below 90% monthly.

    Here's the catch. So long as they kept a 90%+ performance level, they could ignore problems. There was one problem there before I arrived and still there when I left. I knew what was causing the problem was but everyone refused cooperate...I was told it wasn't my job. As long as the performance level was high enough no one cared even though pilot training was taking the hits due to non-performance of the system. A year after I left, their performance level did drop close to or just below the coveted 90% threshold and the company dispatched a team of engineers to fix the problem. This problem had a life span of 4 to 5 years before any action was taken on the part of the contractor to correct. In the meantime, pilot training was impacted as well as the fuel expended.

    It was definitely a low bid contract because I was working with the prime contractor few years earlier when the bidding was going full swing. One of the engineers I worked with was involved in the negotiations and he told me the other competitor was so hungry for the contract they were cutting everything to barebones where it would be a profit loser, not a profit maker.

    Of course, the USAF is quite happy with the performance of the low bidder, but completely unaware they're being charged engineer wages for people who are completely naive.


    Family faces $2,500 water bill — for leak not even on their property

    The Croskeys' saga started in March 2009, when Auburn's finance department tagged the family for a "possible leak" after their meter showed they were consuming more water than usual.

    The family was flagged for possible leaks eight months later, and again in January 2010. Last March, the "possible leak" became a certain leak when the meter showed the family had consumed about 547,000 gallons in two months. The family normally consumed from 9,000 to 11,000 gallons every two months.

    City utility technicians walked the yard at least twice and couldn't locate the leak, Croskey said. They found a section that appeared to be wetter than the surrounding area. After several hours of digging, there was still no sign of the source. A neighbor who'd had similar problems joined the search, and together they located a pool of water in a neighbor's yard, 2 to 7 feet behind a fence on Croskey's property line.

    "Are they saying I should have been looking in my neighbor's yard, too?" Croskey asked, noting the house behind his family's home had been empty all winter.

    The family's formal appeal of the bill, to a three-member committee composed of City Council members, resulted in the bureaucratic equivalent of "talk to the hand." The committee did not give a reason why it would not reduce the bill, and Councilman Rich Wagner, chairman of the Public Works Committee, did not respond to a call and e-mail to discuss the situation Friday.


    Donal,

    maybe you already know about this but in case you don't:

    http://www.observer.com/2011/real-estate/abcs-and-net-zeros-city-buildin...


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