The current process for federal infrastructure investment stems from a time when construction of the national highway system was the nation’s primary infrastructure objective. The highway system enabled the efficient movement of goods, people, and ideas across the nation. In the past half-century, however, our nation’s infrastructure investment needs have changed significantly. Energy, water, and telecommunications have joined the list of pressing infrastructure priorities.
Within transportation, greater demand for transportation options like transit, rail, and aviation has increased the need for projects that connect different modes. The growth of urban areas has been accompanied by increases in accident rates, congestion, freight delays, and pollution.
Several barriers hinder the ability of federal infrastructure programs to address these challenges:
- Cost effectiveness evaluations of projects are often done poorly or are limited to comparing projects of like kind.
- Federal programs fail to consider the impact of infrastructure decisions on other sectors or broader policy goals. For instance, highway construction is viewed solely as a transportation project, with little attention to the project’s implications for economic development, land use and energy conservation.
- Regional projects that cross state lines are often neglected in the formula-driven allocation and decision model of infrastructure spending.
- Federal transportation funds in particular are siloed by mode, with separate programs for highways, bridges, rail, and transit. This stovepiping makes it difficult to fund intermodal transportation projects or compare projects of different modes.
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