[sustran] USA - "How Should the (Transportation) Infrastructure Stimulus Be Spent?"

[Eric Britton]

Michael Replogle, Transportation Director Environmental Defense Fund, draws
our attention to an article and "insider discussion" on the topic of "How
Should the (Transportation) Infrastructure Stimulus Be Spent?".  You can see
the discussions thus far, including his submittal to it, if you click to
http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/2008/12/how-should-infrastructure-
stimulus-be-spent.php 

 

I invite you to have a look and if you have any thoughts on the overall
thrust of the articles and comments, it would be good to hear from you here
on the New Mobility Café.  You may wish to try as well to see if you can
post them to their program site.  (I could not see quite how that works.)

 

A quick comment if I may: Clearly when you have the title "infrastructure"
right in the middle it more or less automatically channels people's thoughts
to I infrastructure, and with the exception of Michael’s submittal and
possibly one or two others, just about every one of those insiders is
focusing on what we might call the product end as opposed to the service end
of our mobility systems.  Something like supply-siders if you will. Thus you
have lots of talk about the importance of roads, highways, bridges, and
various permutations of transportation hardware, along with the occasional
call for support to "transit agencies".  I for one would like to see this
debate -- but more important the much broader debate which is taking place
in the run-up to the new administration in the United States -- expand to
take a new mobility perspective as we understand it here.

 

To make this point let me close this out with a quick report on a word count
exercise that I ran over the content of this article and various
contributors.  Just below I have taken some of the terms that cropped up
most frequently in their home page.  Not surprisingly the word
infrastructure is right up there at the top of the list. And then . . . 

 

·         Infrastructure (46)

·         Investment (29)

·         Road (19)

·         Highway (18)

·         Billion (18)

·         Transit (15)

·         Energy (12)

·         Bridges (5)

·         Clean (5)

 

Then I have run a quick frequency count for the kinds of things that we talk
about most in these new mobility conversations. Here is how this end of the
list looked:

 

·         Alternatives (1) 

·         Biking (1

·         Bus (1)

·         Railways (1)

·         Sidewalk (1)

·         Carshare

·         Child, children

·         Elderly

·         Handicap

·         Man

·         Needy

·         Neighborhood

·         Pedestrian

·         People

·         Public space 

·         Tram

·         Walk

·         Women

 

Now, does that mean anything?  Perhaps I am being unfair and beside the
point.  I count on you to put me straight.

 

Once again, comments and suggestions on this are welcome.  

 

Eric Britton

 

PS.  The above exercise is not quite complete, though I certainly feel that
the thrust of the arguments holds overall.  Because of the page layout those
frequency scans were run only on the opening half of the articles in all
cases.  One exception is Michael Replogle’s full piece, in which he looks
specifically at the question “Will reckless stimulus investment threaten to
undo the cap?”  In his piece you will see references to sidewalks, bike
lanes, light rail, local street and transit improvements, and emphasis on
supporting local government in its key role.  So all is not lost but it
certainly points up the extent to which this debate is, may I say, being
pretty heavily dominated by the old thinking.  Hmm. Best we find a way to
edge  in here?

 

 

 

 

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