From President-Elect Obama’s weekly address today:

Second, we will create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s. We’ll invest your precious tax dollars in new and smarter ways, and we’ll set a simple rule – use it or lose it . If a state doesn’t act quickly to invest in roads and bridges in their communities, they’ll lose the money .

Emphasis mine.  Good policy?  Sure.  But let’s just say that our 4 layers of local government and local-planning-by-ballot-measure may not hold up too well under these sorts of constraints.

No one tell the NIMBYs when the meetings are this time…

Image: Jon Lok, Seattle Times

UPDATE: It seems Brad at Seattlest made almost exactly the same point a few hours before I did.  Great minds think alike, I guess.

22 Replies to “Uh-oh.”

  1. Actually, what concerned me about that statement was the absence of the word “transit”. I don’t want to read too much into a simple statement that was meant to convey responsiveness (of the new administration) rather than lay out the core pillars of new policy. But it concerns me that-if taken at face value-we’re going to continue to pour massive billions of dollars into a transportation mode that is clearly on the downside of its utility curve…while rail continues to be left out in the cold.

    The federal government spends roughly $10bn a year on rail and bus systems nationwide. That’s it, and that needs to change radically.

    1. The New York Times article on the address specifically mentions mass transit (along with sewers and electrical grids) as things that will be included in the infrastructure plan. Since none of those were actually mentioned by Obama today, I’m assuming the NYT has better details on the plan itself.

    2. I’ve noticed this many times with regards to Obama and Transit. His policies seem to support it, and people on his team will assure us that he supports transit. But he seems to NEVER actually says it out loud himself, at least not since becoming president elect.

      1. That’s because it would be political suicide for him to make a big deal about it.

    3. I’ve noticed this many times with regards to Obama and Transit. His policies seem to support it, and people on his team will assure us that he supports transit. But he seems to NEVER actually say it out loud himself, at least not since becoming president elect.

  2. Yeah lets hope that Obama’s green dream isn’t rebuilding roads and making everybody drive fuel efficient cars.

    1. That’d be awesome, seriously, wouldn’t it? But given that the feds are already ponying up $813m, I can’t see it as a huge reality. I asked around and it didn’t seem very likely.

  4. I think it is good policy. First, it’s incentive to hurry up and will certainly cause projects to go to construction faster (as federal funds will mean the difference between being built and not). Second, there might be incentive at the federal level to have less pedantic EIS requirements which add years to a project’s lifetime. Third, it’s a stimulus plan for the next handful of years — so it’d be questionable to use political capital spent on getting a public works plan passed and then have those projects be delayed a half decade.

  5. Let’s remember that money is fungible. Right now, this region has several billion dollars worth of projects that are pretty much ready to go. It’s been a long time coming, but the viaduct battle in nearing and end, as is 520. Those two alone come to $7-8 billion. Obviously, ST acceleration could also make the boat, but let’s say 100% of Obama’s new money goes to the Viaduct and 520. Guess what: that’s still great news for transit, because now, the tax payers of this region don’t have to pay for those projects. The money that we would have spend on them is still in our pockets. That means, that the public hear will be more likely to vote to raise taxes for more transit, because we no longer have to use all our tax dollars on roads.

    Every dollar the feds spend, on anything, frees up local dollars to spend on something else.

    But the overall point of the post is well taken, if we want to see some trains here, we had better start pressuring local officials to get a plan worked out and in the cue so we can capture as much of those federal dollars as we can.

  6. Well, it’s also time to be a NIMBY if you don’t want a new freeway on the Seattle waterfront. As long as the state DOT is predicting increases in traffic, they will want to build more freeways.

  7. It seems clear that ‘projects ready to go’ will be the key in getting to the front of the public works project line. With that said, intercity rail has been sitting on the side lines for quite a while now. WSDOT-Rail Office has lots of projects, from rolling stock to grade crossings that both improve travel time to Portland and Blaine, improve safety, and increasing capacity in the process.
    Fewer cars and planes making the trip reduce energy consumption, CO2 emissions and increase jobs to make it all happen.
    Win, Win, Win. (and all three top priorities of the Obama Administration).
    I’m posting comments to the President Elect Obamas transition website. (CHANGE.GOV) They really do read them!
    The benefits of just doing Seattle to Portland, and getting the FRA to actually hold the railroads to the law of not curtailing passenger trains in favor of freight, are too numerous to list on this blog, but I’m sure you have your favorites!
    Mike

    1. Making intercity rail would be awesome. But not just intercity rail, high-speed intercity rail. Why are we constraining ourselves to working on BNSF and others railways? Is it “simply” the money involved in obtaining an additional right-of-way?

      The fact that Alaska Air flies to Portland once per hour shows there is quite a demand. It’s 175 miles to Portland. Imagine a train traveling at 180mph (which is about what the high-speed Euro trains travel at). Plane travel for that distance is laughable. Plus folks in other towns along the way can use it instead of driving to the airport or driving to Portland. Just hit the major cities, Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia-(Vancouver?)-Portland. OK, I’ll wake up now. That Ambien really gives you crazy dreams. :)

      Any sites or information anyone has about this sort of thing would be greatly appreciated.

      1. I agree that high speed rail is wonderful, but the operative word here is “PROJECTS READY TO GO”. High speed rail is years off just in the planning stages.
        Talgo trainsets and current FRA law allow for 100+ mph sections of track. That’s a huge leap over what it does now. All it takes is time and money to ‘get-er-done’.
        Seattle to Portland (city center to city center) in a couple of hours is within our grasp now and one of Alaska Airlines worst nightmares.
        Ft. Defiance bypass is nearly ready to go, as well as many other projects that benefit Sound Transit. Let’s go after the money, before we get too far back from the front of the line.

  8. Let’s just hope (like what others have said) local government bureaucracy doesn’t get in the way. Whatever happened to simplicity and majority rules? If the majority of people want a simple solution (like with the viaduct and 520), shouldn’t we get what we want, instead of listening to the 1% of people affected by such projects complain and forcing local governments to go back to the drawing board? I mean, just look at the new plans for 520 and the viaduct…YIKES!…..

    Just surface the viaduct & build a six-lane 520, all supplemented by TRANSIT. What’s the worse that could happen?

  10. My reaction to hearing the ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ policy was that the Governor and Legislature best past some SEPA sufficiency legislation early in the next session or public process will eat Washington State’s shot at infrastructure stimulus. This simply because the talking point about rpojects that will attract stimulus spending are ‘those that are ready to go’ (meaning, to me, that they’ve been through permitting and are in the process of contracting. The enviro’s will hate it, but SEPA is the State-level’s biggest environmental/procedural compliance step between planning and contracting and extremely time intensive for very little actual environmental benefit.

  11. For those who are interested, here’s the list of “ready to go” projects that the mayors turned over to Obama’s team.

    Not much for Seattle transit-wise (King St. station renovation), but fixing the Mercer St./I-5 intersection is on the list…

    1. Some other interesting stuff in there: adding a grade separation at Marginal Way, the Burke Gilman Trail missing link, the Spokane Street viaduct (plus bus lane), BAT lanes on Rainier in Renton, and what appears to be the Point Defiance Bypass (labelled as “D & M Street Railroad Bridge” under Lakewood).

Comments are closed.