That’s what the ULI is saying. We’ve got a backlog of about $800 per person in this region, for about $800 per person. Seems low: that’s only about $3 billion, the 520 bridge and the viaduct are each more than that. Dallas-Fort Worth is second at about $400 per person, so we’re twice as bad as the next worst.
American cities are falling behind Asia and Europe in investing in roads, transit, bridges and other systems needed for growing populations, the study said.
Among U.S. cities/metro areas studied, the Seattle-Puget Sound area’s infrastructure-funding gap was nearly twice that of Dallas-Fort Worth, which was second at nearly $400 per capita. ULI, a nonprofit education and research institute that focuses on land-use, population growth, urban planning and the environment, worked with financial consultants Ernst & Young to produce the 60-page study.
“By 2040, the population of the Seattle area is projected to grow by 1.7 million new people, with 1.2 million new jobs … that’s like dropping the population of greater metropolitan Portland into the Puget Sound area,” John Hempelmann, co-vice chairman of the Reality Check Task Force for ULI Seattle, said Wednesday.
“That’s a big number, and a huge challenge, given the lack of infrastructure capacity and lack of funding.”
America is losing the transportation race quickly. If you go to Singapore, China, France, Korea or practically anywhere else the airports are nicer, the trains are nicer, sometimes even the highways are nicer, and it’s generally easier to get around than in most US cities, wonder why? Infrastructure spending:
“It’s kind of discouraging,” he told the audience, that in 1960, the U.S. spent 12 percent of its gross domestic product on infrastructure and now spends 2.4 percent. Japan spends 10 percent, China 9 percent and India 4.6 percent, Hudnut said.
Earlier this year, he said, a bipartisan congressional commission estimated the U.S. needs to spend at least $225 billion annually on transportation systems alone “just to catch up and keep pace with the rest of the world.”It shows in Americans’ daily lives. Europeans are connecting major cities using high-speed trains traveling 200 mph, Hudnut said.
But Seattle-area drivers spent about 45 hours in traffic delays in 2005 — more than a week of vacation — in contrast to 12 hours in 1982, according to the report.
Some are hoping for a reauthorization of the depleted federal Highway Trust Fund in November 2009, but with a shifted focus from cars to transit.
That’d be a start. But we’d also need to start approving funding for these project on a local level. Let’s hope ST2 gets through this year…
I keep wanting to put the GDP thing into perspective. So lets say we spend 10% of GDP on Transportation. Let’s say 20% of that goes to transit. Where would that leave us? $262 Billion based on $13.13 Trillion GDP(2006). Now APTA says that we spent $42 Billion in 2005 on capital and operations. That is a big difference! 523% increase. Which means…we’re ridiculously behind!
“If you go to Singapore, China, France, Korea or practically anywhere else the airports are nicer the trains are nicer and it’s generally easier to get around than in most US cities, wonder why? Infracstructure spending.”
But what is the reason for the difference in infrastructure spending? Why aren’t we spending 10% of GDP on transportation? What is the root cause of why we’re so different from the rest of the world on this? The answers go beyond transportation and hint at why we’re in Iraq, among many other things.
AKA “Tim Eyman’s Legacy”
What’s perhaps interesting to note is that we spend 2.4% of out GDP on infrastructure but what percentage is federal funding and what are state and local authorities. We all know that federal authorities provide all the capital costs for building but just what amount do they provide for operating. If I had to guess it’s probably so insignificant it’s disgusting.
pitch, federal agencies provide a SMALL minority of capital costs.
Also some comparison numbers.
United States – 315 Billion
Japan – 430 Billion
China – 292 Billion
India – 46 Billion
Yea we spend a lot on it already, but we are such a large country and our economy is twice as large as any other country. We need to start spending more.
Those numbers are great, pitch.
Also, $315 billion goes a lot less far in the US than $292 billion does in a cheaper country like China, or than $430 billion does in a smaller country like Japan.
This Friedman piece says it better than I did:
few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.
How could this be? We are a great power. How could we be borrowing money from Singapore? Maybe it’s because Singapore is investing billions of dollars, from its own savings, into infrastructure and scientific research to attract the world’s best talent — including Americans.
And us? Harvard’s president, Drew Faust, just told a Senate hearing that cutbacks in government research funds were resulting in “downsized labs, layoffs of post docs, slipping morale and more conservative science that shies away from the big research questions.” Today, she added, “China, India, Singapore … have adopted biomedical research and the building of biotechnology clusters as national goals. Suddenly, those who train in America have significant options elsewhere.”
Oops I didn’t mean to say all, but they do provide more than a SMALL amount. A lot of projects are funded 80% fed / 20% local if they meet the qualifications.
I agree with the article. That’s one of the downfalls in this area. Sure we like to think we’re progressive, but that’s just that. WE THINK. Since most of the delays are just a constant local bickering over how far we build, bang for the buck, taxes, etc etc, I think the Federal Government should step in and just pay for the dang thing. I almost laughed when Hilary Clinton said she’ll increase Federal funding of public transit by a whopping $1.5 billion a year. So sad.
I just read the comments that were attached with that article. How can people be so opposed to rail transit? It’s like they ignore all the facts about it and would rather drive in their 3 ton H2 rolling down the road going 75 getting 8mpg and paying $8/gallon for gas. Do they not view the future that lies ahead for American if we do not change our living habits?
pitch, I haven’t seen an 80/20 project in this area since we shot down Forward Thrust in ’68 and ’70.
Central Link, for instance, got $500m of some $2 billion total, and University Link should get $750m of $1.6-1.7b – so a range of something like 20% to 40%.
40% is a large minority, but 20% is fairly small. We won’t see anything else funded like University Link in the near future – it’s got the best cost per new transit rider of any transit project in the US in recent history.
Ben-
I think a Ballard-downtown route throught Belltown and lower queen anne would get a ton of new riders and would qualify fo a $750mn grant. though it would likely cost a lot more than just $1.75bn
Portland did get away with the 80/20 thing on Max, but it’s not as good a system as Link is.
Besides funding, how is it that we in the United States always seem to pay so much for the little improvements. Countries in Germany, France, Spain have all designed and created Light Rail lines for around $10mil/mile. I don’t think we have to go cheap, I just think we wouldn’t have so much apprehension towards it if we could build rail for that cost. Austin’s LRT Line is being built for under $10mil/mile but it’s going to be a pretty terrible service with only peak hour service one-way.
Not only do we need to increase our funding we should also try to increase our efficiency while we are at it. Stop funding light rail programs that are a joke like Austin’s and build elaborate all-four systems in every major country in the US.
Ben,
I know it is sometimes rare but a lot of the funding for large projects come from the federal or state governments. Occasionally, state sales taxes help with the construction. The current administration has pushed BRT so much for the past 8 years that the few Light Rail projects that are being funded usually aren’t from the federal govt.
Well, the fact is that people just don’t get it yet. The military budget we can see has gone from something like $420 billion to about $670 billion for the next year. Treating drugs as a law enforcement problem instead of a medical problem costs us about $50 billion per year. However, after the military budget, our “private enterprise” medical system is the most expensive item- countries like France spend about 10% of their GDP providing universal coverage, while we spend 15% of our GDP on healthcare that leaves 47 million people uninsured at some point during any given year. IOW, a universal coverage system like that of France or Germany would save us about $700 billion per year.
What does a billion buy? About ten 20-mile light rail systems. I’ll let someone else do the math for solar power or wind farms, suffice it to say we could still prevent global warming and wean ourselves from world oil markets if we had the political will.
But the supposedly “serious” types still walk around acting like it would be some kind of crazy leftwing idea to look at what we’re actually buying, and ask if we need it or can afford it.
This isn’t a movie- there’s no guarantee that things will have a happy ending. In fact, at this point we might remember that Mussolini’s Abyssinian adventure eventually had 400,000 Italian troops protecting 250,000 Italian colonists, and the Italians built modern roads in Abyssinia while in Italy people were still using mules to carry goods to market on mountain paths. All for the glory of Italy. Ring any bells?
What we need is a total housecleaning at the federal DOT, a Democratic Congress cranking out funding for transit, and a Democratic president signing the bills as fast as they come to his desk, while other Congressional committees prune the military budget like a grapevine and pass universal healthcare.
Are we going to get that? Your guess is as good as mine. But I’ve got a pretty good idea about what hasn’t worked in the past.
Projects haven’t been funded at 80/20 since before 2000. And in the last few years anything over 50% is fairly amazing. This is the problem that I see. Roads don’t have as stringent of rules for funding as transit because they have unlimited funding. At least until now. The trust fund is set to run out of money. But the line for transit is 50 years long and the Bushies have been suffocating it because they say there aren’t anymore projects to build. That’s BS but its what we are up against. Catowner is right, we need to clean house at the FTA and DOT.
How much of the light rail is done in Seattle? I know that it is almost done except the last leg to the airport from Tukwila. Is the tunnel station in Beacon Hill almost ready to go? It looks like they are ahead of schedule.
The Westlake-to-Tukwila portion of Link light rail is still on schedule to open In July 2009, as per the timetable adopted in 2001. There are only 9 days of “float” left in the schedule, however, so there’s not a lot of room for error. The Airport extension is still on schedule to open in December 2009, in time to help accommodate Olympic Winter Games traffic in Feb. 2010 in British Columbia.
Pitch, what year dollars are your $10m/mile numbers in? Sure, at-grade rail can be very cheap, BUT:
-not when we’re replacing the roadway and utilities at the same time, which is also necessary in a lot of the US right now
-not when you’re talking about 1985 dollars. ;)
Well I guess it could be 10 million Euros per track mile which is 15 million american dollars per mile which is $30 million dollars per mile with two way track.
And Actually, Little Rock built their .5 mile extension to the Clinton Library for $8 million or $16 million per mile. It can be done, we just need not over engineer these things.
Germany has been able to do $10m/mile Light Rail lines in some areas. In fact Austin’s LRT is going to be under that number, but the service is going to be very poor so I don’t think it counts. We can easily do $10m/mile light rail if we actually put our mind to it. So much time and money is wasted on fighting NIMBYs and other barriers that our costs increase greatly.
Madrid built a light metro system for under $50m/mile. MetroSur was built for just over $1bil and it’s 25miles long and almost completely underground. Central Link costs $2.4bil for have the distance and most of it isn’t underground.
It’s just amazing that we have such difficulties in every step with building these things.