Infrastructure spending must have a goal

First published at ITS America - June 6, 2019

Too often the conversation about infrastructure spending is how much and not about the goal of the spending, according to panellists during a Tuesday debate. You can spend as much money as you like on building new transport infrastructure but unless it is focused for an outcome, it will always be an incredible waste of taxpayer monies.

There is also a tendency to spend the money on new-build rather than maintaining current infrastructure, said Beth Osborne, director of Transportation for America, an alliance of elected business and civic leaders across the US.

It comes down to having a transport policy and sticking to it, said Osborne, speaking during the session about how government at all levels can encourage intelligent mobility through shared modes.

One of the first steps is for governments to do a social benefit-cost analysis over 30 years, said Gabe Klein, co-founder of transportation consultancy Cityfi and formerly commissioner of the Chicago Department of Transportation. Such an analysis should look to recoup the initial capital cost of projects. “The bottom line is to stop spending money unless you can see a full return on investment,” he told the audience. If you want people to choose socially acceptable transportation options, then you have to give the people a good choice of them. Klein said he would happily cut in half the available space for single-occupancy vehicles and boost that for high-occupancy vehicles. There are still too many transport policies that result in getting people to where they don’t necessarily need to go, said Joe McAndrew, transport policy director at Greater Washington Partnership.