National League of Cities: Congress Must Address Water Infrastructure

Michael Sesma, a member of the Gaithersburg, MD, city council, testified on behalf of the National League of Cities (NLC) behalf before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Environment and Economy. He asked the committee to "lead and serve the country by addressing the underlying issue of aging infrastructure and unmet infrastructure needs. This effort will strengthen the intergovernmental partnership by enabling our cities and towns, our states, and country to meet the challenges and opportunities of leading the world into the next century."

Additionally, Sesma testified on the importance of local governments in implementing federal environmental protection programs, serving as implementers of state and federal environmental policies and programs and with authority over local land use, zoning, and code development. He highlighted areas where the federal-state-local partnership led to improved environmental protection. Specifically:

• Federalism consultation - Consulting with cities earlier and more frequently on projects reduces the burden on local governments in both cost and regulatory requirements.
• Regulatory review - Looking at old and outdated regulations that add to the cost and paperwork burdens of cities. 
• Integrated planning - Allowing local governments to identify opportunities to achieve the requirements of the Clean Water Act in an affordable manner.

 The full testimony can be found at http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF18/20130215/100242/HHRG-113-IF18-Wstate-SesmaM-20130215.pdf. You can read the original NLC news release here→.

Book Review: The Big Roads by Earls Swift

Swift, Earl.  The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.

The American interstate system is often thought to be a product of the Eisenhower administration.  It’s named for him.  However, the nearly 47,000 miles of interstate were conceived largely before Eisenhower’s presidency.  Even as he observed the Army’s 62-day, cross-country convoy of 1919, engineers were laying the political and technical foundations of national highways.  Earl Swift tells this longer history of the interstates in The Big Roads.

When Americans began calling for better roads, the typical road was mud.  The loudest calls for better roads at the beginning of the 20^th Century were cyclists, especially the colorful Carl Fisher.  Fisher’s most famous work is the Indianapolis Speedway, where a popular 500-mile race continues to be run.  His promotion of the Lincoln Highway, the first coast-to-coast highway (at least on paper), provided an important antecedent to the interstates.

The Lincoln Highway Association operated on a system that informed later highway development.  Rather than build a huge new highway, it selected existing roads for improvement, joining them together in a highway.  New roads were built only if necessary.  The association, a private organization that raised private funds for road improvement and route promotion, was a model for later systems in another way.  The Lincoln Highway was built and improved in pieces by a number of local and state agencies.  The association provided a route, coordination, promotion, encouragement, and sometimes funding, but the road improvements were mostly local works.

Thomas MacDonald, an Iowa highway engineer, was using a similar model as he worked for that state.  He worked with city and county road departments to coordinate improvements leading to a statewide system of decent roads.  When he became director of the Office of Public Roads, he brought this model to the federal highway program, institutionalizing it in the Federal Aid system that began in 1916.

Of course, the U.S. highways that developed under this system were not like modern interstates.  They were open to anyone along them.  In rural areas, they might have been and often still are long ribbons of pavement crossed by the occasional farm road.  In cities, they became crowded with business, especially restaurants and gas stations, that slowed traffic to a crawl.  This problems gave rise to the concept of a limited-access highway, first proposed by Benton MacKaye, the conservationist who conceived the Appalachian Trail.

MacDonald and his engineers began working the concept.  His office produced a report, authored primarily by Hubert Sinclair Fairbanks, that laid out most of the current interstate system in 1938.  Fairbanks supported that idea that better roads might solve problems related to slums and blight in cities.  The recommendations of this report and a follow-up commission were largely implemented in law in 1944, when the term “interstate” first appeared in legislation.

The plans for an interstate system languished during World War II and the years immediately following.  Eisenhower comes into the picture at this time because he strongly supported funding for the interstate system.

Highway engineers saw themselves as providing a good and giving the people what they wanted.  Along the way, as Fairbanks suggested, they could clean up the cities.  As they began to implement their plans in earnest, opposition arose.

Swift gives particular attention to two interstate opponents.  Critic Lewis Mumford provided the intellectual and philosophical foundation for the Freeway Revolt.  Joe Wiles, a black professional and veteran, organized opposition to Interstate 70 in Baltimore which resulted in changes to the plan and help unite the white and black communities in that city.  The federal and state governments began to take seriously the possibility that interstates could have a negative impact on the communities near them

The intestate system, finally completed in the 1990s, is the largest public works project in history.  Now that it is built, it needs to be maintained.  It will be expensive: $225 billion a year for the next 50 years to keep it in good shape.  That is more than twice what we’re spending.  In addition, improved fuel efficiency and reduced driving prompted by the economic downturn has reduced gas tax revenues for the Highway Trust Fund.  In the near future, we may need to find new ways to pay for maintaining our transportation marvel.

The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Brooklyn Bridge by Judith St. George

Canals and Their Architecture by Robert Harris

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

The Great Bridge by David McCollough

On the Mainlines by William B. Claycomb

This review of The Big Roads by Earl Swift appears courtesy of Keenan’s Book Reviews, where you can reviews of other books related to engineering and technology.

President Calls for Transportation Funding to Stimulate Jobs Growth

In a recent speech, President Barack Obama indicated he plans to fund highway and bridge repair and rehabilitation as a way to increase jobs. He has called for this to be implemented legislatively through a six-year highway bill. Representative John Mica (FL), chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has indicated his willingness to consider a short-term reauthorization of the current highway bill. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has approved a bill to extend Federal-aid highway programs (S. 1525).

The president is not the only one to use the Labor Day holiday as an opportunity to call for infrastructure investment with an eye for increasing jobs. The American Institute of Architects and the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) released a joint statement calling for investment in a variety of infrastructure. AGC, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and the American Road and Transportation Builders Association called specifically for a six-year transportation bill.

Related posts and articles:
Another Temporary Extension as House and Senate Confront Their Differences
Boxer Files Highway Trust Fund Extension
Congress of Deadlines
Congress to Take Up Transportation Bill, Infrastructure Bank
GOP Questions Highway Plan
Highway Extension Bill Clears Senate Committee
Highway Fund in Continued Trouble; Empty by August
Oberstar Proposes to Float Loan to Highway Trust Fund
Returning to Dust: Our Aging Infrastructure
Senate EPW Approves Transportation Extension

Quick Hits

My blogging in IW has been pretty lazy lately. It’s going to be that way today, too. There is just too much interesting stuff going on in the world of infrastructure to wait until I have time to write about it, so here are some quick hits.

Oberstar Leaving House
Longtime Democratic Representative Jim Oberstar, of Minnesota, lost his bid for reelection last week. He chaired the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, so his departure could mean a change in the direction in federal infrastructure priorities, though the ranking Republican committeeman indicates that infrastructure is an investment he and his party can support.

8th District: Cravaack rode GOP wave past Oberstar
Mica Statement on Midterm Elections and the 112th Congress
Oberstar Says Goodbye, Mica Promises Rail and a Long-Term Bill
Oberstar says the people have spoken, bids goodbye
Transportation Lobbyists Vow They’ll Work with the Winners

Infrastructure Measures Did Well On Ballots
We previously mentioned that many infrastructure-related measures were on the ballot in various states and municipalities. It looks like most of them were successful.

2010 Ballot Measures
Big Construction Bonds at Stake this Election
Proposition 1, the Transportation Bond, Approved in Austin
The Silver Lining: 73 Percent of Transportation Ballot Measures Win

Water Groups: Include Water in Infrastructure Bank
Infrastructure bank proposals are still rolling around, but none are likely to pass in the last couple of months of the 111th Congress. Water groups want to make sure that water infrastructure isn’t overlooked in infrastructure bank proposals that might be taken up by the next Congress. There may even be public support for improving aging (and expensive) water infrastructure.

Aging water infrastructure wastes 1.7 trillion gallons a year
Bill Watch--111th Congress
Can We Save America’s Crumbling Water System?
The Corrosion of America
EPA to Survey Community Water Systems to Estimate Capital Investment Needs
Groups Urge Inclusion of Water in Proposed Infrastructure Bank
ITT's Value of Water Survey Reveals That Americans Are Ready to Fix Our Nation's Crumbling Water Infrastructure
The New Oil
Saving U.S. Water and Sewer Systems Would Be Costly
The Value of Water

Missouri: New Transportation Director, High-Speed Rail Funding
The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commissions has appointed Keith Kevin as Director of the Department of Transportation (MODOT). Kevin is a department veteran who served as chief engineer and has been the interim director for the last few months. MODOT also announced it received $4.1 million from the Federal Railroad Administration for high-speed rail projects.

Kevin Keith Named Director of MoDOT
Missouri Gets Another $4.1 Million for High Speed Rail Development
MoDOT Veteran Named New Director

P.S. IW previously mentioned that a St. Louis-area project was in the running for recognition from the American Society of State Highway and Transportation Officials. It won the grand prize.

A Winning Team
Missouri Transportation Infrastructure Draws Attention

Missouri Transportation Infrastructure Draws Attention

The state capital isn’t the only Missouri location getting attention. The I-64 corridor project in St. Louis is a finalist for the America’s Transportation Award from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. In addition to being a finalist for the grand prize, the project is eligible for the “People’s Choice Award.” If you’d like to be a people who makes this choice for the I-64 project, vote here. (Find more at the Missouri Department of Transportation [MODOT] news release here.)

Missouri made other improvements in transportation infrastructure. In the latest highway report from the Reason Foundation, Missouri leapt to 8th place from its previous ranking at 24th place. (See more from the MODOT news release here.)

Governors Ask for Infrastructure Support

We’ve already written a post on the National Governor’s Association meeting earlier this month in which governors asked for over $136 billion in additional assistance from the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama. A significant portion of this may be directed to infrastructure projects, particularly transportation. The governors are claiming that investments in infrastructure will create jobs and stimulate the economy.

Here are other articles and posts on the subject:
Emanuel states support for infrastructure spending
Governors call for federal infrastructure investment
Obama pledges to work with governors on economy

Emanuel States Support for Infrastructure Spending

After President-elect Barack Obama meet with governors at a meeting of the National Governors Association, his transition head and ostensible chief of staff Rahm Emanuel commented that Obama and the governors came to and understanding about the importance of infrastructure investment an its potential to stimulate the economy.

Related articles and posts:
Governors call for federal infrastructure investment
Economic stimulus package would increase transportation funding
Emanuel says infrastructure money a priority for Obama
President-elect calls for infrastructure investment
Water infrastructure news
Water Resources News Nov. 24, 2008

Governors Call for Federal Infrastructure Investment

At a meeting between President-elect Barack Obama and governors sponsored by the National Governors Association, state officials called for additional federal investment in infrastructure. They claim investment in infrastructure will have the added benefit of economic stimulus through job creation.

Related articles and posts:
Patrick, other governors to see Obama