Span attention disorder

Span attention disorder U.S. lags other nations in modern infrastructure initiative.

By Eric Kulisch

      Creating highly efficient infrastructure networks in the United States will require more investment, smarter development and use of technology, according to Rob Atkinson, chairman of the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission.
      'Our goal shouldn't be to have good infrastructure. It should be to have the world's leading infrastructure,' he said in a mid-February address to the nation's governors meeting in Washington.
      The United States has lost its post-war leadership in infrastructure in part because of first-mover limitations that locked it into old technology, an aging system that is older than in some other countries and more costly to repair, and an attitude that the nation's infrastructure is adequate and doesn't require crisis-level action, the technology policy expert said.
      Other countries, for example, have built more toll roads because they already have transponder systems in place to electronically bill vehicles. The technology to do efficient tolling wasn't available when the U.S. interstate system was built.

'Our goal shouldn't be to have good infrastructure. It should be to have the world's leading infrastructure.' Rob Atkinson Chairman, National Surface Transportation infrastructure Financing Commission

      Atkinson, who in his day job is president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, said other nations invest more money in infrastructure, raise more money from direct user fees, embrace innovation in terms of how they build and manage infrastructure and use public-private partnerships to finance projects.
      London; Oslo, Norway; Milan, Italy; and Singapore are examples of cities that use cordon pricing to influence driver behavior by charging vehicles for entering an inner circle of their cities. Other countries like France and Japan use congestion pricing to modulate the price of toll roads during peak and non-peak periods. All the freeways in Mexico, Korea and Indonesia, as well as 94 percent in Argentina and 75 percent in France, are tolled.
      Gas taxes are also higher in other parts of the world. In Canada the gas tax is 50 percent higher than in the United States (18.4 cents per gallon and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel). In the United Kingdom, the gas tax represents 78 percent of the purchase price of fuel compared to 20 percent in the United States.
      Atkinson said a switch to a new funding system is necessary because the gas tax is an indirect funding tool that doesn't match demand with capacity. The gas tax only covers 10 percent to 15 percent of the revenue needed to build a new roadway based on the portion of cars that actually drive on that specific facility, he noted.
      Other nations use tolls and private financing schemes to add new, expensive capacity. He pointed to the state of Victoria in Australia that used a long-term lease approach to build a $1.5 billion tolled bypass around Melbourne. Such private sector arrangements account for 10 percent of all infrastructure expenditures in the state, he said.
      Santiago, Chile, has built 100 miles of toll roads since 2001 using 30-year concession contracts, and China is building a 53,000-mile highway network that relies on tolls, he added.

	'We’ve dismantled our information systems, we’ve degraded our statistical agencies, we’ve deingrated program evaluation. It’s not rocket science. We should measure what matters. We should track what counts. We should get what we pay for.' Bruce Katz director, Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institute

      These types of countries are wresting leadership on infrastructure from the United States and gaining a competitive edge in the world economy, Bruce Katz, director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institute, told the governors.
      Canada and South Africa have implemented specialized units throughout various agencies to facilitate public-private partnership deals, he said.
      France recently merged its Ministry of Transport with the Ministry of Ecology, Energy and Sustainable Development. Australia has an overarching Department of Infrastructure. Japan links infrastructure land development and tourism in one agency. Britain, Denmark and Germany are establishing intricate webs of data, metrics, analytical tools, and spatial planning in order to make infrastructure investment decisions based on facts and measure their progress towards clear national priorities, Katz said.
      The United States by contrast has no coherent national transportation policy or priorities, according to most observers.
      'At the precise time when the nation needs to prioritize its limited investments the federal response has been to keep throwing money at the problem without any real purpose, targeting or accountability,' Katz said.
      'We are simply incapable of focusing on infrastructure issues that transcend state borders, and therefore we're not experiencing the kinds of impacts from transformational projects like the interstates ' and there has been a tendency to spread dollars around like peanut butter' and compartmentalize policy areas, according to his critique.
      'Equally disturbing in the past has been a pervasive lack of fact-gathering and analysis across many different programs. At the federal level, many infrastructure programs literally operate in a fact-free zone. We've dismantled our information systems, we've degraded our statistical agencies, we've denigrated program evaluation. It's not rocket science. We should measure what matters. We should track what counts. We should get what we pay for.
   'We need to learn from our global competitors in order to get more strategic, more integrated, more disciplined,' Katz said.