
Two Years Not Ten Years: Redesigning Infrastructure Approvals [pdf] - apsec112
https://www.commongood.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/2YearsNot10Years.pdf
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mjevans
I would really much prefer reading this on a webpage where the text size,
color palette, and pagination are scaled to my viewport and preferences.

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rayiner
I had a realization last night while thinking about NEPA. Americans care about
other things a lot more than they care about infrastructure, and us rail fans,
urbanists, etc., just need to get over it. The current state of infrastructure
development in the U.S. is the product of bi-partisan factors and nobody (not
literally nobody,b ut not enough people) want to change the status quo.

NEPA, was signed into law by Richard Nixon, with the full support of
Democrats. It is the perfect, bi-partisan, vehicle for ensuring that nothing
gets built anywhere, ever. The average NEPA review for a transit project is
now 6.6 years. A non-trivial number take a decade or more. For Democrats, it
satisfies anti-development (historical preservationists, environmentalists,
etc.) constituencies. For Republicans, it ensures that government will never
have to spend real money on big transit projects. No need to seem like the bad
guy and kill rail projects when various constituencies will use the NEPA
process and litigate the projects to death anyway.

At the end of the day, most people are okay with the result. Or at least, they
care about other things much more than building infrastructure. Republicans
don't really mind spending a few million a year keeping projects on
environmental review life support so long as that means indefinitely deferring
having to actually build anything. Democrats, meanwhile, even if they like
transit in principle, won't prioritize streamlining development and bringing
down costs over satisfying other key constituencies: environmentalists, labor
unions, etc. The New York City subway is literally melting down. It costs as
much money to build a mile of subway in New York as it costs to build entire
new fully automated subway lines in Spain. But addressing the underlying cost
disease (which would mean taking on labor and public unions) is not even on
anyone's radar. (And it makes sense--Democrats can't afford to lose those
votes when it comes to higher-priority issues.) Here in D.C. the subway
system, including nearly all the underground parts, was mostly built within a
10-year period. But it has taken more than 20 years to extend a single line
through exurban Virginia, mostly along a highway median that was expressly
reserved for that purpose decades ago. Metro's current 2040 plan proposes a
single new line, which will almost certainly never be built.

They say that if you spend too much time working on your weaknesses, you'll
spend all your time focusing on what you're bad at instead of what you're good
at. As an urbanist, and a "city person," I have given up pining for Japanese
or European style public infrastructure. It's just never going to happen.
America isn't built that way and doesn't want to be. The American political
system enables the things Americans care about: road construction. Road
construction is, for the most part, excluded from NEPA. I was shocked how
cheaply and quickly the State of Maryland managed to repave my local segment
of Route 50 near Annapolis. America probably has the best exurbs and strip
malls in the world. I have learned to enjoy them. (Maybe I'll get an EV to
assuage my guilt.)

~~~
hanniabu
> Metro's current 2040 plan proposes a single new line, which will almost
> certainly never be built.

And will be billions over budget and I'm sure when it opens there will be a
ton of issues. This had been the status quo lately. Under bid, charge more
during development while politicians addres under pressure, rush thing and
perform subpar work, open and renewal electrical issues and cracking
foundations.

------
ohazi
The author:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Howard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Howard)

