Speed Limits on Trump’s Infrastructure Drive: Federal Laws, Rare Species and Nim

[cpzilliacus]

[May be paywalled - PM me with you e-mail address if you cannot read this and I will e-mail you a link]

WSJ.COM: Speed Limits on Trump's Infrastructure Drive: Federal Laws, Rare Species and Nimbys - Environmental regulations and neighborhood opposition routinely bog down projects and will likely constrain the administration's plan to spend $1 trillion on "˜highways, bridges, tunnels, airports'

Almost sixty years ago, officials at California's transportation department unveiled a plan to build a six-mile freeway extension in Los Angeles County.

They are still working on it.

During the 1960s, the road plan appeared on track. In the 1970s, new environmental laws required voluminous studies and sparked legal fights between the neighboring towns of South Pasadena and Alhambra, which lie along its intended path. The project remains under review.

"I am totally for the national and statewide environmental laws,"  said Hasan Ikhrata, executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments, who supports the extension project. Still, "sometimes it gets to be ridiculous."

Many lawmakers and economists agree with President Donald Trump that America needs to fix a backlog of infrastructure needs, which the Transportation Department pegs at $926 billion. There's a similar agreement that conservation and preservation laws have helped mitigate damage on neighborhoods and the environment.

A tour through of the nation's thorniest infrastructure struggles shows how these two goals are often in conflict. As a result, long, costly reviews and legal battles will likely confront Mr. Trump's efforts, just as they delayed much of President Barack Obama's 2009 economic-stimulus efforts.

[sparker]

[May be paywalled - PM me with you e-mail address if you cannot read this and I will e-mail you a link]

WSJ.COM: Speed Limits on Trump's Infrastructure Drive: Federal Laws, Rare Species and Nimbys - Environmental regulations and neighborhood opposition routinely bog down projects and will likely constrain the administration's plan to spend $1 trillion on "˜highways, bridges, tunnels, airports'

Almost sixty years ago, officials at California's transportation department unveiled a plan to build a six-mile freeway extension in Los Angeles County.

They are still working on it.

During the 1960s, the road plan appeared on track. In the 1970s, new environmental laws required voluminous studies and sparked legal fights between the neighboring towns of South Pasadena and Alhambra, which lie along its intended path. The project remains under review.

"I am totally for the national and statewide environmental laws,"  said Hasan Ikhrata, executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments, who supports the extension project. Still, "sometimes it gets to be ridiculous."

Many lawmakers and economists agree with President Donald Trump that America needs to fix a backlog of infrastructure needs, which the Transportation Department pegs at $926 billion. There's a similar agreement that conservation and preservation laws have helped mitigate damage on neighborhoods and the environment.

A tour through of the nation's thorniest infrastructure struggles shows how these two goals are often in conflict. As a result, long, costly reviews and legal battles will likely confront Mr. Trump's efforts, just as they delayed much of President Barack Obama's 2009 economic-stimulus efforts.

Not that I think the Trump administration will be an more successful than its predecessors in regards to infrastructure activities, but this article clearly engages is what could be described as an ecological fallacy, whereby an assessment of parts of the plan is taken as representative of the whole.  Because specific developmental activities have periodically brought controversy doesn't mean that any omnibus plan -- as a whole entity or as an aggregate of its parts -- will intrinsically be subject to those controversies.  Of course, this discounts any obstacles placed in a program's path for political reasons that arise regardless of a specific project's merits (or lack thereof). 

The WSJ's editorial staff needs to be a bit more careful when differentiating between facts and speculation.

[Henry]

UGH!!!

[jeffandnicole]

If the states and feds properly allocate the money spent on the lawsuits in regards to infrastructure projects, they'll have no issues spending that trillion dollars...unfortunately, not much would be shown for it!  It will all be spent on lawyers fees and research and studies for such projects.

I think that's an issue many states have...properly allocating money spent.  I recall back when Obama had its stimulus package, and signs went up for the ARRA projects.  A story reflected on the costs for each sign in each state.  Some states supposedly spent less than $100 per sign, whereas NJ spent a few thousand.  The plywood or sheet metal for each sign easily would've been $50 - $100.  But if you don't allocate the time the employees spent on each sign, or the lettering, or the posts required to mount the sign, or the computer program used, or anything else, yeah, then you can say the sign cost $100.  As always, the media made it out to be NJ spent a fortune on each sign, but in reality, they simply recorded all their costs associated with the sign.  The states with cheaper figures figured the guys making the signs were going to get paid no matter what, and didn't include the time it took them to make the sign as part of the sign's costs.

[Buck87]

I think that's an issue many states have...properly allocating money spent.  I recall back when Obama had its stimulus package, and signs went up for the ARRA projects.  A story reflected on the costs for each sign in each state.  Some states supposedly spent less than $100 per sign, whereas NJ spent a few thousand.  The plywood or sheet metal for each sign easily would've been $50 - $100.  But if you don't allocate the time the employees spent on each sign, or the lettering, or the posts required to mount the sign, or the computer program used, or anything else, yeah, then you can say the sign cost $100.  As always, the media made it out to be NJ spent a fortune on each sign, but in reality, they simply recorded all their costs associated with the sign.  The states with cheaper figures figured the guys making the signs were going to get paid no matter what, and didn't include the time it took them to make the sign as part of the sign's costs.

On that note, this time around (if an infrastructure bill does get done) I hope they don't waste any money putting up signs to brag about the damn thing at every project.

[hbelkins]

With the same party in control of the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate, it would seem to be an ideal time to roll back some of those onerous and expensive federal environmental requirements that get in the way of getting road projects done quickly and cheaply.

[Rothman]

With the same party in control of the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate, it would seem to be an ideal time to roll back some of those onerous and expensive federal environmental requirements that get in the way of getting road projects done quickly and cheaply.

Not sure how much of a burden they are, actually.  At least in NY, it is my impression that most federal-aid projects are categorical exclusions of one form or another.

Around here, the price of gas is more of an indicator of how expensive projects will be than environmental regulations.

In my opinion, MPOs need to be scaled back to their intended purpose:  Providing a forum for coordination amongst agencies rather than getting into air quality analysis.  FHWA also needs to see the STIP for what it really is:  An enabling document to get federal authorization; FHWA takes it as gospel far too often.  The entire TIP/STIP process and effect is far too convoluted -- not as much benefit comes out of it as all the resources put into it.  Again, the focus should just be on urban coordination of agencies.

And with that, my tangent from the discussion is over.  As you were.

[vdeane]

Of course, a large part of that is because NY is a preservation-first state.  Resurfacings and bridge maintenance/rehab projects tend to have fewer impacts than new roads or widenings.

[realjd]

With the same party in control of the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate, it would seem to be an ideal time to roll back some of those onerous and expensive federal environmental requirements that get in the way of getting road projects done quickly and cheaply.

On the other hand, we don't want to go too far in the other direction. The environmental impact of any infrastructure project absolutely MUST be considered. It's not a global warming issue; it's a clean air, water, and healthy ecosystems issue. We're still paying for the effects of poorly considered infrastructure projects here in Florida.

[jeffandnicole]

I think that's an issue many states have...properly allocating money spent.  I recall back when Obama had its stimulus package, and signs went up for the ARRA projects.  A story reflected on the costs for each sign in each state.  Some states supposedly spent less than $100 per sign, whereas NJ spent a few thousand.  The plywood or sheet metal for each sign easily would've been $50 - $100.  But if you don't allocate the time the employees spent on each sign, or the lettering, or the posts required to mount the sign, or the computer program used, or anything else, yeah, then you can say the sign cost $100.  As always, the media made it out to be NJ spent a fortune on each sign, but in reality, they simply recorded all their costs associated with the sign.  The states with cheaper figures figured the guys making the signs were going to get paid no matter what, and didn't include the time it took them to make the sign as part of the sign's costs.

On that note, this time around (if an infrastructure bill does get done) I hope they don't waste any money putting up signs to brag about the damn thing at every project.

They could put Trump's picture on each sign. 

At least people can make use of all those guns they bought when Obama was Prez.

[Otto Yamamoto]

Given the stability of the current regime, I don't expect much getting accomplished. Oh, well, next year Mike Pence will be selling the Interstates off to Cintra.

[sparker]

Given the stability of the current regime, I don't expect much getting accomplished. Oh, well, next year Mike Pence will be selling the Interstates off to Cintra.

I always thought that it was Mitch Daniels that actually handled the ITR-to-Cintra deal as the keystone of his "Major Moves" highway-building program that yielded I-69 to Evansville. 

[cpzilliacus]

In my opinion, MPOs need to be scaled back to their intended purpose:  Providing a forum for coordination amongst agencies rather than getting into air quality analysis.  FHWA also needs to see the STIP for what it really is:  An enabling document to get federal authorization; FHWA takes it as gospel far too often.  The entire TIP/STIP process and effect is far too convoluted -- not as much benefit comes out of it as all the resources put into it.  Again, the focus should just be on urban coordination of agencies.

And with that, my tangent from the discussion is over.  As you were.

I am a longtime staff person with an MPO (but speak for myself and not that MPO here).  Air quality conformity determinations are required by the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (yes that statute could be modified),  and probably make sense to be done on a regionwide scale (not a statewide scale or a county- or city-scale).

It's not just FHWA that takes the rules as gospel - traditionally, so has the Federal Transit Administration (this may or may not change  under the new administration).

Perhaps more importantly, to the extent that project planning is done using a travel demand forecasting model or outputs from same, those models are usually developed by the MPO, and not a state DOT, transit agency or county or municipal government.   The models are important for any  new toll project (and some metropolitan areas have a lot of them), as the output  from the model is a crucial input to traffic and toll revenue forecasts.

[mvak36]

Given the stability of the current regime, I don't expect much getting accomplished. Oh, well, next year Mike Pence will be selling the Interstates off to Cintra.

I always thought that it was Mitch Daniels that actually handled the ITR-to-Cintra deal as the keystone of his "Major Moves" highway-building program that yielded I-69 to Evansville.

Yes it was. I think he definitely got the better end of that deal for the state of Indiana, even with the problems on the Indiana Toll Road.