I suggested in this All Things Considered interview that not all infrastructure yields a positive benefit. As an example I mentioned the 12 or 14 lane stretch of highway in Huntsville Alabama that did not seem terribly useful but that was probably the result of a powerful Senator rewarding a friend. Here is a picture of that stretch of highway from Google maps. In the stretch I've linked to, the road appears to be 12 lanes wide, but part of that is due to an exit ramp–for most of the stretch to the left, it's a mere TEN lanes wide. Still plenty wide given how little traffic there is in Huntsville along that stretch. But I exaggerated the distance where it was really wide–I said 3-5 miles, I think, when it's only a fraction of a mile. Confirmation bias, probably. But the point remains that not all infrastructure spending is particularly beneficial. Yes, roads and bridges are important and valuable. Yes, maintenance of said roads and bridges is crucial for safety and effectiveness. But that doesn't mean that the next $825 billion of roads and bridges will yield great benefit.
Anybody out there from Huntsville who knows the history of this stretch of highway? Please let me know.
The other response to the ATC piece is the argument that everyone knows we've been neglecting infrastructure for years and we're in desperate need of infrastructure. Remember that bridge in Minnesota? But that is perhaps a different kind of confirmation bias. As David Leonhardt pointed out in the New York Times, infrastructure spending as a proportion of GDP is at a higher level today than anytime since 1981.
Despite my confirmation bias, I wonder if this picture (and the data underlying it) is really meaningful. How is infrastructure defined? I wouldn't be surprised if the definition of infrastructure hasn't widened in recent years to make pork more palatable. It's one thing to get funding for the National Bowling Museum, a tourist attraction in St. Louis. But when you classify it as "infrastructure" you're clearly helping the nation.
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Bureaucrats have neither the incentive nor feedback (profits or losses) to invest resources wisely. Even supposing that smart infrastructure projects are selected, what else could have been done with the same resources? Sure it would be nice to have better roads, but there are more pressing needs at the moment, and more competent people to invest those resources.
Infrastructure spending by bureaucrats is something wealthy nations do because they are wealthy enough to do it, not something poor nations do to become wealthy.
The road in question is Interstate 565, which starts at Interstate 65 (the main north-south interstate that runs from the Gulf Coast though the Midwest) and goes through and ends in Huntsville.
It was built as a main artery for people going to and from Redstone Arsenal and the Marshall Space Flight Center. Strictly speaking, it's two lanes each way, but there are so many exists in Huntsville that you get an extra couple of exist lanes for a lot of it, especially, as shown in your areal photo, in front of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, which is one of Alabama's major tourist attractions. During rush hour, it's packed.
Trust me, the problem in the Huntsville area of Alabama isn't too much roadwork but too little. Most federal road money goes to widening roads to nowhere in south Alabama. The state legislature, long controlled by south Alabama lawmakers, diverts most road money to rural areas of the state instead of sending it where it's most needed in north Alabama, where all of the growth is.
Granted, most of the north Alabama growth is the result of wasteful federal spending (i.e., military and NASA), but now we have all of these people and roads that cannot support them because of the political failure at the state level when it comes to decided what parts of the state get federal road money.
And I apologize for the numerous typos above, as it's too late for me to be posting, even with spellcheck.
The interesting thing will be in CA when the shit hits the fan in about 10 days. Payment literally will stop to state employees. I expect big demonstrations calling for the legislature to soak the rich. But the GOP has enough seats to block any tax increase and those are safe seats(at least for now). So IMHO, California is ground zero for what will happen on the federal level.
Russ,
I just read the stimulus bill, and it appears that very little of that bill will be spent on what the man on the street would consider infrastructure … they are even spending $325 million on … trophies!
wintercow20, you got a link or a bill number for that?
I agree with Russ that the definition of infrastructure is the key.
I wonder how many new government office buildings we've built while old bridges go unrepaired. There is a buzz in my state about all the transportation projects being put on hold. A very cursory review seems to show most of these are new construction and not upkeep on existing structures.
Either the story of an aging, crumbling infrastructure is a myth, or we see the folly of letting politicians decide which projects to fund (or both).
I agree to the question of what constitutes 'infrastructure'. After all, it's a term as to government is supposed to be 'doing' for those who believe in a minimalist government as opposed to those who believe everything should be held in private hands.
I believe that the cause of the collapse of the bridge in Minnesota was due to the contractor, who was performing maintenance on the bridge, storing his materials ON THE BRIDGE ITSELF. The specifications for the amount of weight the bridge should be able to sustain never considered this contingency.
Mildly off topic, but that is a pretty cool picture Russ
It's really cool to see all the various aerospace vehicles in scale with cars in the parking lot; it really puts the size into perspective.
I wonder if Obama's advisers ever mention the broken window fallacy to him?
All this talk of the benefits we are going to get over and above the cost of new infrastructure spending is a red-herring.
The fundamental problem with infrastructure generally in the United States (as in most countries) is that its management and provision is monopolized by the state. The only reason that infrastructure we 'need' has not already been built is because entrepreneurs aren't allowed to build it. By the same token the only reason that the state can force us to build 'Bridges to Nowhere' that not enough people need relative to its cost is existence of this same monopoly (contrary to popular belief this project was actually supported by Palin).
In the past, private infrastructure provision was difficult because of the costs of exclusion. But due to technology this is no longer a problem (take London's congestion charging for instance).
Like Russ says, the net benefits of construction may be there in many cases, and may not be there in many others. How do we differentiate? Without prices to guide them no individual or group of individuals (i.e. government) can really know in any particular case.
The only real solution to whatever infrastructure problems exist is a free market one. Everything else is a red-herring distracting us from our core infrastructure problem–government provision.
Speaking for Huntsville, I learned recently that when construction began on that stretch of roadway in the late 80s Huntsville was the biggest city in the country without access to the nation's interstate system. Secondly, that picture really takes things out of context because that is literally the widest part on that stretch of highway mostly due to the multiple exit ramps on both sides. A couple miles in either direction of that picture 565 turns into a 2 lane(on either side) highway. Furthermore, I565 links the business parks, UAH, and surrounding areas to the rest of Huntsville. Also, Lee's statement about how road money ends up being spent in the southern part of Alabama is essentially accurate. Now, it is true that a main portion if not most of Huntsville's economic activity is based on government defense and aerospace contracts, which doesn't exactly make it the nexus for individual liberty, but singling the city out for some presumed pork spending doesn't seem to be all that relevant. Especially given the city that exists just 90 miles to the south, which has a mayor that has been charged with over 100 various counts of fraud while serving on the Jefferson county commission. Don't get me wrong I really enjoy reading this blog and I am a huge libertarian that loves Austrian economics, but I just don't think the '12 lane highway' is really representative of Huntsville's political climate. Plus isn't it a sunk cost at this point?
Yes the construction of the Alabama road in question is now a sunk cost, but future road construction is not. Particularly the kind of road construction proposed by the new administration, whose henchmen will also abuse our resources through either manipulation or ignorance or both.
Although ancient Rome has long since burned to the ground, that does not make lessons of that age and time irrelevant today.
To understand how the nature of infrastructure spending has changed over the years, and why a big chunk of it now has minimal economic benefit beyond the actual construction, read this submission to Obama by the US Conference of Mayors, listing more than 11,000 'shovel ready' projects in cities around the country.
http://www.usmayors.org/mainstreeteconomicrecovery/
We now define everything from historic preservation of railroad stations to building of basketball courts, aquatic centers and senior citizen centers as infrastructure spending. Roads, bridges, tunnels, airports don't have the same advocates that these newer kind of infrastructure projects boast.
The Huntsville newspaper is now reporting on this "scandal": http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/local.ssf?/base/news/1232705765193000.xml&coll=1
Hey Russ, the bowling Hall of Fame closed in November and is moving to Arlington, TX.
Having moved to Huntsville from Atlanta in 1994, I was impressed to see that they seemed to have overbuilt I-565 in anticipation of future growtch. In the fifteen years that I've lived here, we have yet to have the need to add any additional lanes to our interstate.
Compare that to Atlanta's I-285, in which the city had to continue to purchase land, perform the necessary grading, and then only added one lane at a time. This occurred every two to three years until they finally maxed out this interstate. I-75, I-85, and I-20 through Atlanta had similar expansion histories. There always was interstate construction/expansion going on, which produces chaos during regular rush hour traffic and would usually last from three to six months.
I am impressed with the foresight of the past politicians who have represented north Alabama and were in office long before I arrived. They purchased all the land needed at once and used some intelligence when designing our current roads. The only work on I-565 is the occasional resurfacing which occurs every two or three years and can be completed in less than a week.
I agree with the previous poster and think that there is a great similarity to one of the circles of Hell and driving in Atlanta. I grew up in Huntsville, and was here when I-565 was completed. In the beginning, 565 was not heavily trafficked, but as the years have passed, the traffic flow has increased, but there still is not the gridlock that other cities of similar size and larger experience.
I moved to Atlanta about 8 years ago (and have recently moved back to Huntsville), and I have never spent more hellish years than the ones where I had to commute on 75 and 285.
565 is a vital resource for anyone who works in the Research Park/Redstone Arsenal area, and as pointed out by other comments and the mayor's remarks, it's something that was fought for and desperately needed.
However, the root of the problem here is that Mr. Roberts has failed to apologize to the people of Huntsville for dragging us and our highway through the mud with his exaggerations and untruths.
Yes, you sounded a bit annoyed that you were called on the carpet about your exaggerations, but you never actually apologized for them. Once again, you bought into and helped perpetuate the idea that the South is still only a dinosaur's bone from the Stone Age.
Hello?! Northern Alabama is home to a median higher education level than the rest of the state, and probably all of Washington, DC,if your comments are any example of what comes out of "think tanks."
Especially since you didn't even bother to do ANY research on the history of the road and what it means to the area's economy, much less exactly how many lanes there are at any given point. Did you just happen to drive it on a holiday, when no one was out and about and draw your conclusion from that one snapshot in time that it was a wasted lake of asphalt? Your parents live here–couldn't you just pick up the phone and ask them?