Shovel-Ready Infrastructure Not Necessarily Future-Ready Infrastructure

Shovel-Ready Infrastructure Not Necessarily Future-Ready Infrastructure

Funding Shovel-Ready Projects May Only Dig Nation's Car-Centric Hole Deeper

with John Michael Spinelli

Columbus, Ohio: Even though Washington has approved $17 billion in TARP funding to Detroit's Big Three car makers to tide them over to spring, the news that one renowned billionaire investor has dumped his considerable holdings in Ford, whose stock has plummeted this year and now resides at about $2, should be a tale of caution for public officials, from president-elect Barack Obama and a new Democratically controlled congress who want to open the flood gates on massive spending on infrastructure to under-gird its economic recovery plan, to consider the best interests of the nation as it chooses between infrastructure projects ready for a shovel and projects that are ready for the future.

Economic development professionals and public policy makers have rounded up thousands of conventional infrastructure projects, the vast majority of which are about roads and bridges and by extension cars, as projects that but for the lack of a shovel could create jobs quickly.

With the American economy in a tailspin of such velocity that nearly 2 million jobs have been lost in 2008, it is clearly appetizing that car-centric projects involving roads and bridges move to the front of the class ofObama's stimulus package. But the question being raised by a growing chorus of economy watchers is whether throwing billions of dollars into convention projects is wise? The need for the nation to find a better, more affordable and realistic road to mass transit, which is growing in popularity as family and community budgets tighten in the wake of job losses from companies that have thrown in the towel, is clear.

In Ohio, for example, the state department of transportation proudly announced it performed 493 road and bridge projects this year. The same can probably be said for the other 49 states when it comes to road versus non-road projects. A new report issued by a 62-member task force to Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland about the "crisis" state of state transportation efforts, offers guidance on spending. But the guidance, sadly, is for conventional, past-ready projects that some critics of "shovel-ready" projects would say spends good money on old infrastructure that will only gobble up more funds in a handful of years because their life-span is short and repair and maintenance will soon be needed.

Chester Jourdan, executive director of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission and a task force member, said the report represents a long-overdue attempt to "move the state beyond its traditional role as builder and fixer of highways to one as a strategic creator of interconnected public transit, rail, road and water routes that can boost economic development," according to Columbus Business First (CBF).

“Not everything in the report will be put into law, implemented or passed tomorrow,” Jourdan told CBF. “But there are some tremendous opportunities for Ohio to do some things that are significant, bold and innovative.”

High sounding as the report is, it reflects many of the committee's agendas, which appear mired in expanding on conventional, old-school technology. One would be hard pressed to find language in the report that opens the door to include or embrace outlier technology like Tubular Rail or PRT or Monomobile . All three of these "unproven" technologies, as their critics would say of them, are advancing to proof-of-concept [PRT will soon be seen at Heathrow Airport outside London, England]. For supporters of "proven" technology like steel-wheel-on-rail trains, which is proving that building tomorrow's transportation infrastructure based on yesterday's technology is outrageously costly at a time when Ohio, among other states and the nation, is using a straw to breath because its budget is so far under water, with little expectation that new jobs can roll in any time soon.

So while a specific infrastructure project may be "shovel ready," by its very nature it may not be "future ready." Building advanced transportation systems that avoid the pitfalls of current, conventional technologies -- costly, difficult to build and environmentally unfriendly -- seems a wiser, more prudent tact to take for the tsunami of funding Washington will wash over the nation in 2009 to reclaim prosperity and the middle class jobs that are key to it.

Both Tubular Rail and Monomobile represent outlier technologies that have an uphill climb before them. State bureaucrats, totally risk averse by nature, only seem interested in fully baked cakes -- late stage commercialization in program talk -- and don't seem too eager to help start-up companies gain the traction they need to show their technologies may be eminently cheaper than conventional transportation infrastructure, not to mention quicker to be built which translates into new, sustainable jobs. But as Malcolm Gladwell points out in his trilogy of books on the unforseen phenomenon of why new, small events can suddenly bloom into game changers [Tipping Point, Blink and Outlier], a new idea like Tubular Rail, prominently featured in the Discovery Channel's episode on future trains that will air in January, that uses readily available existing technology in a new way isn't shovel-ready but it is "future-ready."

Hungry lobbyists representing the infrastructure status quo will use their sharp elbows to eat up as much of Obama's infrastructure stimulus package as it can, despite the fact that putting money into their agendas may only dig us into a deeper hole because it furthers our dependence on cars and the roads and bridges they need to operate. The same will be true for rail, which is using its capacity for freight. High speed rail on conventional tracks, while it sounds good, is just too expensive. California voters who approved a $9.5 billion bond package this November for only a quarter of the state's projected 800-mile system [close to that of France] will find out that build out costs will be double or triple the cost sold to them, and that's after they settle lawsuits with the Union Pacific railroad over use of their tracks.

The Wright Brothers invented heavier-than-air, controlled flight in 1903. If Orville and Wilbur were to show up today to ask Ohio development officials for money for their outlier technology, the Wrights would be wrong in thinking Ohio would give them a dollar since their invention wasn't in the "late stages of commercialization" and they couldn't bring $3 in investments for every $1 of state funds. So while Ohio, which worries over loosing more of the 250,000 jobs directly or indirectly tied to the Big Three of Detroit, claims itself on its license plate as the "Birthplace of Aviation," it hasn't recognized that a new industry, like Tubular Rail, which can be every bit as powerful as planes or cars, can be had for a song, creating many new jobs in Ohio for former Chrysler, Ford or General Motors employees who have either lost their jobs or soon will be seeking state unemployment benefits.

John Michael Spinelli is an economic development professional and former Ohio Statehouse political reporter and business columnist. He is also Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. To send a tip of comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com