MINDSETTER ™ Matt Amorello: Fed. Stimulus Failed Our Roads

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Matt Amorello, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER ™

Matt Amorello, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER ™

The last several months have seen "angry mobs" of our fellow citizens attending public meetings regarding transportation and infrastructure needs. Not all the meetings revolve around the recent MBTA announcements of fare hikes and route eliminations, some of them are less public and seldom make the nightly news or dailies. They are the meetings of local boards of selectmen, department of public works, planning boards, local highway commissions (for those communities that had the foresight to establish them), neighborhood organizations and chambers of commerce, discussing the transportation needs of their community. All share the same agenda items: great needs and little or no money to do them.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Spends $31 Billion on Transportation

In 2009 Washington passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) where $800 billion was injected into the US economy in order to create jobs.

Three years later it has been a disappointment to those folks who sit on both sides of the table at the above mentioned meetings. The Congressional Budget Office Director's Blog tracked nearly $500 billion in ARRA spending for 2009, 2010 and 2011. Of the half a trillion, that's right trillion, dollars spent, $31 billion was spent on transportation projects across the entire country. A total of $252 billion was spent between three cabinet departments: Health and Human Services, Labor, and Education.

The Hoover Institute has estimated that only 13% of ARRA funding was dedicated to infrastructure needs. Really not much in the scheme of federal budgeting, when the Arab Spring is earmarked $800 billion, and certainly not enough to meet the needs of local and state governments to fulfill their mandate of providing safe and efficient transportation networks for the "business" of our lives to take place.

MBTA Budget Cuts

The MBTA meetings in Worcester and Boston and recently in Framingham have riders up in arms over the proposed reductions in services and increases in fares. The trigger for these increases and reductions, $161 million budget "buster" that has to do with past financing practices of the MBTA. Perhaps the T could contact the folks at the Federal Transit Administration and our representatives in Washington to discuss a debt restructuring plan using ARRA funding. Maybe just maybe, the results would be so successful that the T could build better weather shelters and platforms on the Worcester line to Boston.

Perhaps they could fund more service to Boston from Worcester, the second largest city in New England. ARRA funding could have been used to build an access road to Worcester Airport, improvements to the route 495 corridor, including rebuilding the Interchange 11A on the MassPike, in Westborough or the route 20 corridor. These three projects have been discussed over and over again and now was the time to move them forward. There is still promise with the federal transportation working through Congress, although I highly doubt anything will happen in this election year.

The Price Tag to Fix our Bridges

I recognize the challenges faced by the public managers of our transportation infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimate it would take $2.2 trillion dollars from all levels of our government to bring our roads, bridges and water related infrastructure into a state of good repair. And this figure does not include new transportation projects like expanding rail service, highway expansion, improvements to our ports and harbors.

Over the coming months I plan on writing articles for "GoLocalWorcester" on transportation issues I hope you find it useful and that you let me know what you think and what you would be interested in.