The Problem With ‘Shovel-Ready’ Thinking
Via Popular Mechanics:
There are no specific parameters or requirements that define shovel readiness. But according to civil engineers, the idea behind this new buzzword could help scuttle the stimulus bill’s highly publicized, though secondary, goal of infrastructure reform. At issue is that 90-day restriction stipulated by Congress, an even narrower window than the bill’s original 180-day limit. “They’re well intentioned, and they know their infrastructure sucks, so they’re trying to do immediate reactive management to what is a very deep, endemic problem,” says Robert Bea, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. “If you want to patch some potholes in the road, this is a good program. But if you’re hoping for anything long-term with this approach, throw away all hope. It can’t happen.”
The programs that would meet the bill’s 90-day restriction are, for the most part, an unappealing mix of projects that were either shelved after being fully designed and engineered, and have since become outmoded or irrelevant, or projects with limited scope and ambition. No one’s building a smart electric grid or revamping a water system on 90 days notice. The best example of a shovel-ready project, and what engineers believe could become the biggest recipient of the transportation-related portion of the bill’s funding, is road resurfacing—important maintenance work, but not a meaningful way to rein in a national infrastructure crisis. “In developing countries, there are roads that are so bad, they create congestion, because drivers are constantly forced to slow down,” says David Levinson, an associate professor in the University of Minnesota’s civil engineering department. “That’s not the case here. If the road’s a little bit rougher, drivers will feel it, but that’s not going to cause you to go any slower. So the economic benefit of those projects is pretty low.”
I would only disagree in that NYC, there are some roads that are so bad they make you slow down, but the benefit here is that it acts as passive (and inexpensive) traffic calming.
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This entry was posted on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 11:50 am and is filed under Etc., Roads, Traffic Psychology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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February 9th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Never driven in South East Michigan I take it.
Of course, the problem here is probably corruption. We haven’t been using availible technology to build roads suitible for our climate. Plus the frequently overloaded semi’s, often driven during peak congestion.
February 9th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
I’ve been espousing much of this same info around the office (just to note again: I’m a traffic engineer, myself). *Real* dedication to improving infrastructure — be it transportation, communication, utilies, etc. — takes far more than a 90 day timeframe. On the one hand, maintenance tasks and short-duration construction requires hefty amounts of generally unskilled labor, which can be a great method of creating jobs; but yes: those jobs are short-lived, and the end result isn’t anything particularly outstanding.
In my opinion, what is really needed is a two-tier punch: the short-term maintenance projects to get people back to work in the here and now (sole purpose: job creation); and then longer-term projects to take advantage of cheap labor & cheap real estate (sole purpose: long-term growth). Unfortunately, it seems we’re siding too much with the former and that alone.
I don’t particularly put anyone on account of corruption — I just think it’s reactionary politics representing the short-term reactionary nature of the human psyche. We, the voting public, want our problems spelled out in soundbytes; and we want solutions in the here and now. So long as we can delay the inevitable until it’s someone else’s problem, we all, as a mass, tend to be sort-of OK with that. The comparatively few dissenters either aren’t powerful enough, or they change their mind when it’s their own wallet that they’re asked to open.
February 10th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
True, and rather disheartening.
Stimulus is a joke now. The recent problem is that our measures of growth haven’t reflect reality. Economic growth has been much lower than our measure suggest and so finance grew much more than it realistically should have. The only way to get things working again that is with real, slow economic growth. Paper only growth will just make things worse.
Fuel economy has been on a decline for past few years. People don’t understand how important both fuel and time economy are. PhysOrg recently had a good article on a UC Irvine study of how congestion impacts economic growth. Jim Hamilton of UC San Diego also has great stuff on how energy prices affect consumption.
The congestion that cell phones and high gas prices (people mistake slow for efficient) caused has been a real drag on growth. We really need an information campaign to correct misunderstandings in the public. Quick and smooth acceleration and avoiding brakes needs to be the focus.
Unless efficiency is increased, we won’t be seeing much growth.
Tell the fed:
February 10th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Until these misconceptions are addressed, ideas such as gas taxes or carbon-cap will have the opposite of the intended effect.