Jim Cameron
Last week was a good one for our transportation future, on
several fronts.
First, of course, was Congress finally passing the massive infrastructure bill. This
once-in-a-generation, trillion-dollar package will bring a massive rebuilding
of our crumbling bridges and highways as well as expansion of the nation’s
power grid and internet infrastructure. It will also invest in the ways
we must prepare for the impact of global warming.
The bill will also mean thousands of construction jobs over
the next decade, what the White House called a “blue collar blueprint”
for decades-delayed repair and enhancement of the nation’s
infrastructure.
For rail riders there will be $66 billion invested in
expansion and upgrades, the biggest federal investment since the creation of
Amtrak in the early 70’s. Almost half of that amount will be pumped into
the Northeast Corridor from Washington, D.C. to Boston, which already sees some
2,200 trains each day.
All of this we will benefit from in the years to come.
But in our more immediate future is the project that’s been happening right
under our feet at Grand Central
Station since 2006… a
new rail station.
Yes, the MTA’s much delayed, terribly-over-budget East Side
Access project to bring the Long Island Railroad into GCT is all but done and
should be opened late next year. Though this $11 billion subterranean
behemoth won’t be home to any trains from Connecticut, it will have a profound
effect on our train service.
The new station in Grand Central’s lower, lower, lower level
is built hundreds of feet below Vanderbilt Avenue just to the west of GCT
itself. It was literally carved out of solid rock and connects to a
tunnel built under the Park Avenue line served by Metro-North, another tunnel
under the East River and ends up in Queens.
The station will measure 350,000 square feet serving 24 LIRR
trains an hour on eight tracks. To access the station, you’ll take
several escalators from GCT’s lower level, deep down into the bedrock, served
by dozens of shops. The MTA says the new station will save LIRR commuters
40 minutes travel time from Queens if they’re heading to Manhattan’s east side.
What’s in it for Connecticut commuters? Actually, a
faster ride to the West Side.
By moving some LIRR trains out of Penn Station and sending
them to GCT, some Metro-North trains will be able to travel from Connecticut
directly to Penn Station by way of the Bronx, the Hells Gate Bridge and the
East River tunnels, a route now exclusively used by Amtrak.
That new routing will actually be a faster route to midtown
Manhattan than the current Grand Central routing. It will also mean Penn
Station connections to Amtrak to the north and west and New Jersey Transit deep
into the Garden State.
As Manhattan’s West Side expands with more offices, many of
them built over the LIRR yards, Connecticut commuters will see this new Penn
Station service as an attraction.
More spending on rail nationwide and a new train station at
GCT and service to the West Side… as I say, it was a good week for
transportation.
Jim Cameron is Founder of the Commuter
Action Group, advocates for Connecticut rail riders. Contact Jim
at CommuterActionGroup@gmail.com
Here’s what Connecticut will receive under the $1 trillion infrastructure bill approved by Congress
The massive, tortured $1 trillion infrastructure bill that
Congress finally approved late Friday will bring billions of dollars in federal
spending to Connecticut on railroads, highways and bridges, while also
expanding internet access and creating a statewide network of electric vehicle
charging stations.
President Joe Biden on Saturday called the package a
“monumental step forward for the nation.”
“Finally, infrastructure week,” a beaming Biden told
reporters. “I’m so happy to say that: infrastructure week.”
The House passed the measure 228-206 late Friday, prompting
prolonged cheers from the relieved Democratic side of the chamber. Thirteen
Republicans, mostly moderates, supported the legislation while six of the
Democrats’ farthest left members — including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of
New York and Cori Bush of Missouri — opposed it.
Connecticut’s all-Democratic Congressional delegation was
effusive in praising passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act,
even after weeks of divisive and bitter infighting among liberal and moderate
members of Congress. A much larger $1.75 trillion spending plan remains mired
in debate and could be voted on before Thanksgiving.
Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th, said the bill “will provide almost
$5.4 billion to the state of Connecticut and will create more than $100 billion
in competitive grant programs for which organizations across the state will be
eligible to apply.”
Although the bill does not include specific funding to
repair and rebuild the I-84/I-91 interchange in Hartford, Rep. John Larson said
Connecticut will now be able to push forward on the project and “achieve a
50-year goal of recapturing the riverfront.’'
Connecticut’s two senators said thousands of jobs would be
created to help rebuild and expand infrastructure in Connecticut and the United
States.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal called the bill “a gigantic
breakthrough” that will open up funding for public works projects across
Connecticut. U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy said it was “the biggest bipartisan
investment in infrastructure in our nation’s history.”
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd, said the legislation is about
“jobs, jobs, jobs.”
“We are finally making historic infrastructure investments
that will create millions of good-paying jobs and shape our economy in a way
that meets the moment,” she said.
The bill includes an infusion in funding for:
Railroads
The bill provides $30 billion for the Northeast rail
corridor. The money will fund maintenance and upgrades to Connecticut rail
infrastructure, including repair of major bridges and station upgrades.
Bridge replacement and repairs
Connecticut will receive $561 million for bridge replacement
and repairs over five years. Connecticut will also be eligible to compete for a
portion of the $12.5 billion Bridge Investment Program and the $16 billion set
aside by the legislation for major projects that will deliver substantial
economic benefits to communities.
Connecticut has an estimated 248 bridges and more than 2,100
miles of highway that are in poor condition.
Highways
Connecticut is expected to receive $3.5 billion for highway
programs.
Charging stations for electric vehicles
The legislation provides $53 million over five years to
support the expansion of an EV charging network.
Expanding broadband
About 12% of Connecticut households do not have an internet
subscription. Connecticut will receive at least $100 million to help provide
broadband coverage across the state. Under this legislation, 654,000 people in
Connecticut will also be eligible for the Affordable Connectivity Benefit,
which was created to help low-income families afford internet access.
Public transit
The new act provides $1.3 billion over five years to improve
public transportation options.
Safe drinking water
Over the next five years, Connecticut is expected to receive
$445 million to improve water infrastructure across the state.
Long Island Sound
More than $100 million will go toward protecting the Long
Island Sound watershed. This will fund local projects to improve water quality
and restore shoreline habitats.
Airports
Connecticut airports would receive approximately $62 million
for infrastructure development over five years. The bill also provides $6
million to upgrade City Pier in New London.
Developer Avner Krohn building an apartment empire in central Connecticut
At first look, Avner Krohn wouldn’t seem likely to be a
mogul in the central Connecticut housing industry.
Krohn, a Long Islander who grew up near Westchester County,
has no relatives or family business in Connecticut. He broke into the real
estate world in Brooklyn, and his early work was all near New York City.
But Krohn, 40, has rapidly become one of the major
development names in this region: He’s partnering with Zelman Real Estate to
build 360 apartments in East Hartford and another 111 in Bloomfield.
A half-hour to the south, Krohn’s Jasko Development is
embarking on its biggest undertaking yet in downtown New Britain, The Brit, a
stylish six-story, 107-unit apartment building.
“There’s so much in New Britain. I love doing this in places
where there’s a vision. And it comes down to one thing — partnerships,” Krohn
said recently when asked about his rise as one of the region’s major builders.
Krohn wasn’t specifically eying Connecticut when he began
investing in real estate.
In his early 20s, he and a partner bought a house in an
upward-bound neighborhood in Brooklyn for $280,000. They leased it to a tenant
and 16 months later sold it for about $350,000.
Krohn has been looking for value markets ever since. He
concluded central Connecticut was a good investment.
“It’s about opportunity. You build a niche,” he said.
Early on, a lot of his business was constructing or
rehabbing small clinics for dentists and urgent care centers. Jasko’s website
lists a number of those along with small shops in commercial strip centers in
Torrington, Enfield, Vernon and elsewhere.
But New Britain got his attention around 2005, and in recent
years he’s been focusing more of his work there. At the same time, Jasko has
been shifting to mixed-use and residential development, initially with small-
and moderate-scale buildings.
“I might live in New York, but I’m here every single week
for 15 years. I spend more time here than at home,” he said.
The company renovated the historic Rao, Raphael and Andrews
buildings into apartment complexes of 14 to 20 units each, and with each one
Krohn has expanded what he sees for the revival of the Hardware City’s
downtown.
His vision for the projects in the city has energized
officials and business leaders alike.
Mayor Erin Stewart and Downtown District Executive Director
Gerry Amodio both praise him for coming back over the years to steadily take on
new projects.
The city has pumped millions of dollars into a facelift for
Central Park and the appealing Beehive Bridge, but Amodio credits Krohn for
bringing sorely needed private capital into the downtown renewal.
This year, Krohn bought the decaying, abandoned Burritt Bank
building at Main and Bank streets and promptly demolished it. In its place, he
plans 107 apartments in what would become the city’s most attention-grabbing
building.
Krohn plans a ground-floor restaurant, a 5,000-square-foot
open-air courtyard with seating outdoor dining along the edges of the building
facing the Main and Bank sidewalks.
Curving glazed windows will face the corner of Main and Bank
on the second through fifth floors, but Krohn did away with sixth-floor corner
apartment to leave space for a terrace for tenants. Neon lettering will spell
out The Brit.
Krohn, who describes himself as “a fiend for architecture,”
is spending heavily for marketing and branding for The Brit. In the end, he
sees it as a centerpiece of a downtown revival that can raise all property
values and inspire fresh enthusiasm for the city. But as much as he enjoys
designing projects to be more than ordinary, he’s serious about making them
profitable.
“I’m numbers-driven, too. As many times as towns have great
ideas, if the economics don’t work then they don’t work,” he said. “As much as
I have a vision and a plan, I always start with the numbers.
Krohn seeks tax incentives from the communities he works in.
But he insists that the value his projects create — construction jobs and new
residences for tenants who spend in the neighborhood — far outweighs the cost.
When a community balks, he simply looks elsewhere.
“I’m impatient to a fault. I have no time for
dilly-dallying, none. I come in with a presentation. I start with the numbers
that it needs to work,” he said. “I have a very candid conversation.
“Right now we’re in development or pre-development for over
700 units. I wouldn’t be surprised if in eight weeks from now that gets up to
1,000. It’s not wild or eccentric. I know exactly what we’re were doing, what
we’re building, why we’re doing it.”
Krohn attributes part of his business success to his
grandmother’s motto: “Don’t clean the table.” To Krohn, that means leaving some
profit and progress for his subcontractors, his investors and the communities
Jasko operates in.
“We under-promise and over-deliver. And it’s paid off. You
talk to any of the municipalities we work with, we’ve come through on our promises,”
he said. “You live one life. You want to do something that’s meaningful.”
BRISTOL – By Carrier, the development firm planning to add
retail space and apartments to Centre Square in downtown Bristol, offered
updates to the Bristol Economic and Community Board of Commissioners.
Developer Gino Carrier and President of Development Planning
Solutions Charles Talmadge presented information to the board Thursday evening.
According to Bristol Economic and Community Development Director Justin Malley,
the project comprises lots five, six, seven and eight of Centre Square.
“Basically, the northern portion of the site,” he said.
“After the purchase and sale agreement were signed back in
July, we’ve dived into full steam. When we had done the concept, we were
anticipating 90 apartments and about 15,000 square feet of retail as a rough
estimate of what we thought we would be able to do,” Talmadge said.
He said developers had a stronger grasp of what the project
was going to look like now with 88 apartments slated for build, 49 of them
having two bedrooms and two bath units, 20 units consisting of one bedroom and
one bathroom and 15 of them having three bedrooms and two baths.
“Our commercial component has grown a bit,” he continued.
“We thought we were doing 15,000 and now we’re just north of 17,000 square feet
on the first floor of all three buildings.”
Talmadge said the project was working with around 300 associates
and presented the graphic architecture in front of the board. He said the
project may start at the corner of North Main and Hope Street before working
north toward McDonald’s.
He said the buildings should look similar to other recent By
Carrier build projects but that flat roofs and retail space was being designed
to suit a more downtown atmosphere.
Developers are considering the addition of covered parking
in the area in the form of car ports and potentially some fully enclosed
garages.
“We’re shooting for at least one car per unit covered,”
Talmadge said. “Our biggest challenge from an engineering standpoint right now
is locating the North Creek Conduit (Pequabuck River) which runs along the
entire frontage. Unfortunately the control points that tell us where that thing
is have been lost to time over years.”
Talmadge said it was possible the city may see some digging
in the area next week to test and see what’s in the ground in the area.
Project leaders said they didn’t think it would be a major challenge
but they needed to determine the conduit's location for purposes of zoning
concerns and the need to maybe push the buildings back from the street a bit
further.
Board members said this could work to the advantage of the
project because it may create larger areas for outdoor eating space or green
space between the buildings and street.
By Carrier is looking to begin building and breaking
official ground for the project next year.
Killingly power plant dealt a major setback as ISO-NE abandons plans
Jan Ellen Spiegel
A proposal for a natural gas power plant in Killingly, which
has drawn the ire of environmental activists for six years, was dealt a major
setback after the regional electric grid operator — ISO-New England — said it
doesn’t want Killingly to be part of its future plans.
In a Nov.
4 letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the independent
system operator that runs the New England grid — known as ISO-New England — has
requested permission to cut Killingly from future power considerations. ISO-NE
set up a battle over the proposed Killingly plant with its decision to include
it in future power plans, known as Capacity Supply Obligation (CSO). Killingly
is owned by NTE Energy.
The letter to FERC says, in part, that after consultation with NTE Energy, ISO-NE is “exercising its right to seek to terminate Killingly’s CSO.” If accepted by FERC, ISO-NE will “draw down the financial assurance” NTE Energy was required to provide to back up their commitment to the project, and ISO-NE would remove Killingly’s qualified capacity from future plans. ISO-NE asked FERC to issue an order within 60 days from the date of the letter and set a date of Jan. 3, 2022 for the termination, in advance of the next time ISO-NE is scheduled to pick future generation facilities in February.
Without a commitment from ISO-NE to use the 650 megawatts the plant would have supplied, building the Killingly Energy Center would likely be a less economically viable project. Whether NTE would simply scuttle the project at that point is unknown. NTE did not reply Friday morning to a request for comment.
Opponents of the Killingly plant were heartened by the news
Friday.
“This is hugely welcome news,” said Samantha Dynowski, state
director of the Connecticut chapter of the Sierra Club, one of several groups
that have relentlessly fought the Killingly plant for years. “Without a
capacity supply obligation, I don’t think we’re going to see this get built.”
Kate Donnelly, of the group No More Dirty Power, was equally
optimistic.
“I think that we noticed that the signs were building
against the plant,” she said. The financing wasn’t secured and certain land
areas hadn’t been secured, but most of the final permits were in place, except
for one for a natural gas pipeline Eversource needed to build to connect to the
plant.
“We think this really is the beginning of the end,” Donnelly
said.
FERC still needs to approve the request, which is predicated
on ISO-NE’s existing commitment to the power having timed out.
In a statement, an ISO-NE spokesman explained its action
this way: “Any new resource acquiring a capacity supply obligation is required
to meet several development milestones, including, among other things,
financing, permitting, major equipment orders, and commercial operation.
Developers who face delays in meeting milestone deadlines have the ability to
find other resources to cover their obligations for up to two years. After
these two years, if a project is still unable to meet their milestone
deadlines, the ISO has the right to seek to terminate of the resource’s
obligation through a filing with the Commission. The ISO is exercising this
right with regard to the Killingly Energy Center.”
ISO-NE had long contended that just because it had committed
to Killingly didn’t mean it would necessarily be built – noting that many
projects it commits to are abandoned.
But it noted that NTE would have the option to re-enter
Killingly in the capacity market at a later time but would need to begin the
qualification process for new resources again.
Climate change advocates weren’t the only ones who objected
to the plant. More recently, state officials have argued that another fossil
fuel plant would be contrary to the state’s mandate for a 100% zero-carbon
electric sector by 2040 and its other climate change reduction goals.
In January, Gov. Ned Lamont said outright: “I don’t want to
build Killingly.”
On Friday he said: “If ISO said we need Killingly in order
to keep the lights on, I’m going to keep the lights on. But I wanted to do
everything I could as a governor over the last two and a half years and make
sure we didn’t need the last natural gas-fired plant in New England in order to
keep the lights on.”
Katie Dykes, the commissioner of the Department of Energy
and Environmental Protection, has long used the prospect of Killingly as an
example of why the New England grid operation needs to change. She has
repeatedly said it ignores the climate change mandates and goals of the
individual states.
“I believe that we have to change the system that brought us
this plant in the first place. We’re doing that by working with other states to
reform the ISO-New England,” she said in January. “That is the place we can
have the greatest and most lasting impact.”
On Friday, she said there had been questions around the
plant’s viability for quite a while. “The latest communication from the ISO
indicates that it also thinks this plant is not viable,” she said.
With infrastructure vote, Buttigieg gains a multibillion tool to speed up megaprojects
Michael Laris, The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill adopted
late Friday creates a multibillion fund to spur the type of complicated,
ambitious projects that have been stymied by decades of tentative investment
and inattention from Washington.
Modern-day equivalents of megaprojects like the Hoover Dam
can benefit broad swaths of the United States, but infrastructure experts say
they have often stagnated. President Joe Biden campaigned to address the issue.
Now his transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, is tapped to speed up such
projects, which can straddle state lines and take years to complete.
The bipartisan 228-206 vote after months of delay marked a
final milestone in an effort to improve the nation's roads, bridges, pipes,
ports and internet connections. Administration officials see the megaprojects
program - and others intended for large-scale projects - as tools to break
long-standing logjams.
Among the projects that could see a boost: the Gateway rail
project, a vast plan to expand capacity for train traffic between New York and
New Jersey; and a long-delayed effort to replace the outmoded Brent Spence
bridge, which connects Kentucky and Ohio, and is one of the nation's worst
bottlenecks.
"No matter where they live or who they voted for, all
Americans deserve to have a transportation system that works for them,"
Buttigieg said in a statement after the vote.
The infrastructure bill includes about $16 billion for
"major projects that are too large or complex for traditional funding
programs," but that have big economic benefits, according to the White
House.
"We think it puts us in the game to get funding,"
said Mark Policinski, chief executive of the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional
Council of Governments, which has championed the $2.7 billion project that also
includes road improvements for miles in each direction. "The federal
government has basically given a cold shoulder to infrastructure across this
country for a long time - not just a few years, but for a few decades."
Policinski said federal support could push the project over
the finish line after years of complications that involve dealing with two
states, myriad competing interests and insufficient money for a Cincinnati-area
project that has broad support. He said a bridge designed for 3,000 trucks a
day now carries 30,000.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, one of the bill's architects,
cited the bridge in a statement that described the benefits of creating a
National Infrastructure Project Assistance program within the Department of
Transportation. Portman pointedly noted that Congress appropriated $5 billion
for the megaprojects program and authorized billions more over five years for
efforts "like the Brent Spence Corridor project."
The bridge is also a top infrastructure priority of Senate
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who was among the Republican backers of
the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
Under the program, some projects must cost at least $500
million, while others must be between $100 million and $500 million to be
eligible.
That broader infrastructure package also includes what the
White House calls the nation's biggest investment in transit and clean energy
transmission in U.S. history - as well as new spending on highways and bridges
- and billions for replacing lead pipes and extending broadband. It includes
investments in passenger rail, electric vehicle infrastructure and programs to
address past environmental damage, reduce road deaths and improve airports and
waterways.
Buttigieg late Friday called it "the most significant
investment in jobs and infrastructure in my lifetime," saying the bill
will "rebuild and replace infrastructure that is decades, or even a
century, old."
Biden late last month announced a framework for a separate,
$1.75 trillion climate and social policy package that represents a major piece
of his agenda. It includes funding for universal preschool, expanded health
care, and new clean energy and other investments. A draft of the reconciliation
bill, released as negotiations continued, includes billions in spending on
high-speed rail and transit connected to affordable housing or benefiting
disadvantaged communities.
Congressional and administration officials said the one-two
punch of an infrastructure bill followed by the Democratic budget plan would
have deep effects across the country.
The Gateway Program, a top priority of Senate Majority
Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is among the megaprojects set to benefit from the
just-passed infrastructure bill.
After a tour of parts of the project this summer, Schumer
said he was confident that congressional action, in the infrastructure bill and
reconciliation process, would provide "the billions of dollars we need to
build Gateway."
"One of the first things I mentioned to President-elect
Biden was Gateway. He said he's on board," Schumer said. With Buttigieg
looking on, Schumer said he heard the same from the transportation secretary.
"He's all on board . . . Things will move very quickly," Schumer
said.
Buttigieg said he told Schumer he would "tear down any
unnecessary bureaucracy and work together to make sure that these things could
advance." After seeing up-close "the best construction that you could
possibly get - 110 years ago," he added that an outage in the critical
tunnel would be felt "all the way back in Indiana where I come from."
Stephen Sigmund, spokesman for the Gateway Program, said the
first two projects - a planned Portal North bridge over the Hackensack River in
New Jersey and a new tunnel under the Hudson River - have financing plans in
place and are not dependent on the infrastructure bill. Still, Sigmund added,
the billions in additional funds the bill will provide to the U.S.
Transportation Department's Capital Investment Grants program will be "a
great help to the project."
Later phases of the Gateway Program, including far-reaching
track-improvements and other bridge projects, could benefit from the
megaprojects fund and other large pots of money in the bill, Sigmund said.
The critical Northeast rail corridor "narrows down to
this old straw that gets crimped in various places," Sigmund said.
"The whole idea is to establish a four-track system between New York and
New Jersey, which would replace the current two track system - one track in,
one track out - which is 110 years old."
The bulk of transportation funds in the infrastructure bill
will flow through existing programs, in which states get money according to
federal formulas and have discretion over how they use the money. It will allow
states to make progress on routine projects, such as repaving roads, upgrading
bridges and buying new buses.
But large sums also will be distributed through competitive
grant programs, giving the Biden administration an opportunity to select
projects that align with its priorities and policy aspirations, particularly
efforts to combat climate change and address inequities caused by past
transportation projects.
Transportation Department officials cited bridges or tunnels
connecting two states; new rail and transit lines; and a freight hub
integrating ship, train and truck traffic as examples of the type of projects
that might be considered.
While some funding has been available in the past for such
work, the demand for those dollars has far exceeded the supply. More than 150
applications for one major grant program earlier this year sought about $6.8
billion in funds, seven times the amount that was available, according to the
department.
In addition to providing funding for expensive and
time-consuming projects, Transportation Department officials say the
megaprojects program is also intended to build long-running partnerships
between federal, state and local officials to solve technical and other
barriers to ambitious projects.
Kevin DeGood, director of infrastructure policy at the
Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, said many
existing competitive grant programs aren't big enough to handle megaprojects.
He said officials around the country have big ideas that
might benefit from such funding, including plans for passenger rail along the
Front Range in Colorado, a regional rail plan in San Diego, expanding transit
from the San Fernando Valley to the Westside in southern California, and
efforts to tear down, reroute or reimagine highways in Louisiana, New York and
elsewhere.
Even with billions in new money to spend, DeGood said, the
administration may feel pressure to try to spread itself too thin, something he
said should be avoided.
"There's a tension between saying 'yes' to more
projects and the fact that if you say 'yes' too many times, your grant awards
are too small and you're not necessarily doing transformative projects
anymore," DeGood said.
Ana Maria Dimand, Boise State University
The U.S. Congress passed an infrastructure bill that funds
more than a trillion dollars in nationwide federal spending on Nov. 5, 2021.
The bill puts about US$240 billion toward building or
rebuilding roads, bridges, public transit, airports and railways. More than $150
billion is slated for projects that address climate change, like building
electric vehicle charging stations, upgrading energy grids and production to
work better with renewables, and making public transit more environmentally
sustainable.
There’s funding for cybersecurity, clean water and waste
treatment systems, broadband internet connections and more.
The bill is the largest investment in the nation’s
infrastructure in decades.
So how does the government go about spending all that money?
Officials are required to follow certain procedures,
regulations and guidelines for advertising and gathering bids, reviewing them
and then hiring contractors to do the work. This process is called “public
procurement.”
What’s interesting to me and my colleagues who study public
procurement policy is how this massive influx of spending can be used as an
innovative policy tool to further the government’s social, economic and
environmental goals.
Judging from President Joe Biden’s executive orders
prioritizing action on climate change in contracting and procurement and
ensuring equitable compensation for workers employed by federal government
contractors, his administration will encourage the use of the power of
procurement to achieve environmental, social and economic policy goals.
To understand how public procurement can be used to improve
social equity or speed up climate action, it helps to know the basics of how it
works.
How do government officials buy infrastructure?
The process starts with a formal demand from an agency like
the Department of Transportation or Public Works and the selection of the best
procedure for awarding the contract for a funded project.
For several decades, government infrastructure procurement
processes have generally taken one of two forms: “design-bid-build” or
“design-build.”
In the design-bid-build option, governments separate the
contracts into two tracks – project design and project construction, one
following the other. A major advantage of design-bid-build is that agencies are
familiar with this traditional way of building things. The main disadvantage is
that it requires a three-way relationship – with the government working with
both the designer and the builder, and the designer and builder also working
together – that heightens the potential for conflict during the project. And
that can sometimes lead to increased costs.
An example of the design-bid-build method is the Virginia
Department of Transportation’s I-95/Telegraph Road Interchange project, which
involved building 11 new bridges and highway flyover ramps in Alexandria. A
professional services firm named Dewberry designed the project – winning
engineering awards as well as praise for avoiding negative impacts on local
residents and businesses – and the separate construction firm was Corman
Kokosing.
In the design-build procurement process, potential
contractors bid to do both the design and construction of the infrastructure as
a single package. The main advantage of this type of contract is the direct
relationship between the contractor and the government. The designer and
construction firm work together as a unified project team, which may
significantly decrease project completion time.
However, design-build also requires a high level of
expertise in drafting design and construction specifications from the
government, because decisions need to be made early in the process, and changes
may lead to an increase in costs.
An example of the design-build methodology is the US 15 over
Indian Field Swamp Bridge Replacement Project in Dorchester County, South
Carolina.
With both of these infrastructure procurement options, the
process is typically competitive among contractors, and the government owns,
operates, finances and maintains the final bridge, roadway, mass transit line
or other asset.
Public-private partnerships
The Biden administration has also proposed using another
common type of procurement for the infrastructure spending – public-private
parnerships.
These partnerships divide the costs of designing, building,
operating and maintaining a project between a private sector firm and the
government over 25 or 30 years before the agreement phases out. The private
firm may receive some or all of the revenues the project generates during that
time.
Let’s say the infrastructure needed is a new toll road. The
government enters into a contract with a private company to design, finance,
construct, operate and maintain this new highway for a certain period of time.
In exchange, the private company makes back its costs by collecting the
revenues from the tolls.
The Capital Beltway High Occupancy Toll Lanes project in
Fairfax County, Virginia, also called the 495 Express Lanes project, is just
such a public-private partnership. The government agency is the Virginia
Department of Transportation, and the private partner is a company formed
specifically for this project called Capital Beltway Express LLC.
Proponents argue that public-private partnerships may help
the government provide better infrastructure without increasing public debt.
Public policy researchers in the Netherlands have also found
that by supporting the development of trust and commitment between the
partners, public-private infrastructure partnerships can lead to better results
in many ways, such as effective design solutions, reduced environmental impact,
lower costs and better relations with and support from local communities or
organizations.
But there are also critics. Policy scholars have noted that
these partnerships may not really save governments money. Other scholars have
raised concerns that these arrangements cede too much public control of
infrastructure to the private sector, which may look out more avidly for its
own financial interests than those of the public.
By inserting demands into government contracts, the new
infrastructure spending could be used to promote fair wages, health care
benefits, fair working conditions for people employed by government contractors
and ensure that products are sourced in a sustainable and ethical manner. This
approach can also be used to demand locally produced goods and services,
support for veteran-, minority- and women-owned businesses and spur market
innovation, environmentally friendly products and services.