Thread
1/ Infrastructure is vital, but it’s too damn expensive, there is too much red tape and there are too many chances for people to say “no” to housing, transit, commerce, and greenspace.
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2/ New York’s history with big public works is trailblazing. In 1800, New York was just another American City around the same size as Boston and Philly, then came the Erie Canal, a public works project in the decades that followed turned NYC into the world’s economic powerhouse.
3/ The Empire State Building was built in 13 months. The Chrysler Building 36 months zero workplace death. This is unimaginable in today’s America. We need to get better. And faster.
4/ President Biden recently signed a landmark $1.3 trillion infrastructure bill into law to repair our subways, bridges, and tunnels and invest in our clean-energy future but unfortunately, those dollars won’t go nearly as far enough due to out-of-control costs.
5/ My Abundant Society plan outlines how we can get costs under control so we can maximize the returns from our historic investment.
6/ The U.S. spends more on infrastructure than nearly any other country in the world, but still has some of the worst infrastructure in the developed world. Why? Because we are slow.
7/ Speed is the key thing missing from US infrastructure projects, holding all other factors the same, the US is simply more costly because we are the slowest to approve and build.
8/ As project length increases, so does uncertainty, so do interest rates, and so does the risk of failure, thereby creating a vicious spiral.
9/ The main purpose of government investment in infrastructure is to increase the productive capacity of the economy. Unfortunately, many politicians simply see these investments only as ribbon-cutting ceremonies.
10/ In order to maximize the benefits of this historic trillion-dollar investment, we must work diligently to get costs under control, complete projects in a timely manner, and improve overall quality.
11/ Building rapid rail lines in the U.S. costs nearly twice as much as in Germany and more than five times as much as in Spain.
12/ Locally in New York, the problem is even worse. In the last decade, subway extensions averaged an obscene $1.5 billion per kilometer. That’s 13x more than what the world typically spends.
13/ The second avenue subway expansion was the most expensive subway project in the world at a shameful $2.2 billion per kilometer. And it was completed 90 years after conception.
14/ The problem gets worse as time goes on: the East Side Access project will shatter another record at $4 billion per kilometer.
15/ Paris is building a brand new, state-of-the-art 47-mile-long subway line for $11 billion total. In comparison, if NYC were to build a new 47-mile-long subway, it would likely cost well over $100 billion.
16/ Unions, labor, and environmental standards aren't to blame -- many European countries build rail lines much more cheaply while having even stronger labor & environmental protections than we do.
17/ Getting infrastructure costs under control is not a simple task - @NYUMarron Institute researchers @Alon_Levy and @ericgoldwyn provide a laundry list of reasons why infrastructure costs continue to spiral out of control.
18/ This includes red tape in permitting, NIMBYism, overdesign, poor government procurement processes, poor project management, poor productivity, and political hijacking of processes.
19/ If we truly want to build back better we must reimagine the way we build infrastructure.
20/ We can start by requiring local agencies to hire their own experts to keep institutional knowledge in-house, instead of continually shelling out taxpayer dollars for overpriced consultants
21/ We must also expand the federal civil service to provide consultation and oversight to local agencies. The Department of Transportation should also establish a federal watchdog to ensure local agencies aren’t wasting federal money.
22/ We must incentivize local agencies to improve quality and drive down costs. Local agencies should be encouraged to bring in experts from around the world to assist with our infrastructure projects by working with local laborers.
23/ Local agencies must provide flexibility and allow contracts to be awarded based on quality and technical scores when rather than simply awarding them to the lowest bidder.
24/ Though it seems counterintuitive, lowest-cost bids don’t guarantee overall cost when taking into account delays, change orders, interest costs, and opportunity costs. Often, a more expensive on paper design bid saves you in time and quality.
25/ Next, we must prevent the hijacking of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) to prevent clean energy projects from being approved and expand FERC’s power to bypass localities that try to block the construction of transmission lines.
26/ We must turn the page on the Robert Moses era and work to cap or remove highways in or around major cities for multifamily housing development, commerce, and greenspace to increase economic activity and remedy past racial injustices.
27/ Congress should incentivize airport construction to focus on making productivity-enhancing improvements such as adding more gates and runways, improving and quickening passenger security screenings, and creating direct public transit options to city centers.
28/ Finally, Congress should seed fund a new public institution tasked with channeling capital to invest in our nation's infrastructure and future technologies. I will be releasing something on this in the coming weeks.
29/ New Yorkers like this one are proud, open, welcoming liberals. But we can’t ask for people’s hard-earned tax dollars if we aren’t good stewards of them.
30/ After 60 years of incumbency, we know who will and won’t ask the tough questions, so it’s time for leaders who do - our subways, roads, and planet demands it.
31/ In order to enact 21st-century solutions to our 21st-century problems, we will need to defeat two corporate-backed incumbents. Consider contributing to our 100% people-powered campaign here: secure.actblue.com/donate/surajpatel22
