The latest news I’ve heard is that Barack Obama’s administration is looking for between $850 billion and $1 trillion in infrastructure spending over the next few years to address aging transportation infrastructure and help jumpstart the economy.
While I tend to be fairly fiscally conservative, I’m not completely opposed to the idea of spending some money to bring our nation into the 21st century. I do hope it is spent well, however. Gas prices have come down a lot in recent months, but the ultimate trend over the next fifty years is clearly up and to the right.
I hope that the short term repreieve we’ve been given from high gasoline prices doesn’t detract from our national focus on new and better energy and transportation policy. I own a car that I drive every day and often I am the only occupant. The car gets reasonable gas mileage, but since I live in the suburbs and drive in traffic it’s not spectacular gas mileage. Yet I have no other transportation options.
Carpooling is not a solution since my work schedule varies and nobody I know lives near me and works where I work. Mass transit does not go from my home to my office. Yet I live in a fairly densely populated suburb of the nation’s capitol.
What I’d love to see is investment in ubiquitous mass transit in our urban and dense suburban areas. I’m not a huge fan of riding the bus, but my experiences with the Santa Clara Valley Light Rail system were positive when I lived in Silicon Valley. Why can’t the DC metro area have a comprehensive light rail system that interfaces with existing bus routes and heavy subway (Metro) stations?
From the renewable energy research I’ve done, it seems that hydrogen is our best bet for an energy future. Let’s start making the investment in hydrogen infrastructure today. The hydrogen fuel cell technology exists today and will only get better with time. But there is no fueling infrastructure. It’s the type of economic chicken and egg problem that the federal government is uniquely positioned to address.
I hope these sorts of things are on the infrastructure spending agenda. It would be a shame to waste a trillion dollars on more freeway lane expansions and bridges to nowhere.