Rachel Maddow brought Representative John Mica (R-FL) on her show last night to share his reactions to the president’s infrastructure and transportation jobs proposal. The congressman’s remarks were grounded in the same development model that has been killing American cities for decades. Mica called Obama’s references to Houston transit and the Brent Spence Bridge “earmarks.” This is more than just a clever dig; it is a clear example of Republican transportation priorities, as both projects are vital to the economic future of their communities.
Houston’s smog problems are well-known, but fewer people know that Houston ranks third from the bottom in a recent transit access study of the 100 largest US metro areas. A family with no car is literally locked out of the American economy in Houston. The Brent Spence Bridge, which crosses the Ohio River at Cincinnati, has been considered “functionally obsolete” for years, but still carries more than twice as many vehicles as it was designed to handle — especially trucks:
(J)ust 17 percent of the trucks are traveling through the region without stopping. Most of the trucks — about 83 percent — end their trips within the eight-county region surrounding Cincinnati. Requiring them to take less direct routes would be drain on commerce, critics of a truck ban say.
The effects of bad, inadequate, or deficient infrastructure are always pronounced at the local level, which is why the U.S. Conference of Mayors has been clamoring for more direct access to federal funding. Currently only about 7% of federal highway funds go directly to cities, which are the engines of the economy where most of us live and work.
States – thirty-three of which already have infrastructure banks, according to Mica — often exert a great deal of control over metro planning. Mica asks “why create that (infrastructure bank) model in Washington?” The answer is that many states are leaving their cities behind, often causing the very “red tape” delays about which Mica complains. Cities are still struggling for revenue as if the recession never ended.
Both unions and the Chamber of Commerce support a federal infrastructure bank; but as Maddow points out, the chief flaw in such a bank would be its deleterious effects on congressional patronage (i.e., highways leading to bridges to nowhere). Mica’s priority — developer-friendly highway sprawl over local surface streets, transit, and other metropolitan needs — is implicit in saying he wants federal spending to do “more than just putting in a sidewalk or repaving,” which are exactly the kinds of projects America needs to be doing more.
Both sidewalks and repaving are crucial to safety and community development, especially economic development. Walkable streets connect foot traffic between residential zones and retail. Smooth pavement increases safety and efficiency. And contrary to the assumption in Mica’s statement, improving those sidewalks and roads creates more jobs than laying down new pavement.
American cities are generally much more “shovel ready” with these projects than most state departments of transportation. I have seen this locally: Alabama is agonizingly slow on highway projects; it took decades to complete the four-laning of Highway 157 between Tuscumbia and Cullman. Yet I have seen Muscle Shoals and Florence repave like mad, with “temporary” crews engaged for weeks at a time to smooth out miles and years of neglect, just months after a single city council vote.
Mica’s recollection of the FAA Reauthorization fiasco leaves much to be desired: his own union-busting busting efforts, and not the Senate, delayed a bill that should have had nothing to do with unions. When he says that, like the president, he wants to pass a new long-term transportation bill, Mica doesn’t mention that he wants to cut transportation funding by more than one-third — despite our huge and growing infrastructure gap.
America already has 90,000 miles of crumbling highways and 70,000 deficient bridges. We can afford to work on them; we can’t afford not to. Mica knows this. He just has other priorities.
