Why it takes six years to build a road in America. And how to do it faster.
Anyone who rattled down highways replete with moon craters while traveling on Labor Day weekend knows: The government doesn’t excel at managing roads. A major improvement would be bulldozing a permitting process that delays new public-works projects for up to a decade, and a new report from the nonpartisan group Common Good offers a road map.
In 2009 the Obama Administration air-dropped $800 billion of taxpayer cash known as the stimulus package, but as of last year a piddling $30 billion had been spent on transportation infrastructure. One reason the projects proved not as “shovel ready” as promised is that proposals must undergo extensive environmental and permitting reviews, which leave no tedium behind in part to avoid litigation.
No single official oversees the process, and agency turf wars are the norm. A project must comply with every federal, state and local outfit that declares itself relevant—Fish and Wildlife, the town fire department. A desalination plant in San Diego, for example, kicked off a permitting adventure in 2003 that lasted nine years and endured 14 legal challenges, which makes California’s failure at drought relief less of a mystery.