Will the Coming Infrastructure Stimulus Be Squandered?

There's an opportunity, given the broad political consensus for a massive investment in public infrastructure, to reorient our transit systems toward sustainability. This opportunity might well be lost in an attempt to prop up the doomed existing system.

Missouri’s plan to spend $750 million in federal money on highways and nothing on mass transit in St. Louis doesn’t square with President-elect Barack Obama’s vision for a revolutionary re-engineering of the nation’s infrastructure.

Utah would pour 87 percent of the funds it may receive in a new economic stimulus bill into new road capacity. Arizona would spend $869 million of its $1.2 billion wish list on highways.

While many states are keeping their project lists secret, plans that have surfaced show why environmentalists and some development experts say much of the stimulus spending may promote urban sprawl while scrimping on more green-friendly rail and mass transit.