Fuschillo: 'Infrastructure Can’t Remain Stuck in the 1950s'

The father of America’s interstate highway system, President Dwight Eisenhower, once wrote that its “impact on the American economy the jobs it would produce in manufacturing and construction…was beyond calculation.”

Decades later, those same words hold true as New York faces its own infrastructure and economic crisis. Investing in transportation projects can, and must, be a part of the solution to both problems.

But while Eisenhower’s challenge was building a system to bring communities closer together, ours is fixing a system so they don’t drift apart.

Much of New York’s transportation infrastructure was built during the
Eisenhower interstate era, and its age is showing. Many major projects
which have languished for years, most notably replacing the Tappan Zee
Bridge, cannot be put off any longer. 6,200 of New York’s 17,400 state and
local highway bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally
obsolete, according to the State Department of Transportation.

So how does New York pay for everything while facing a multi-billion dollar
budget deficit, a weak economy, and escalating project costs which far
outpace traditional funding sources?

Just as our infrastructure can’t remain stuck in the 1950s, neither can our
thinking when it comes to solving this problem.

That’s why New York State needs to explore innovative ways to finance and
deliver projects, most especially public-private partnerships.

Public-private partnerships (P3s) enable governments and the private sector
to partner in the design, construction, financing, and delivery of
transportation projects. Given the private sector’s vested financial
interest in completing projects on time and under-budget, P3’s often
perform more efficiently than their counterparts. 31 states and Puerto Rico
enacted laws authorizing P3s for infrastructure projects for these reasons.
New York should do the same.

The Legislature recently approved Governor Cuomo’s proposal to authorize
state agencies to utilize the simplest form of public-private partnership,
design build procurement, which helps expedite the delivery schedule by
combining the project’s design and construction phases under a single
contract.  It’s a good start, but New York shouldn’t limit itself to this
one system alone.

Legislation I sponsor would give the state’s principal transportation
agencies the flexibility to utilize other types of P3s so that we can
access new sources of private sector capital and take full advantage of the
economic benefits. Used properly, P3s could alleviate some of the financial
burden and risk to the state and stretch current funding farther, enabling
more projects to move forward in these tough economic times.

That’s a critical benefit. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates
that 25,000 jobs are created for every $1 billion spent on transportation
infrastructure projects.  United Bank of Switzerland officials testified at
a Senate Transportation Committee public hearing that as much as $120
billion in equity capital for infrastructure has been raised to date.
Nearly two-thirds of that money is yet to be invested.  The funding
opportunities are there, and in a time of fiscal and economic difficulty we
literally can’t afford to ignore them.

Just as Eisenhower thought big to solve the infrastructure crisis of the
1950s, we must do the same to fix the one we face now.

New York State Senator Charles J. Fuschillo, Jr., R-Merrick, is Chairman of
the New York State Senate’s Transportation Committee.