The Enduring Impact of a Bridge
Tom Friedman is surely right to say that investing in our education system would be a good idea. But not only does the specific proposal he makes suffer from the problems Kevin Carey details, but he’s dead wrong about this purported contrast:
Sure, we’ll waste some money doing that. That will happen with bridges, too. But a bridge is just a bridge. Once it’s up, it stops stimulating. A student who normally would not be interested in science but gets stimulated by a better teacher or more exposure to a lab, or a scientist who gets the funding for new research, is potentially the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. They create good jobs for years. Perhaps more bridges can bail us out of a depression, but only more Bills and Steves can bail us into prosperity.
This is totally wrong. A bridge doesn’t “stop stimulating” the economy once it’s done. Well-functioning bridges are integral to economic prosperity. The economic success of Northern Virginia is built in part on a solid foundation of a highly educated workforce. But it’s also built on the fact that there are bridges across the Potomac River. The most important economic impact of the bridges over the river isn’t the immediate job-creation effect that building them had. It’s that first the construction of highway-bridges created the NoVa DC suburbs and second that the construction of rail bridges allowed the creation of the dense corridors of economic activity that shape and define Arlington County.
Right now, the country is suffering tens of billions of dollars in lost economic productivity each year due to traffic congestion in the vicinity of our major metropolitan areas:
Relieving that congestion will due us enormous enduring economic good. And to relieve it, we’ll need new infrastructure. Probably not very many new bridges, as it happens, though we certainly should do repair work on our existing highways and bridges. But new investments in mass transit and freight rail infrastructure will do a lot to mitigate these problems. And combined with state-of-the-art congestion pricing—which, in turn, would require some infrastructure investments to be workable—we could solve the congestion problem and do ourselves a world of good.
This is largely independent of the stimulus question, but insofar as we’re looking to spend money it definitely makes sense to find smart ways to use stimulus funds to kick-start some of the needed activity. That’s not to deny the importance of education. Rather, smart investments in education are in exactly the same basket as smart investments in physical infrastructure—both will help the country enormously over the long-run.
41 Responses to “The Enduring Impact of a Bridge”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
January 12th, 2009 at 9:26 am
No problem! Just make bridge-building part of our students’ science curriculum!
January 12th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Wow!
I knew Tom Friedman was dumb but damn, I had no idea he was that stupid.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:35 am
you know what would relieve congestion, speed the flow of services (and to a lesser extent, goods), and reduced government waste all at once?
dismantling the entire airport security charade.
all those useless tsa people, just send them all home, or make them build bridges (please god don’t let them teach our children).
aim to get passengers from the drop-off to the gate in five minutes, 10 for mammoth airports like o’hare.
yeah, the risk of a hijacking or the like goes up, minimally. but i find it hard to believe these people are stopping anyone determined, in any case.
as far as i can tell, the only people who would cry would be makers of bottled water and pocket-knives, and the outgoing third-reich gang like chertoff, cheney and bush.
fuck ‘em. abolish ‘homeland security’ as a department, and then drastically streamline everything that remains. it’ll do wonders for the economy if we can just fly faster once again.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Friedman sounds simply foolish with this.
I have no gripes with airport security. I’ve flown at least 7-8 times in the last year, at least twice cross country and twice internationally. On only one occasion was the security line long, and it was really only about 20 minutes. It may be a waste of resources, but it’s not really such a waste of passenger time.
What IS a waste of passenger time is that the airports continue to tell passengers to show up 2-3 hours in advance of their flight IN CASE check in and security take a long time (but, which in my experience of the past year shows, they rarely do). If they could actually guarantee reasonable check-in and security times, and passengers could go back to showing up just an hour in advance, THAT would be a considerable streamlining of hte process. But, they won’t do that, b/c they don’t give a shit if they waste our time, only theirs. Sounds more and more like a third world bureaucracy.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:46 am
What IS a waste of passenger time is that the airports continue to tell passengers to show up 2-3 hours in advance of their flight IN CASE check in and security take a long time (but, which in my experience of the past year shows, they rarely do). If they could actually guarantee reasonable check-in and security times, and passengers could go back to showing up just an hour in advance, THAT would be a considerable streamlining of the process.
Airports like people to show up far in advance of their flights, because then they’ll spend more at airport concessions.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Friedman has always been an excitable boy, but, since his wife lost a pile of money recently, he’s been particularly weird.
BTW- Bush doesn’t think America’s moral standing has been damaged by his policies (per final presser). Denial is in his DNA.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:54 am
big sis, i don’t want to get into a kerfuffle, but isn’t your reply like saying “i don’t see that highway congestion is a problem–i went out on the highway several times last year without running into any three-hour back-ups!”
the problem with highway traffic is not that every road is a parking-lot, every hour. it’s that some roads are parking lots every now and then, and this has a lot of consequences. it means that people have to drive differently, and plan differently, and it means that states have to overbuild for peak flow and so on and so forth.
i mean, you make the point yourself: because of airport security, there *are* occasionally huge 2-3 hour backlogs in getting to the gate. and this means that everyone has to get there early, even if, on that day in that airport, there is no backlog.
but the 2-3 hour fuckups do happen (even if none of them happened on your 8 trips last year). and that means that the problem is real, and that everyone has to adjust their travel plans around it, and that airports have to be designed differently and so on.
those are all congestion problems resulting from the security theater regime. you were affected by them.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Matt,
Congestion …. Have you ever noticed that every single domestic problem you are concerned about has been exacerbated by illegal immigration?
January 12th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Have you ever noticed that every single domestic problem you are concerned about has been exacerbated by illegal immigration?
When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail, Steve.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:08 am
kb – I see your point. But there is congestion for different reasons. Some of it is predictable (happens at peak use times) and TSA staff and airline staff could be adjusted accordingly to mitigate some of the backup. Moreover, since it’s predictable, airports could hand out pretty reliable estimates to passengers about how much time they will reasonably need to arrive at their gate just a few minutes before boarding. The other times that backups happen are less predictable (e.g. accidents), but I would guess that these would be much less common in airport checkin situation (computers go down? wreckless parents with TWO bottles of water rather than just one for their kid?) that on the LIE at 7:30 am. All to say, as you suggest, that air travel should be designed differently, though it really wouldn’t take much effort by personnel to achieve significant improvements (not perfection, mind you) with very little cost or effort – do a few studies, run a few programs, and voila, you’ve got estimated time through airport. Sure, some times you might get snared up, but you don’t leave for work two hours earlier than normal every day just because there MIGHT be a backup due to an unanticipated event.
I see your point – I just don’t think security itself is the issue, but rather laziness and lack of respect for passengers (as when Delta, after screwing up and making me miss my 10pm flight last week, told me I had to be back at the airport at 4:30 the next morning to make the 6:30 – ridiculous that they couldn’t tell me that typically, check-in time at that time of the morning is 10 minutes [which it was] – rather, when I questioned them, they stuck to their script and chose to tell me that I had to show up two hours early – they chose laziness and incompetence over good customer service]). Sure, I might be a rube for actually showing up then, but that’s not really the issue.
Moreover, I think Peter may be on to something.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:11 am
know what else will ease congestion?
massive unemployment!
January 12th, 2009 at 10:20 am
In discussion highway congestion, it should be noted that the Texas Transportation Institute has pointed out every year for the last 30 years that 1/2 of the delay time on highways is due incident lane blockages. Since these are random events, it is rather difficult to plan ahead for them.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:22 am
I’m going to be really annoyed if the current moment doesn’t result in expedited construction of the 2nd Avenue subway.
NYC leads the nation is economic activity lost to congestion by a wide margin…
January 12th, 2009 at 10:22 am
The total losses from congestion in the map provided come to about $45 billion per year. Compare that to the US GDP, which is around $14 trillion.
Even if a crash program of infrastructure-building could eliminate half those losses (which sounds pretty ambitious), I’m not sure that would qualify as an “enormous” economic gain.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Whenever you get stuck in traffic, just shout out “Them dang Mexicans!” until you feel better.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Friedman and Yglesias are both wrong. Friedman is wrong for the reasons Yglesias notes, but Matt is wrong because the stimulus on infrastructure will overwhelmingly go to repair projects, not new ones–I’d wager that almost nothing, perhaps *literally* nothing, in the way of genuine new projects is “shovel-ready” save for funding. Repairs only ease congestion in those few situations where disrepair is so severe that traffic is now being constricted–I’m sure those cases exist, but they’re rare even here in the decrepit Northeast. Most repair is to make sure we don’t have another Minneapolis bridge collapse, which is vitally important but isn’t constricting traffic in the here and now.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Petey- I think southern California might have NYC beat in that regard, if only because NY now manufactures so little.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:31 am
No economist here, but I thought the point was that we’re currently operating far below our capacity and slipping (with the obvious human cost being increased unemployment). Increasing efficiency by easing commuter strain increases our capacity, but doesn’t necessarily stimulate the economy to fill in the gap, right? In fact, ignoring the temporary boost in employment from constructing new bridges, wouldn’t a new bridge actually increase unemployment by: making individual workers more productive (enabling layoffs), lowering the number of construction workers required to repair aging infrastructure, lowering the number of employees required to provide fuel/services because drivers won’t be on the road as often and will drive more efficiently, etc?
Obviously this is an absurd argument. The lasting impact of a bridge doesn’t have a thing to do with its ability to ease our recession over the next 1-4 years, as you noted. However, I think there’s some measure of truth in what Friedman’s saying even if his phrasing is way off base. Funding new research labs, teachers, etc provides new, lasting jobs while a bridge requires a larger economy if all that liberated efficiency isn’t going to go to waste. It seems that infrastructure investments increase the capacity for growth and educational investments, policies favoring industrial growth, etc fill in the gap. I don’t see how they’re in the same basket unless that basket’s labeled “things the government can do that are good if done well.”
January 12th, 2009 at 10:32 am
“The total losses from congestion in the map provided come to about $45 billion per year. Compare that to the US GDP, which is around $14 trillion. Even if a crash program of infrastructure-building could eliminate half those losses (which sounds pretty ambitious), I’m not sure that would qualify as an “enormous” economic gain.”
The gain is far more than just eliminating currently lost economic activity. It actually gains you new economic activity beyond what is currently bottlenecked.
The gain is a traditional network effect, where the value of the network is proportional to the square of the number of users.
The transportation network really functions according to identical rules as the internet. Build highways, bridges, subways, and light rail, and economic activity can be dramatically intensified.
January 12th, 2009 at 10:35 am
“Petey- I think southern California might have NYC beat in that regard, if only because NY now manufactures so little.”
Manufacturing is but a subset of total economic activity. And NYC still has the largest GDP of any metro area in the nation by a wide margin.
The transportation network allows concentration of human resources, not just movement of goods.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Petey- You’re right about that, but I’ve always been skeptical of “lost productivity” figures for the tertiary sector because they’re premised on the notion that the time lost to commuting would be spent working, which isn’t my experience and I don’t think it is the experience of most lines of work except for those who travel extensively during the business day. Some people (a lot of people) do that, but most don’t.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Except that safety can and should be part of planning, and when traffic has to take Option A because of congestion, there may well be more accidents along Option B due to the increased traffic. Better roads and less congestion won’t stop idiots talking on cellphones, but it might reduce the number of people caught in the idiot’s accident from five to two.
January 12th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
We shouldn’t underplay the social benefit from infrastructure investments simply in providing employment to people who are now without work. As I understand it, providing paychecks to the unemployed was a key goal of the CCC and the WPA; a worthwhile investment in itself that helped relieve suffering and desperation for many.
The argument about relieving congestion is important from a social perspective, but not one that would count much for the private sector CFO’s I know. The extra time spent commuting to work is a social cost borne by workers themselves and not directly accounted for in private sector accounting.
But that is not to discount the network effect. The state and national parks built by the CCC stimulated a good deal of growth in the surrounding areas supporting new tourist traffic. The light rail line we managed to put in place in Minneapolis a few years ago has already contributed to rising property values and new businesses along that line.
January 12th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
I like the Friedman fantasy that some public school science teacher will inspire Juan or Tyrone to become the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Heck, if liberals really believed this they’d be sending their kids to public schools. In the real world, Tyrone could be taught by Steve Jobs himself and it wouldn’t make a difference, but he’s actually being taught science by some girl with a sociology degree who is one chapter ahead of the students. That’s thanks to teachers union rules that prevent schools from offering higher pay to teachers with math and science backgrounds.
January 12th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
“We shouldn’t underplay the social benefit from infrastructure investments simply in providing employment to people who are now without work.”
If we have broken bridges or whatever we should fix them — because they are broken — and this will provide some economic stimulus. But don’t think this is going to help the average unemployed worker. Unless you are a contractor’s nephew or already in a trade union, you’re not going to get hired for one of these jobs. And if you are in one of these unions, you’ve been getting overpaid all your career for waving a red flag slowly on a highway.
January 12th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Is there nothing that can be done to persuade MY to start reading comments and wielding the banhammer? (His replacement at the Atlantic had Fred out the door within a week.)
January 12th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
I like Matt’s 18th C.-style Amsterdam attitude of total laisser faire with regards to his comments. Sure, it brings those who argue in bad faith and/or are willfully ignorant (Fred, Al, e.g.) but it also attracts a healthy slew of wierdos and extremists (Steve Sailer, SLC, Richard Steven Hack). These latter sort are actually very illustrative of the problems in our discourse and our society, so I think ignoring them is probably not in our best interest.
March 14th, 2009 at 5:00 am
Incredible site!
xanax
March 17th, 2009 at 2:20 am
Great site. Good info
tramadol
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:56 am
tramadol
Incredible site!
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:24 am
viagra
Great site. Good info
April 2nd, 2009 at 4:57 am
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
buy cheap viagra
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:00 am
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
cheap brand pfizer viagra
April 9th, 2009 at 4:49 am
Thanks for the review! viagra
April 9th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
This is very up-to-date info. I think I’ll share it on Digg.