Ask U.S. mayors how to fix infrastructure
Two days ago, almost nobody in Texas had heard of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the public-private entity that operates the state’s electrical grid. Now everybody in Texas is mad at ERCOT. Local utilities such as CenterPoint are trying to explain why the problems in the ERCOT electrical grid weren’t their fault, and politicians are pointing fingers at each other; but ordinary people are just huddling close to their fireplaces to stay warm. And on top of everything else, the weather created water-pressure problems in the Houston water system.
This week’s crisis in the electrical grid and the water system may or may not lead to a serious reckoning. But it has highlighted an important point about our region’s infrastructure.
Modern infrastructure — the underpinnings of our systems of water, power, mobility, education, communications, public works and health facilities — is necessary to make our region’s economy function. The consequences of obsolete or dysfunctional infrastructure are dire indeed, as we have seen this week. Though it’s expensive, we must continue to plan and build the infrastructure we need. And as recent weather has shown us, it is the people and local leaders closest to the ground who are best equipped to understand the needs of metropolitan areas such as Houston, which are the drivers of the national economy.
That’s why this fall we conducted a survey of the infrastructure priorities of the nation’s 100 largest cities and 100 largest metropolitan areas. We reviewed more than 1,800 projects that can now be viewed via an interactive map on the website of Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research. (Almost 60 of these projects are in the Houston area.) This is a first-of-its-kind list of American infrastructure priorities viewed through the eyes of city and regional leaders.
Not surprisingly, we found that transportation and public facilities dominate the list of local and regional infrastructure projects. But we also found public transit, renewable energy (despite publicity about the frozen wind turbines in West Texas earlier this week, most of the failure was not in the renewable sector), clean water facilities and parks were at the top of the list. Broadband has also emerged during the pandemic as a high priority and is one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s emergency items, though the number of projects has not yet caught up with the demand identified as a result of COVID-19.
The Biden administration is making infrastructure policy a top priority. Our survey and accompanying report identified three broad areas where local and regional priorities should be used to shape the federal infrastructure package. These are:
Essential infrastructure following the pandemic, such as broadband access, emergency response and health facilities, and public transit;
Climate resilience infrastructure, such as public transit and renewable energy, which can reduce emissions, and clean water facilities, which can help mitigate the impact of climate change; and
Projects that encourage urban-rural connections, which include broadband, energy and transportation. A national program to advance rural broadband, for example, could be as transformative as the New Deal’s rural electrification successes.
In the wake of this week’s weather, it is clear that security of the electrical grid is an important component of all three of these priorities. The grid is an essential piece of infrastructure during the pandemic; it facilitates the use of climate-friendly renewable energy and provides economic development to rural areas while providing critical power to urban areas. A secure water system, as well, is an important component of climate resilience.
But these are the kinds of priorities that should bubble up from the bottom. As the Biden Administration begins to organize its national infrastructure priorities, residents of cities and regions need to assert the importance of local priorities. The administration’s infrastructure initiative cannot be focused on “bridges to nowhere.” These precious resources must meet local and regional priorities first — and refuel the nation’s economic engines in the process.