To realize Biden’s big ambitions, government must devise how to do efficient infrastructure

Breathtakingly ambitious: That’s how many observers describe the $2 trillion infrastructure proposal unveiled by President Biden last week. It contains scores of programs aimed at updating America’s obsolete infrastructure and addressing climate change: $213 billion for affordable housing, $174 billion for electric vehicle incentives, $115 billion for roads and bridges, $111 billion for clean water, $100 billion for electric grid and clean energy, $100 billion for high-speed broadband, $85 billion for mass transit, $80 billion for rail, and much more.

New York City could be transformed by such changes:

The new $30 billion Gateway rail tunnel would alleviate rail delays in the Northeast Corridor and avoid “carmaggedon” if one of the two decrepit existing rail tunnels has to ever shut down.

Extending the Second Ave. subway, the No. 4 line in Brooklyn, and the No. 1 line to Red Hook, would speed up the commute of tens of thousands of New Yorkers, and open up new areas for much-needed new housing.

Repairing old bridges and doing long-overdue upkeep on city highways would not only enhance safety, but would eliminate the frustration of driving over cracked and pockmarked pavement, and past crumbled guard rails and graffiti.

Making the shoreline resilient against storm surges would save billions in the future.

Retrofitting public housing would restore dignity and pride to many and enhance the lives of thousands of families.

Building wind farms in the shallow water between Long Island and New Jersey would reduce cost and pollution from fossil power.

New transmission lines would alleviate blackouts in future storms.

Electric buses would glide noiselessly and without fumes along New York’s avenues.

Add it all up, and it seems too good to be true. What’s the catch? Actually, almost all of these projects could be good investments if done properly. Republicans and Democrats alike have been calling for infrastructure funding for years now. For more than a decade, industry groups, economists and members of Congress come together annually for “Infrastructure Week.”

But so far almost nothing has happened, mainly because political leaders focus on goals and have come up with no trusted mechanism to actually implement largescale infrastructure investment. Distrust about delays, waste and favoritism mean that projects don’t get off the ground.

Biden’s plan has the wind at its back. The public broadly supports climate-change initiatives, and business supports projects that will enhance America’s competitiveness. There are two sticking points with the Biden plan.

First, the $2 trillion has to come from somewhere, and Biden says it will come by raising corporate taxes from 21% to 28%. The main industry groups which support new infrastructure, such as the Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers, have already declared their opposition to this tax proposal. Many responsible economists believe that the lowering of corporate taxes by the Trump administration to 21% — roughly the same level as other industrial countries — helped bring American businesses back onshore. A more balanced tax plan that spreads the pain is readily achievable in political negotiations. For example, raising the fuel tax by 25 cents per gallon would raise about $400 billion over ten years.

Second, and more fundamentally, Washington has demonstrated in recent decades that it is unable to deliver new infrastructure effectively — even when it has allocated all the funding. Much of the $800 billion stimulus in 2009 was supposed to be used for infrastructure. Five years later, a White House report disclosed that a grand total of 3.6% had been spent on transportation infrastructure. The reason, as President Barack Obama admitted, is that red tape for permitting meant that there was “no such thing as shovel-ready projects.”

Then, when infrastructure projects are finally approved, the waste and inefficiency are notorious. Often the waste is built into featherbedding work rules.

The Second Ave. subway construction in Manhattan cost $2.5 billion per mile. A similar project in Paris, using a similar tunneling machine, cost $450 million per mile, or one-fifth as much. Part of the difference was caused by union work contracts that required twice as many workers to operate the machine as were needed.

The East Side Access tunnel, bringing the Long Island Rail

Road into Grand Central Terminal, turned out to have 200 workers on the books who never appeared. They just collected checks.

Another form of waste is diversion of resources to projects that make little sense. Notorious examples include the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” a $223 million project to connect a small Alaskan island to the mainland.

The Biden administration’s $2 trillion plan is seen as a Christmas tree, laden with gifts, and has already launched what some observers call a “feeding frenzy.” Thousands of interest groups are lining up to get theirs, and members of Congress are already preparing their wish lists. Indeed, the attraction of the Biden proposal,