Daniel Burnham, Architect and City Planner (1846-1912) is famous for his early development of the Skyscraper and his contribution to planning cities. He is also famous for saying:
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work." — Daniel Hudson Burnham (1846-1912)
Puerto Rico and other storm-ravaged areas in the Caribbean and elsewhere are in great need of big plans, both for the purpose of putting their lives and infrastructure back together, and as a means to protect themselves from future hurricanes, which, due to Global Warming are likely to be both more frequent and far stronger because the warming increases both the temperature of tropical seas and oceans, but the depth of heating provides more energy available to power the storms, making them both more destructive with wind and water from rain and storm surge.
The red lines on the map above is a BIG plan to rebuild Puerto Rico. The red lines are a massive transportation backbone for the island territory of the United States, home to 3.2 million American Citizens, who are suffering because of recent Hurricane Maria and the woefully inadequate humanitarian response of the United States government, which of course is “led” by Donald J. Trump, whose job of play-acting a president is woefully less skillfully done then that by President Reagan two generations ago.
So what do the red lines indicate? Consider a quarter mile wide right-of-way for the installation of passenger and freight rail, highways, a new electrical distribution hub, complete with high reliability long line transmission, substations, and a network of higher elevation storm shelters, all within 10 to 20 miles of every resident of Puerto Rico. Most of the network will be in the foothills of the mountain range, and well above where it can be damaged by a storm surge.
The construction, over a period of 10 years will likely cost $10 to $20 billion dollars and potentially more, and it will provide thousands of good paying jobs, and making world-class infrastructure for Puerto Rico that will grow its economy from third world, to New World. Who will pay for it? Likely it will be a Federal, Territorial, Local match similar to the Interstate Highway system, where the federal government paid 90%, states and local governments, the other 10%. The plan should also include dredging the harbor at San Juan to allow deep draft vessels to come to the docks for unloading, and to allow US Navy principal ships to come to the pier at the Naval Base. All of these things will create synergies that will bring Puerto Rico’s economy and ability to produce goods and services for all of the Caribbean region and beyond.
So, Puerto Rico winds up with a modern rail, truck/auto, electrical (also has space for installation of solar generation stations in the Right-of-way), and secure storm protection structures within 20 miles of the entire population of the island. It is something that we, America and Puerto Rico should think about. They get thousands of badly needed jobs, income, taxes for territorial and local governments, and world-class infrastructure that will last 100 years, and longer with proper maintenance. It will yield a better standard of living for the next century.
The plan shown here is not really a plan and won’t be until a lot of people look at it and start talking about it, and what the real short and long-term needs of Puerto Rico really are. I have never set foot in Puerto Rico and only had a look at a few rough maps, saw where some reasonably flat land and mountain passes existed, and started drawing thick red lines. The exact locations I plotted may already be covered by existing infrastructure, or for reasons unknown to me, difficult to build upon. But you have to start somewhere. You have to examine what the real needs are for the territory. If jobs, income and skills are a long term need, this kind of massive infrastructure development looks like a good place to start. If the electricity grid is antiquated and broken, then maybe an infrastructure backbone is a good place to start. If we think that due to global warming, that massive storms are expected to be more powerful and more frequent, maybe a massive shelter network withing 20 miles of all the American Citizens on the island is a good thing to consider. If the existing highway network is subject to washouts and loss of bridges when storms hit, maybe building Category 5 resistant highway and rail infrastructure may be something worth considering. Maybe a few fresh water aqueducts to move clean water to cities should be a priority when the existing water infrastructure has been proven to be inadequate to meet the people’s needs.
A robust debate about what the real needs of Puerto Rico now and in the future probably needs to take place. A robust debate about who will pay for it needs to take place. Over three million American Citizens need to move this debate forward. The congress and president need to move this forward, and the federal government needs to participate in moving this forward. Once needs are determined, the execution of meeting those needs should be planned, engineered, and over the next 5, 10 and even 20 years, needs to be implemented.
Puerto Rico will be in a strong position to improve its tourist economy, its industrial economy, its transportation sector and its service economy. Other development follows transportation. No location on the island will be more than 3 hours away from any other point on the island. Here’s a proposal for a really big plan.
I will enjoy reading your comments.