Late last year, an infrastructure bill finally made it through Congress. This, along with other programs, is going to make a huge difference in the way millions of people live in the greater New York City area. Mara Gay writing in the opinion section of The New York Times lays out how big the plans are:
(The link should allow full access to the article.)
It’s well worth reading because it is about something America has been lacking for years: sustained public investment in infrastructure that will take years to implement, but will have a huge beneficial impact. As Gay begins:
Like an old, well-loved couch, crumbling infrastructure is a fixture of life in New York City.
Finally, that’s about to change. Over the next several years, the city is set to receive billions for its aging railways, tunnels and bridges, including funds from the federal spending package approved in Washington late last year, which will support some of the city’s most urgent transit needs. These investments, along with other federal and state support for infrastructure, are long overdue. They stand to improve life in America’s biggest city, helping reduce commute times for millions and presenting an opportunity to ease the city’s housing crisis by better connecting more affordable areas of the region to jobs and transit. Together, these ambitious projects are a reminder of the critical role that public money plays in building America’s most essential infrastructure, in large cities like New York and elsewhere. The private sector can’t do it all.
emphasis added
One reason big public works projects are hard to execute is that they often take years to complete, making them less appealing to politicians looking to deliver quick, obvious results to constituents and to take credit for a finished project. That’s why efforts like fixing the signal system in New York City’s subway have sometimes taken a back seat to sprucing up stations or installing new bus stops. The best way to ensure the completion of less sexy but still vital infrastructure projects is to build strong public support for them. Here’s a look at some of the biggest projects on the way and how these investments could transform life in New York.
The article features a number of places where investment in transportation infrastructure — largely rail — is going to have a big impact.
- A NEW LINK BETWEEN NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY
- GETTING THE SECOND AVENUE SUBWAY TO HARLEM
- CONNECTING THE NORTHERN SUBURBS
- MORE SERVICE BETWEEN BROOKLYN AND QUEENS
- A BETTER HUB FOR BUSES
- EASIER ACCESS FROM LONG ISLAND
Each of the projects listed above has a summary of what it is and what it is intended to do, along with photos. Each of them would be worthy of a much larger write-up. Some of them have been stalled for years; some of them will bring long-desired plans to fruition.
There’s a number of key points to be made about this:
• As emphasized above, this is not something the private sector can do all by itself. It takes public investment to make it happen — and this is a start on reversing decades of smaller government, privatization, austerity, and the knee-jerk reflex of trying to rely solely on markets to solve all problems.
• From the standpoint of climate, improving transit — especially rail — is a good thing as it should help cut fossil fuel use and improve air quality. New York State has several offshore wind turbine farms in the works, as does New Jersey. As rail needs only a third of the energy to move people and goods as rubber tires rolling on pavement, the benefits of renewable wind power will go farther when applied to electrified rail systems versus electric vehicles on highways.
• Regarding inequality, improved transportation choices via transit will help revitalize currently under-served areas, provide economic stimulus, allow people more options for living and working, and reduce dependency on car ownership with its economic and environmental burdens.
While there has been criticism that too much of the infrastructure bill is still highway-centric, what’s planned for the New York City region with the rail (and bus) projects should produce obvious benefits that will encourage similar efforts elsewhere. We should not allow dissatisfaction with some elements of the bill to blind us to the good that will come from it — not if we want more.
It cannot be overemphasized that this is something only the Democratic Party can and will do. The demonization of cities by the right wing, their embrace of racism, their war on working people, their war on the very idea of the public good and government service — decades of this has left much of America in a sorry state. One need look no farther than the collapse of water and sewer systems in Jackson, Mississippi to see the consequences of Republican rule.
The Inflation Reduction Act offers more to come — but none of this will happen if Republicans regain power.
We can do better.
We must do better.
