Here’s a little gem I found on Yahoo News:
Describing the $787 billion stimulus package, President Obama evokes the 1950s construction of the interstate system, conjuring images of highways, bridges, and orange cones…
But as projects are chosen, it’s becoming clear that the program may amount to little more than an infrastructure face-lift. Owing to the need for speed and to institutional obstacles, most stimulus transportation projects are small and localized. “Here and there, people will notice things,” says Robert Poole, director of transportation policy at the libertarian Reason Foundation. He cites repaired potholes and new streetlights. “But I don’t think the country as a whole will say, ‘Wow, transportation is so much better,’ ” Poole says…
An even bigger problem, experts say, is how that funding is doled out. Decisions are often politicized and are rarely coordinated between levels of government. Transportation dollars are traditionally spread thinly, “like peanut butter,” says Robert Puentes, senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s metropolitan policy program. “We don’t do cost-benefit analysis in this country.”
America may not have a clear vision for its transportation system, but infrastructure advocates, not to mention Americans who have ever sat in stalled traffic or bumped over a pothole, hope that will change.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that last sentence was a brilliant piece of literary sarcasm. Unfortunately, that bit of humor was probably lost on the author.
via Obama’s Stimulus Projects Won’t Amount to Major Infrastructure Overhaul – Yahoo! News.