A blueprint for a green agenda

PRESIDENT-ELECT Barack Obama intends to make an economic stimulus package a priority, with the emphasis on investments in public works infrastructure. While moving quickly is important, this is an opportunity for more coherent planning that accomplishes multiple goals.

Investing in infrastructure can boost a sagging economy, by adding an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 new jobs for every $1 billion invested. The projects are place-based, giving an advantage to local workers, and producing positive ripple effects in the local economy.

However, special attention should be paid to the kinds of infrastructure projects to be funded, and how these projects fit into a broader, long-range plan. We're at a transformational moment when economic competitiveness, energy independence, responding to climate change, and developing a transportation system for the 21st century can all converge. The New England region can do its part by being ready with a model plan that transcends traditional boundaries.

A $61 billion stimulus package approved by the House of Representatives in September, but not acted on by the Senate, included $37 billion for infrastructure, with a preference for contract-ready projects - but no consideration for energy, climate, or other long-range national priorities. More recent calls for a package of $300 billion to $600 billion similarly include an emphasis on projects that may take us farther away from long-term goals.

The Obama administration should assess the projects that will bring infrastructure systems into the 21st century, jump-start the economy, and prepare for the post-carbon, post-cheap oil future. Not just any old infrastructure will do.

Instead of new highways, which often enable unsustainable land development patterns, the policy should be "fix it first" - keeping existing roads and bridges in a state of good repair. The major infrastructure projects in any stimulus package should emphasize transit - bus systems, streetcars, light rail, and inter-city rail - and moving more freight capacity to rail as well.

Cities need help retrofitting older buildings for greater energy efficiency, replacing taxi fleets with hybrids, and updating antiquated water and wastewater systems. Former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis has noted that Amtrak is ready to go with up to $3 billion in system upgrades that would improve service, such as replacing bridges and old overhead catenary wires on the Acela line, or laying down double tracks to better coordinate passenger and freight service. Inter-city rail service around Chicago and Atlanta, and in California and Florida, could replace short-haul jet trips.

The group Transportation for America has a list of projects that meet the critical performance test: helping to reduce energy consumption and harmful greenhouse gas emissions while laying the foundation for a multimodal transportation system.

Another useful organizing framework is something the Lincoln Institute has worked on with the Regional Plan Association - dividing the country into about a dozen "megaregions," like the Boston-to-Washington corridor or the Pacific Northwest. Investments in transportation infrastructure should be organized and coordinated so that they make sense for these large regions and are not just a compilation of existing projects from each metropolitan area. It would be the responsibility of each of these megaregions to come up with the transportation agenda most meaningful to them, and that means governors must work together on transportation initiatives that transcend state boundaries.

Done right, the stimulus package could become a crucial foundation for two other bills that await action in 2009: the reauthorization of over $350 billion in federal transportation spending and the next iteration of the Warner-Lieberman cap-and-trade climate protection bill. Transportation infrastructure tied to land use is central in both those massive tasks. The stimulus could begin that work, while producing jobs.

We'll need good planning and better follow-through on construction management so the projects don't drag on for years. But choosing investments that align with a green agenda is not that hard to do. The crucial first step is to put those blueprints for new bridges to nowhere and freeway expansion back on a shelf where they belong.

Armando Carbonell is senior fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.