This week, NCPR is airing a series of stories about New York state’s fragile, badly eroded infrastructure.\u00a0 While listening, I’ve been joggling up and down Rt. 73 and 9N, careening from pothole to pothole.<\/p>\n
Maybe it was unfair to package this series during mud season, but it’s hard not to feel a little dilapidated when your head is hitting the roof of your pick-up.<\/p>\n
One thing that everyone agrees — right, left, center — is that infrastructure really matters.<\/p>\n
If you can’t get your goods and services to market cheaply, safely and efficiently, you have no choice.\u00a0 You have to take your business and your jobs elsewhere.<\/p>\n
It will be interesting going forward to see whether Governor Andrew Cuomo can find a way to shore up problem roads, bridges and dams while also squeezing the budget into a shrinking box.<\/p>\n
The last couple of major global-scale crises — in New Orleans, then Haiti and now in Japan — suggests just what life looks like when these amenities go away.<\/p>\n
I know those are extreme examples.\u00a0 We’re not likely to face a full-on earthquake, hurricane or a tsunami any time soon.\u00a0 But gradual erosion is also a powerful force of nature.<\/p>\n
What happens if we continue to let things slide?\u00a0 What if we don’t maintain a modern, state-of-the-art power grid?\u00a0 What happens if our road and rail systems fall into deeper disrepair?<\/p>\n
On the positive side, we have an example in the Crown Point Bridge of a project that can get started quickly and efficiently.<\/p>\n
Government planners in New York and Vermont tossed aside tomes of paperwork and red tape, with no apparent adverse impacts.<\/p>\n
Maybe Albany should consider making these kinds of investments now.\u00a0 The returns, in the form of immediate jobs and a more efficient economy down the road, could be transformative.<\/p>\n
Borrowing money to balance the budget, or pay for new programs, is obviously a bad idea.<\/p>\n
But borrowing money to rebuild an incredibly modern, efficient infrastructure — everything from clean water to fast rail — is an investment worth looking at.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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