Transport Infastructure in the US

Transport Infastructure in the US

An essay by Harvard Professor Edward Glaeser in Bloomberg View examines the 
propensity for transport infrastructure spending by American presidents, 
compares and contrasts with China and comes up with a list of seven ways to 
improve US transportation. He's keen on smart, incremental spending:-

President Barack Obama´s announcement yesterday of a six-year, $476 billion 
surface transportation reauthorization bill, as part of his 2013 budget, is the 
latest demonstration of a longstanding presidential propensity for 
transportation projects.

The U.S. owes its emergence as a great power to magnificent investments in 
infrastructure. The emerging giant of today, China, is following that example. 
Many imagine that we must again build big to stay on top. But success in 
middle-age -- for people and nations -- requires wisdom and cunning more than 
pumped-up brawn. America´s infrastructure needs intelligent reform, not floods 
of extra financing or quixotic dreams of new moon adventures or high-speed 
railways to nowhere.

When the U.S. was new, it had a hinterland with seemingly unlimited natural 
resources that was virtually inaccessible to the population centers of the East 
and the markets of the Old World. It cost as much to move goods 30 miles over 
land as to ship them across the Atlantic. Our first leaders dreamed of building 
waterways that would open the West; George Washington founded the Potomac Canal 
Company before he became president. The Erie Canal was a wonder of the age, 
running 363 miles and paying for itself within a decade.

Read the essay in full here:-

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-14/spending-won-t-fix-what-ails-u-s-transport-commentary-by-edward-glaeser.html Fonte: The Maritime Advocate online .