Where Do Infrastructure Projects Come From?
(Source: Unsplash/Maarten van den Heuvel.)
Your city just announced a big infrastructure project, one with significant state and federal funding. You and your neighbors are likely wondering: why this project? Of all the things that need to be done, how did this project end up as the one we have devoted time, energy, and resources to?
In an ideal situation, the project is the culmination of a bottom-up process that begins with an urgent community need. People are struggling with one or more aspects of how the city has been built. That struggle was recognized, many incremental changes were tried, some successfully improving the situation and some less so. Over time, an approach that worked was discerned, tested, and affirmed. The big infrastructure project is the next step in that cycle.
That’s an ideal situation. It rarely works that way. Instead, large allocations of state and federal funding nudge local actors to realign their priorities. How do we come up with a project that qualifies for that funding? With the hammer of a large budget, every local priority needs to look like a nail.
A handful of people make a decision far upstream of any real public engagement. That decision—to pursue the funding available for a large project—shapes the internal structure and focus of local governments and limits the options our elected officials are given to consider.
If you’re frustrated that your community can get $58 million for an overpass on the edge of town, but can’t seem to get a simple crosswalk painted, you’re not alone. Read on.
Last summer, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announced a $58 million award to my community for a new interchange at the intersection of highways 210 and 371. The award was made through the state’s Corridors of Commerce program, which we’ve written about here in the past (in fact, it is one of the articles that got me reported to the Minnesota engineering licensing board for misconduct).
The reporting on this award gave a rare candid look behind the curtain of project development. We got to see exactly where the project was conceived by a handful of bureaucrats and consultants, and how it gestated to term, fully funded and ready to go, before any public engagement had taken place.
The story begins with the local county engineer, a good guy and a competent manager, who recognized the “federal transportation dollars were poised to flow.” There is no limit to the number of projects we can spend money on locally, but the size of the funding pot meant that a large project, with a significant coalition, was needed.
Here’s the quote from the local paper: “We're not ready to compete for all these dollars … There's all these groups that are coming together saying and highlighting the importance of their roadways and why they need the money.”
The way to compete for a large funding source is to have a worthy project large and important coalition supporting it. In this case, it was a collaboration between state, county, and city transportation departments.
The city’s mayor noted that the county engineer “urged everybody right away to get into the queue and came to our meeting and to his own and said, you know, we need to get our name in the hat, if you will, to try to be part of this.”
The way to gain credibility in the queue is to demonstrate local buy-in and need. This meant all three members of the coalition needed to hire a consultant: someone to prepare the necessary analysis propaganda to justify the project. That happened, of course, and the central talking point of the project was developed.
“It is the busiest at-grade intersection in northern Minnesota and ranks 14th on MnDOT’s most recent statewide list of highest crash cost intersections,” the report suggested. Who can oppose fixing the busiest at-grade intersection in Northern Minnesota?
Of course, “Northern Minnesota,” as generally defined, is a small fraction of the state’s population and traffic flow (except on tourist weekends in the summer). And “at grade” simply means the other coalitions seeking interchanges have been better advocates or more politically connected to date. Ranking 14th on the “highest crash cost” is parsing this even further. Yet, taken together, it’s a compelling talking point, especially for a funding request.
So, now there is a project scope and narrative. It’s time for a funding request. This might be a good time for a gut check with the public, especially since there has been no public engagement up to this point. This project began with the priorities of an engineer—congestion and traffic flow—and now we’re about to mobilize three local branches of government around addressing those priorities. Are those the public’s priorities?
Local news coverage mentioned how the city government handled this, as part of the consent calendar. “The council didn’t discuss the issue Tuesday, Feb. 7, but passed the motion of support as part of its regular business,” the local paper reported. It is true that the council represents the public and so it is assumed that priorities align, but do they?
The question the council is being asked is overly simple: do we want ostensibly free money from the state and federal government to address one of our many problems? The simple answer to the simple question is, of course, “Yes, we do.” That’s how it gets on the consent calendar. That’s how there is no discussion.
We’re not asking the harder questions. Of all the problems we are facing, is this what we want our staff to spend their time working on? Is this the one that will help our citizens the most? Is this the urgent problem we face?
Will the collective years of staff time, hours of public meetings, and potential local cost match ultimately crowd out other things we should do, maybe even something as simple as painting a crosswalk?
Local reporting suggests that it will be years “before we’re actually seeing any dirt moving” on the project. What this means is that a future group of local leaders will be asked to sign off on a project they didn’t start, they might not prioritize, and they might not even support.
They will be asked to do this after their professional staff has invested hundreds of hours into the effort. After local coalitions of insiders (politicians, chamber of commerce officials, land speculators, etc.) have pledged their support. And, of course, long after the funding has been secured.
What if that new group of local leaders just wants to get crosswalks maintained?
The way we fund transportation today crowds out local priorities. It rewards local bureaucracies when they orient themselves vertically (i.e., “What is the top-down funding program we can qualify for?”), instead of rewarding them for orienting horizontally around urgent local needs.
Local leaders working for different outcomes are often co-opted by the system, cajoled to support the project through token investments in their “alternative” priorities. Either that, or they spend their time in office as the crank fighting the losing rear guard action against the fait-accompli project they don’t believe in.
If we want to support a Strong Towns approach, if we want to empower local leaders, if we want safe and productive streets that support prospering places, we have to refocus our bureaucracies around a new set of priorities. That starts with street design teams, establishing a Crash Analysis Studio, and embedding the 4-Step Approach to Public Investment into the way we originate projects.
If these concepts seem disorienting to you—if you are comfortable with the way we prioritize and deliver projects today—you need to pick up a copy of Confessions of a Recovering Engineer and see why you’re falling behind other cities that are working to become a Strong Town.
Charles Marohn (known as “Chuck” to friends and colleagues) is the founder and president of Strong Towns and the bestselling author of “Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis.” With decades of experience as a land use planner and civil engineer, Marohn is on a mission to help cities and towns become stronger and more prosperous. He spreads the Strong Towns message through in-person presentations, the Strong Towns Podcast, and his books and articles. In recognition of his efforts and impact, Planetizen named him one of the 15 Most Influential Urbanists of all time in 2017 and 2023.