New Hampshire recently came home
Certainly, it could be worse: The grade assigned to the nation as a whole was D-plus. But it was alarming enough to suggest that the state has plenty of remedial work to do. Among the findings were that nearly 13 percent of the state’s bridges are structurally deficient, that extensive flooding could be in the offing unless New Hampshire changes its approach to storm-water management, and that significantly more money needs to be spent to sustain its surface transportation system.
To his credit, Gov. Chris Sununu has proposed making increased investments in roads, bridges and schools, but the budget for the next biennium is in limbo at the moment, so it’s unclear whether infrastructure spending will survive. All too often, such expenditures are put off to another, and financially brighter, day that somehow never seems to arrive in New Hampshire.
Vermont appears to be faring somewhat better. Ironically, this is attributable in part to the devastating effects of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, which inflicted on the state damage estimated at between $700 million and $1 billion. Substantial federal disaster aid helped in rebuilding roads and bridges, and state government has continued to invest. Even so, the latest report card available on the American Society of Civil Engineers website, from 2014, assigns the state a C. It also emphasizes the need to focus on resiliency in rebuilding in a state that has been hard-hit by flooding over the years.
The pressing need for infrastructure improvements — and the millions of new jobs that they would create — was a centerpiece of Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign, and appears to be one of the few campaign goals he remains committed to pursuing now that he is in office. But, as usual, the signals are mixed.
The president has talked of investing up to a trillion dollars over 10 years in improving the nation’s aging and decaying infrastructure, not only its roads, bridges, mass transit, ports and water systems, but also potentially its energy systems, broadband connectivity and veterans hospitals. This sort of ambitious program ought to attract Democratic support as well as Republican, but as always the devil will be in the details. Trump has suggested both that the program would be paid for entirely by government borrowing and alternately that he would rely on public/private partnerships for financing. The former could be a deal-killer for Republicans and the latter for Democrats. Another problem for Democrats is that the Trump administration likely will try to limit environmental reviews and community input in order to fast-track transportation projects.
In any case, both New Hampshire and Vermont state governments and regional planners ought to begin preparing immediately, if they haven’t already, for the possibility that large amounts of federal funding could become available soon to address deficiencies. The first step is to identify priorities and to marshal the facts to demonstrate why those priority projects would serve the public good (and put people to work in good-paying jobs). That’s because the money may not be distributed to states solely by some agreed-on formula, although there no doubt will be some of that. Rather, specific projects that best promote economic development or public safety and convenience may receive priority wherever in the country they are proposed, especially if they are regional in nature. That suggests that consulting other New England states could be a winning strategy.
And even though the impetus for Trump’s plan will not be immediate and direct economic stimulus, such as the program launched by President Obama in the throes of the Great Recession, politicians on all levels like to see measurable progress in the public works they have sponsored before the next election. That’s a good argument for making sure that priority projects are “shovel ready,” or as close to that as possible, before Congress acts. Think of it as the Twin States doing their homework.