In 1919, our federal government launched a defense logistics study by sending a military convoy from DC to San Francisco; the troubled journey took 62 days and underscored the imperative for a national highway system. In the late 1930’s our modern interstate highway system was planned, and large-scale construction commenced in 1956 – via an act of Congress where 90% of the costs were borne by the government. Railroad impact was an unintended consequence.
Up to the early 1900’s our government fueled the railroad boom by providing land grants for rights-of-way. But by the mid 1950’s, government subsidies shifted heavily away from railroads and towards highways and airports. And the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) restricted railroads from abandoning unprofitable routes or changing rates. The result was a cascade of major railroad bankruptcies and government bailouts.
According to the US Department of Transportation (USDOT), today’s transportation network includes 4.2 million route-miles of interstate, highway, and local roads, 140,000 route-miles of freight and intercity rail network, and 1,800 route-miles of rail transit infrastructure, including over 700,000 roadway and railway bridges, and over 1,500 tunnels. A significant portion of these assets are over 100 years old.
Our ageing transportation system is fiscally unsustainable, despite it being the most heavily subsidized form of infrastructure in our country. The physical and fiscal risks of failure threaten our economy. And the fundamental design of our transportation system is the result of 120+ years of accumulated, ad-hoc decisions that don’t make sense in Industry 4.0.
Our roadway network is 25+ Million acres of contiguous real estate that doesn’t turn a profit. Our road rights-of-way take up an estimated 26 million acres, collectively owned and managed by the 39,000 DOTs and roadway authorities described above. This is more land than the entire state of Kentucky; and in urban areas (our nation’s most expensive real estate), the government-owned roads can account for approximately 25% of the total surface area.
In nearly all market sectors, real estate improvements can generate 5-8% annual return on investment (ROI). But instead of making a profit, our 4.4 million mile roadway network relies on approximately $100 Billion annual government subsidy.
Roads and railways are all bespoke designs with high price tags. Transportation project costs are high because agencies have strong preferences and every project is a unique design. This prevents our governments from capitalizing on the “economies of scale” that come with standardization. Instead we contend with higher up-front costs, complex maintenance requirements, and no options for upgrading with off-the-shelf components.
While federal requirements have standardized some aspects of roadway design (e.g. a stop sign looks the same everywhere in the US), we are far from having a kit-of-parts for roadway development. Transit system design is truly bespoke in every manner. As a result, our rail systems are often non-interoperable in a given agency, let alone between agencies.
As we’ve entered the digital era, agencies have modernized our transportation infrastructure with a wide range of “bolt-on” technologies from myriad vendors, whose systems are incompatible with one another. This isn’t just an issue from agency-to-agency or line-to-line; but any given segment of road or railway might include technologies that are incompatible with the next segment. This proliferation of digital technologies has created a Gordian knot of system integration challenges that plague transportation projects everywhere.
The urgency to develop Transportation Infrastructure 2.0
Our transportation system works, and while roadway tolls and transit fares are generally keeping pace with inflation, the looming fiscal cliff is an intolerable risk as humanity ventures deeper into Industry 4.0. The Federal Highway Trust Fund (the federal funding source for both roadways and transit) is estimated to be exhausted of cash by 2028. The state and local transportation agencies are collectively $400 Billion in debt. The FHWA reported in 2018 that a $1.1 Trillion investment is required over the next two decades to rectify the roadway SGR backlog. And ASCE estimates that transit systems have $618 Billion in infrastructure needs through 2033.
This begs the question of whether a nearly $2 Trillion dollar investment in the transportation system makes sense; or if it’s time to reinvent the transportation system from a blank canvas. For roadways, reinvention means creative real estate monetization, deepening standards, and pushing the envelope for modular design and offsite construction. For passenger rail, which suffers from deepening systems integration challenges, it can be a complete reconception of how we move people from point A to B, and generation of new revenue streams from transit infrastructure.
Engineering solutions can begin in a single local jurisdictions to allows for initial proof-of-concept and unlock studies for retrofit and long-term scalability.
Status of solution:
- Draft transit policy submitted to congress for Transportation Reauthorization
- Heavy mass transit concept and implementation roadmap
- Heavy mass transit patent-pending
- Rural transit concept underway