Infrastructure

State and local governments account for the bulk of public spending on infrastructure. Infrastructure investments can ensure that we do not leave future generations a deficit of underinvestment and deferred maintenance of public assets. Such investment can create jobs and lock-in genuine full employment in the near-term and provide a needed boost to productivity growth in the medium-term. Large, sustained increases in infrastructure investment can increase aggregate demand and productivity growth, which provides the potential ceiling on how fast average income can rise.

Smart public investment should put the needs of the public first and should not undercut workers’ wages.

Publications

Taking Bold Action on Transportation Will Give New Jersey’s Economy a Firm Foundation for the Future

In order for its economy to remain competitive, New Jersey needs a state-of-the-art transportation network and must be willing to make the investments this requires. With the funding needed to restore this essential but deteriorating lifeline about tapped out, policymakers must act with urgency to reverse a steady decline. After years of avoiding this problem – settling at best for temporary, inadequate measures ­– New Jersey needs bold action to fix its transportation system.

To maintain and improve the state’s roads, bridges and mass transit systems, as well as to begin projects critical to our future, New Jersey should increase funding for the state Transportation Trust Fund – which has stagnated for a decade – by 25 percent for the next 10 years, up to $20 billion over the decade from $16 billion. To do so, the most sensible option is to extend the state’s 7 percent sales tax to gasoline. Based on current gas prices of approximately $3.50 per gallon, the imposition of the sales tax would be the equivalent of a 24.5-cent-per-gallon increase.

This would not only help put the Transportation Trust Fund on solid footing, but it would also prevent the resources generated from the present gas tax from losing their purchasing power over time, jeopardizing the very transportation system the money is supposed to preserve.

Invest in New Jersey: Improve Our Roads and Bridges

Fixing New Jersey’s crumbling roads and bridges is vital to energizing the state’s lagging recovery from the Great Recession. Without a sound transportation system that allows businesses to cheaply and efficiently move their goods to market and eases the commute of working men and women, New Jersey’s economy will continue to trail its neighbors. Rather than contemplating a massive new tax cut, state policymakers should invest in this key to our state’s future.

We have a lot of ground to make up: The average commute in New Jersey is 20 percent longer than the national average. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives New Jersey a “D” for the quality of its roads and bridges. It estimates that the 66 percent of roads in “poor or mediocre” condition cost the average driver $601 in added repairs annually. Thirty-six percent of the state’s 6,554 bridges were categorized as “structurally deficient” (651 bridges, or 10 percent) or “functionally obsolete” (1,717 bridges, or 26 percent). And while New Jersey remains a vital connection for truck traffic between Washington and Boston, our interstate highways and local roads are straining under the load.

If New Jersey is to rebound from the ravages of the Great Recession, it must exploit its enormous advantages: its proximity to New York and Philadelphia; scores of pleasant and vibrant communities with convenient transit to the cities and excellent public schools; two globally recognized research universities; and a workforce with a higher proportion of scientists, engineers and researchers than any other state. Instead of advertising these powerful attractions, the state has in recent years cancelled a new rail tunnel to New York; attacked the quality of its own public schools; underfunded its colleges and universities; and failed to protect and maintain its investments in roads, bridges and public transit.

Clean Power, Good Jobs: Realizing the Promise of Energy Efficiency in Los Angeles

Utilities around the country are facing serious challenges, including an aging infrastructure and a need to transition to cleaner energy sources. These challenges are particularly evident at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the nation’s largest municipally owned utility. The LADWP can begin to meet these challenges by adopting an innovative and ambitious energy efficiency policy with new programs that save customers money, reduce greenhouse gas pollution, and create good jobs. In doing so, the LADWP will take a significant step towards modeling a transition all utilities must make, from being entities concerned solely with the rapid acquisition and dispersal of natural resources to agencies proactively engaged with energy planning and management.

Don’t Waste LA: A Path to Green Jobs, Clean Air and Recycling for All

Resolving our society’s trash problem is one of the major environmental challenges of our time. In Los Angeles County, this crisis has reached urgent proportions. As one of the largest waste markets in the country, Los Angeles County generates 23 million tons of waste and recyclable materials and sends over 10 million tons of waste to landfills each year. Many of the remaining landfills in the county will reach capacity and close in the coming years, and officials project that as early as 2014, we will be making more trash than our landfills can handle.

The City of Los Angeles creates a third of the county’s waste that goes to landfills and therefore has a major role to play in addressing this crisis. Recognizing this, the City has set an ambitious and worthy goal of becoming a zero waste city by 2030. However, reaching this goal will be impossible without reforming the dysfunctional and inefficient trash collection and processing system for the City’s businesses and large apartment complexes.

Reforming this system is key to reaching not only the City’s recycling goals but also its goal of creating new green jobs in the recycling sector. In the midst of one of the worst economic crises in modern history, the City of Los Angeles’ unemployment rate stands at an alarming 14 percent. By raising standards for the waste industry, the City can create good green jobs to put people back to work, bring families out of poverty and rebuild the local economy.