Obama, Roads, Rail and Runways

U.S. President Barack Obama has come up with a truly useful plan that if implemented will have a major and strongly positive impact on travelers. So, naturally - given the angry polarization of U.S. politcs and society generally - there is plenty of opposition to it.

Obama wants to create an infrastructure bank that would bankroll billions - $50 billion USD in the first year - to repair, modernize and extend America's crumbling transport infrastructure. It would be used to build and repair roads, rail lines - including badly needed high-speed rail like the kind common in Japan and parts of Europe - and airport runways. The idea is to create construction jobs in the near term and offer first-world transport infrastructure in the medium and long term. The U.S. has not had such high-quality infrastructure since at least the 1980s. It is now very far behind other developed nations and even some developing nations like China.

There is precedent for using public money to build up U.S. transport infrastructure - and help workers and private companies with an injection of income. In the 1950s and '60s, Washington spent an immense, and justified, amount of money building the now-stressed interstate highway system. Back in the late 1860s, the federal government poured large sums into building the first continent-spanning railroad. Both projects more than paid for themselves over the years and they helped knit together a large, diverse nation.

Obama's idea is thus both practical and visionary. Hence, it faces a long road to approval. It must be approved by Congress. And, well ... as the New York Times notes in a recent report:

"Though transportation bills usually win bipartisan support, hasty passage of Mr. Obama's plan seems unlikely, given that Congress has only a few weeks of work left before lawmakers return to their districts to campaign and that Republicans are showing little interest in giving Democrats any pre-election victories.''

If this badly needed bill does not pass, Democrats won't be the only losers. So will every American traveler and commuter of whatever political stripe and every international guest who visits the United States. For once, U.S. politicans should rise above partisan bickering and do the right thing. I'm not holding my breath, but hope springs eternal, as they say.

Tear It Down and Start Over

Finally, some sense in travel.

An official of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said yesterday that we might as well tear down New York's LaGuardia Airport and start over by rebuilding it rather than patch the place up. The same could be said for other facilities in the United States, where decades of neglect have turned air and rail transport centers - as well as the nation's once world-class highway system and bridges - into dangerous, inconvenient, crumbling eyesores.

The Port Authority's executive director Chris Ward was unusually and refreshingly candid when he told listeners at a Crain's business breakfast in New York that LaGuardia - an outmoded airport that serves, if that is the word, 26 million passengers a year - is far beyond repair.

Additionally, "LaGuardia should not be the gateway for fliers into New York City,'' Ward said. "It should fundamentally be torn down and rebuilt again.'' If it takes a combination of public and private funding - meaning airlines would pay to build their own terminals - so be it, Ward said.

This may come as a shock even to New Yorkers, who pride themselves on being worldly wise. It surely would surprise many Americans, who have an inflated and outdated idea of their country's supremacy in all manner of things, including the quality of its buildings, roads, highways and airports. This misunderstanding endures only because most of my fellow Americans neglect to travel abroad, and many of those who do travel do it in a protective bubble of packaged tours, seeing some things but not necessarily learning much about what they see.

Airports in cities as far-flung as Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul-Incheon, Bangkok, Beijing and Barcelona - expanded or built from scratch in the last decade - are far more streamlined, well-run and beautiful than any airport in the U.S. If Americans realized how far behind they were, they might feel a sense of urgency and push to replace LaGuardia and many other facilities. Whatever happened to that splendid idea to build a new Pennsylvania Station for rail travel in the big post office in New York? It's been talked about for years.

Now would be an opportune time for the Obama administration to earmark gobs of the federal stimulis money for transport facilities, as well as other infrastructure such as parks and schools. This would put people to work during a deep and stubborn recession, enhance safety and efficiency and make the travel experience a more pleasant one. Sounds like a win-win if there ever was one.

This is no time for foot-dragging or hand-wringing. Let's move.