Infrastructure that requires no new tech

Matthew Yglesias on low tech solutions:

It's no hyperloop, but here's one way we could make the trip from New York to Washington, DC much faster. It's called a "passenger train" and all you need to do is instead of relying on existing tracks build whole new tracks that go more or less straight. And instead of slowing the train down by stopping in Baltimore and Wilmington and Trenton and such you'll just traverse a bunch of jurisdictions without actually providing them any service.

What is ironic is that these jurisdictions that are bypassed may still be better off.  All you need to do is have small express trains to either Washington, DC or New York (whichever is closer).  Two fast trains may well be better than one slow train that is always stopping.  It even fits the Mark P principle that it can be done now with currently available technology.  No need to hope that technological break-throughs will continue at a historical pace to allow the technology to become viable one day . . .

Spinach is supposed to make you stronger -- Infrastructure and the Kinsley/Krugman fight

Virtually everyone who reads this blog has heard about (and is probably sick of hearing about) Michael Kinsley's contrarian defense of austerians that ended with this analogy:

Austerians don’t get off on other people’s suffering. They, for the most part, honestly believe that theirs is the quickest way through the suffering. They may be right or they may be wrong. When Krugman says he’s only worried about “premature” fiscal discipline, it becomes largely a question of emphasis anyway. But the austerians deserve credit: They at least are talking about the spinach, while the Krugmanites are only talking about dessert.

To get a feel for just how odd this analogy is, you need to remember that a large part of this 'spinach' is saying no to people who want to borrow money almost interest-free and spend it on infrastructure, education and research thus avoiding far greater costs in the future.

These are all urgent issues but the infrastructure crisis in particular demands immediate action. Civil engineers have been ringing this alarm bell for years:

Back in March, when the American Society of Civil Engineers issued an infrastructure report card for the entire country, its very best grade — a B-minus — went to solid-waste disposal. Thanks to our decent progress in recycling, the United States’ overall grade-point average in subjects ranging from aviation to water systems actually ticked up from the previous GPA.

To a pitiful 1.30, that is, on a 4.00 scale.

Those warnings became considerably less abstract yesterday:

SEATTLE — A large section of a bridge on Interstate 5 north of Seattle collapsed Thursday evening, sending vehicles and people plunging into the swirling, frigid waters of the Skagit River.
Three people were hospitalized in stable condition, officials said. No one was killed.

The bridge failed without warning between the towns of Burlington and Mount Vernon on the major route linking Seattle with the Canadian border, the Washington State Patrol said.

"Without warning" here is a bit of a relative term:

The 58-year-old bridge in Washington, a crucial link to the Canadian border traveled heavily by trucks, was inspected every two years, most recently in November, state Department of Transportation spokesman Bart Treece told the Los Angeles Times.

“It’s an old bridge. We have to look into the specifics. We do have a lot of old, aging structures, and a lot of them hold up really well,” he said.

The National Bridge Inventory lists the bridge as “functionally obsolete,” with “somewhat better than minimum adequacy to tolerate being left in place as is.” It received a sufficiency rating of 57.4 out of 100.

Putting aside for the moment the question of public safety, the economic impact of bad infrastructure can be huge (from the same story):

Washington’s main north-south thoroughfare, though, was likely to remain closed 60 miles north of Seattle for an indefinite period, state officials warned. The nearly 71,000 vehicles a day that travel the bridge between Mt. Vernon and Burlington were diverted through city streets to another nearby bridge.

Just to be clear:

dessert = making repairs now

spinach = deferring repairs now and making more costly ones later when interest rates will be higher

Kinsley's analogies are like America's bridges; they need a lot of work.

Imbalance in the infrastructure debate

Joseph's previous post builds on this thread from Mark Thoma. Each is worth reading but I think both understate the extraordinary asymmetry between the pro and con in the should-we-spend-on-infrastructure debate (distinct from the where-to-spend debate). Consider the following statements:

1. We need to repair and upgrade the country's infrastructure in the relatively near future (let's say a decade)

So far as I can tell, almost no one is willing to stand up and argue against this point, which is strange because, though I don't happen to agree with them, there are reasonable arguments to be made here and, once this point has been conceded, the remaining ground is extraordinarily difficult to defend.

2. The economy is not operating at full capacity

We've already stipulated that we need to build these things which means we've also agreed to tolerate at least some crowding out at some point in the future. You simply can't have one without the other; you can only seek to minimize the effect. A crowding-out argument for delaying pretty much has to assume that there will be more slack in the economy far enough in the future to make waiting worth it (but not so far to extend past our decade window). I've heard lots of people making crowding-out arguments but none making the necessary corollary. (even if you believe that crowding out is unaffected by economic conditions, you still don't have any argument for waiting)

3. Borrowing costs for the federal government are historically low.

As a general rule, repairs don't get cheaper the longer you put them off. This tends to put the burden of proof on those arguing for a delay. If we were living in a period of historically high borrowing costs, you could argue that rates were likely to head back down if we waited. There are reasonable cost-based arguments against infrastructure spending, but only in the spend/don't spend context, not spend now/spend later.

The infrastructure debate is another example of how the public discourse has entered a phase reminiscent of Carroll's Tortoise/Achilles tale, where showing the premise is true and showing the premise leads to a conclusion is not sufficient to make the other side accept that conclusion. Of course, it's not an exact analogy. Carroll was making a point about the limits of logical system. What we're seeing here is more probably a demonstration of people's willingness to ignore the rules of argument when those rules lead to an uncomfortable policy position.