Summary

America’s infrastructure is aging and overburdened. Unfortunately, many recent infrastructure projects have been politically motivated boondoggles. We must find new and innovative approaches to rebuild our critical infrastructure that doesn’t waste money on politically motivated projects.

Key Recommendations

Roads and Bridges

Many of our nation’s roads are falling apart. And one in three bridges needs to be repaired or replaced. It’s time to rebuild them. In many cases, the costs can be covered by partnering with private businesses. The businesses would cover the upfront cost of rebuilding the roads and bridges in exchange for long-term contracts to operate and maintain them. Many European countries have adopted such an approach. We should look at it too.

Aviation System

The U.S. aviation system is overloaded, and America had a record number of near-collisions last year. There is a shortage of 3,000 Air Traffic Controllers. And the equipment they use is decades out of date. It’s time to modernize America’s antiquated Air Traffic Control system. Canada privatized their air traffic control system in 1996. Unlike the United States, Nav Canada operates a modern system. We should investigate creating a similar privatized air traffic control system that is owned and managed by U.S. airports.

Electric Grid

Recent events demonstrate that America’s electric grid is unprepared to handle cyberthreats and extreme weather events like heat waves or winter storms. We need to transform our electric grid into a modern, hardened system that can support distributed energy resources, grid-scale energy storage, microgrids, advanced metering, demand response, and other smart grid technologies, as well as the massive increase in demand for electricity that is projected over the next several decades.