Donald Trump’s botched attempts to develop and push through legislation to fund infrastructure projects, with good reason, became a four-year running joke. How many times did we hear about “infrastructure week?” They never really had a plan, just a bunch of Tweets.
It is generally agreed in this country, across political boundaries and party lines, that there is a tremendous need for the repair and replacement of roads, bridges, airports, ports, and water and sewer lines. Every community in the country has its own multi-billion lists of such things. The projects are big and will take many years to complete. Think of the Skyway, Scajaquada and Kensington Expressway proposals in Buffalo, which are each in the hundreds of millions of dollars range even in the preliminary stages of consideration.
The Congress for New Urbanism, an organization that studies and reports nationally on “Highways to Boulevards” projects, identifies 33 projects nationally that will compete for $20 billion included in the Biden infrastructure plan this is intended for neighborhoods divided by highways – if an infrastructure program is approved by Congress. The three Buffalo projects are among those 33, which are spread across 28 cities from Florida to Washington State.
Politics and Other Stuff 