Spotlight Vol. 7, No. 23: Work Smarter, Not Harder, with Public Works

This year, the president of Duke Energy, James Rogers, made headlines when he advocated that his company be paid for getting their customers to use less power. 

Also this year, Janette Sadik-Khan, New York City's transportation Commissioner, made headlines when she put tables and chairs and bike lanes in the middle of busy streets and said that the highest and best use of a thoroughfare was not necessarily more cars. 

A little more quietly, the City released a Sustainable Stormwater Management Plan last week, joining managers of waterworks around the country in seeking to expand capacity of a water and sewer system not by building more plants or pipes, but by investing in decentralized conservation systems and better maintenance. 

Question: how are these three different events or trends related? 

They are all examples of what I and others are calling "smart," "green" or some other descriptive term placed in front of the word "infrastructure." The labels vary, and none so far has caught the exact spirit of this connected but still disparate movement. But something is happening, something that cuts across disciplines as disparate as roads and power, parks and airports. 

Traditionally, infrastructure has been about laying lots of pipe, asphalt, train tracks, cables, water lines and making the big machinery that serves them. The job was to build the world's skeleton, and more was always better than less.

 

But the smart infrastructure guys and gals are now concluding that more is not always better. Good infrastructure is about figuring out why people need something, and trying to meet those needs in a more strategic, efficient - and often cheaper - way. 

So when in comes to roads, it's understanding that people don't just drive or move for the sake of it, but because they are seeking access to goods, services and other people. Building new roads is just one way of providing this access - and often it is not the most efficient or affordable way of doing it. And so more and more DOTs are thinking more innovatively about access and choosing to build transit, sidewalks, bike paths and selected road investments, where conventional big-road projects would have been built just a few years ago. 

With power, it means understanding that people want light and heat, but that that need can be met in a variety of ways. So power companies, like ConEdison or Duke Energy, are handing out low-energy use light bulbs, and more radically, exploring more comprehensive ways to get power companies in the business of conserving energy. What's in it for ConEd and Duke - a more reliable grid that doesn't black out on high-demand days, without needing to build expensive new infrastructure.

With water, it means understanding that people want clean, fresh water to drink and bathe in, but that need can be met by plugging leaks in pipes, installing low-flow toilets, and protecting land around reservoirs rather than building billion-dollar filtration plants or tapping more lakes and rivers. 

Technology is big in this movement, when it's used to do more with less - technologies like the Smart Grid, which will integrate broadband communications with the electrical grid, allowing real-time pricing information to reach consumers, so they can scale back energy use in peak periods. The Smart Grid also allows for distributed generation, power generation in every home or business, and the ability to sell power back to the grid. 

It helps to understand that the roots of this movement go deep. Albert Appleton, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (i.e. water commissioner) in the 1990s pioneered many of the conservation strategies that allowed the city to meet rising population and net demand without expanding capacity. Now, the average New Yorker uses substantially less water per capita today than two decades ago. 

Of course old, heavy infrastructure is sometimes still necessary, although if it's "smart," it will be built in a better way. The Tri-State region is currently engaging in four or five projects that are mostly about adding capacity. There's the new NJ TRANSIT trans-Hudson tunnel, the Second Avenue Subway, East Side Access, the Third Water Tunnel. All these projects are about expanding the pipes, but if they are done correctly, they also fit in with more delicate forms of infrastructure. 

To be sure, smart and green infrastructure is not happening everywhere and not overnight. 

The appointment last week of Illinois congressman Ray LaHood as President-elect Obama's Secretary of Transportation was met with frowns in many quarters, because he appears to be more of a traditional asphalt-loving infrastructure guy than a new thinker. And as states like Missouri, Utah and Arizona publish their transportation wish-lists for the upcoming economic stimulus package, it's clear that the they're still focused on the old solutions of new road capacity and bridge capacity, whether or not it's needed. 

Falling oil prices in recent months have also started to reverse the dynamics that were pushing cities, states and countries to manage their infrastructure needs more efficiently. Still, smart infrastructure does not rest on oil prices alone, or any other single factor. And most good trends involve two steps forward, and one step back. Whether it's called smart, green or some other moniker, my sense is that this trend is here to stay.