Rescue and Renew: Addressing the Metropolitan Region's Infrastructure Crisis

Our infrastructure crisis is real. The Milstein Forums on Infrastructure were established by the Regional Plan Association (RPA) and the Howard and Abby Milstein Foundation to explore the challenges facing our regional transportation network, with the imperative of maintaining New York as a global city, important not only to its inhabitants and neighbors, and connected to the world as a whole. Infrastructure investment is vital to this success.

We must act now. Our entire metropolitan economy is at risk if we fail to do a better job of maintaining, modernizing, and expanding our key regional infrastructure networks, including roads, bridges, railroads, subways, and airports.

A number of themes and key issues emerged from these forums. These include the following findings:

• It’s not just about roads and bridges.
• Subways, buses, and airports are as important as road and bridge projects in encouraging economic growth, land development and enhancing mobility.
• There are no silver bullets. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have helped advanced infrastructure projects in the New York metropolitan region, but have not been a replacement for government financing from the federal, state and local levels. The Federal Transit Administration’s New Starts program, in particular, has been critical in financing transit projects, though the slow planning timeline for New Starts has been a consistent frustration for local agencies.
• Public-private partnerships are uniquely distinct – no two are alike. PPPs analyzed by Regional Plan Association over the course of this project were complex agreements and unique to particular locations, government leaders, and moments in time.
• The market matters.
• Innovative financing through land value capture is more feasible in dense areas with strong real estate markets.
• No project is an island.
• The most successful infrastructure projects in our region were developed as part of a broader strategy to meet long-term growth and sustainability goals, and those projects benefited from strong connections to local land use policy.
• Short cuts are dead ends.
• Public engagement programs that go far beyond the legal environmental review requirements have helped projects overcome obstacles and local opposition.
• Leadership and institutions matter.
• Strong state and city leadership and a dedicated project team are critical to advancing projects.