Why Are We ‘Falling Apart and Falling Behind’?

 

 “The United States has not made a significant strategic investment in the national transportation network since we finished building the Interstate Highway System decades ago.” 

- “Falling Apart and Falling Behind”: Building America’s Future: Transportation Infrastructure Report

Currently the U.S is operating without a long-term strategy for meeting our national priorities.  By understanding the current state of America’s infrastructure, can we learn how to build a sustainable future for ourselves? 

To address this issue, in 2008, Mayor Michael Bloomberg (New York City), Governor Schwarzenegger (California) and Governor Rendell (Pennsylvania) founded Building America’s Future. The national organization draws attention to the state of infrastructure in the United States, not only for reasons of economic competitiveness, but for sustainability and livability.

Two Twelve worked closely with Building America’s Future Educational Fund to feature these issues in a report, “Falling Apart and Falling Behind.” The report presented a storyline, information hierarchy and critical data in a straightforward way that highlighted the urgency of a growing problem.

Recently, we met with Marcia Hale, President of Building America’s Future, to understand how BAF is increasing audience engagement and facilitating stakeholder action and progress in the time since the report. Such efforts include: the “I’m Stuck” app, designed to provide a platform to voice frustrations with the state of U.S. infrastructure.

Did you see the report as a tool to help motivate or engage those elected officials to understand the state of the infrastructure?

We really did. Because of the way the report is presented and the way it’s written, ‘Falling Apart and Falling Behind’ is very conversational and includes very informative, graphic designs and statistics that clearly communicate our national infrastructure issues.

I usually give the report to elected officials and stakeholders.  These stakeholders have, in turn, given the report to their advisors and speechwriters to use to highlight the infrastructure issues facing the country. Before we created the report, we weren’t exactly sure how we were going to use it – or realize how valuable it would become to us.  It is a great communications tool and we have updated it with new statistics, and taken it to a second printing. BAF and our membership continue to use it.

How does Building America’s Future engage stakeholders?

We provide factual and timely research and support to infrastructure stakeholders and state and local elected officials around the country. We encourage the work being done by public-private partnerships to finance, design, and build the infrastructure of the future. In addition, we are highlighting smart, effective, innovative programs that are addressing infrastructure issues around the country. In fact, one example is California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia have combined to form the West Coast Infrastructure exchange (WCX). Their goal is to develop innovative new methods to finance and facilitate infrastructure development. We applaud WCX and the elected officials involved and continue to highlight their work.

You’ve recently released a free app, “I’m Stuck,” which allows delayed commuters around the country to directly and immediately email their U.S. Representative or Senator to share their frustration. What has been the response to it by the public and their elected officials?

We’re up to 11,000 downloads across all 50 states, which is quite remarkable! It’s a vital tool for us to use and we don’t believe anyone else is doing anything exactly like it. No one, to our knowledge, has used GPS to connect an individual constituent to their Member of Congress or Senators in this way. It is somewhat unique, as of now. This is something we intend to refine and continue to develop over the next several years. And we expect to be copied, which is fine.

There are other important infrastructure issues we can bring attention to by promoting the app: such as, adapting NEXGEN air traffic control systems. Currently, the U.S. is using a radar-based system, which was originally designed in World War II. We could use the app to highlight air traffic control problems and the need to transition to a satellite-based system similar to what other countries are using – which will save fuel and time for people.

What do you hope the future state of America's infrastructure will be?

We’d really like to see some true vision applied to what the country needs, now and in the future. Modern infrastructure is vitally important for us to remain the world’s economic superpower. Had President Eisenhower not had the vision to create the interstate highway system the U.S. would not have had the ability to grow and prosper as it has over the last 50 years.  We need that kind of vision now.

We need to ask ourselves:  

What do we need to do now to provide the transportation systems of the future that allow U.S. businesses to flourish and citizens to commute to work and home in the most sustainable way? 

We have to think in a strategic environmentally sustainable way to provide for future generations just as our parents and grandparents did for us.

We have called for a ten-year infrastructure plan with actionable recommendations and cost estimates. The Country’s leaders need to start thinking in ten or twenty year increments as opposed to thinking what can we do in the short-term or “this year” with limited resources.

We have a long way to go; but frankly, we have real innovators in this country – all of the ideas are there but what we need are individuals and organizations to implement them. That’s where a good communication piece like Falling Apart and Falling Behind can help. 

Learn more about the report and Building America’s Future Educational Fund.