In Our Own Backyard Principles for Effective Improvement of the Nation's Infrastructure (1993) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 37-88
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From page 37... ...
3 OBSERVING LOCAllY Infrastructure is primarily local. Communities around the United States work to maintain, enhance, and develop the nation's infrastructure.
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unsuccessful (even disastrous) cases wanant consideration when transferable lessons can be learned.
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wed. The comm~ttee's aim in general would be to assess how the diffusion of beneficial new ideas into infrastructure practice occurs, and to identify ways to speed and enhance the effectiveness of this process.
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information and transferable lessons are available from such examples, but Me committee concluded that cultural, economic, and institutional differences would require more substantial data collection and analysis to develop convincing conclusions for application in the United States. The committee then defined eight specific selection criteria as the basis for choosing locations that would accomplish the study's broad aims, by illustrating the following: I
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From page 41... ...
PHOENIX, ARIZONA The Committee on Infrastructure held its initial workshop colloquium in Phoenix, Arizona, on March 20 and 2l, 1992. Dunng the two days, the group visited several recently completed projects, observed broadly the elements of the city's infrastructure, and met with city and state government staff and members of community groups.
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The mythical Phoenix, rising from the ashes of this early civilization, was adopted by early white settlers as a symbol for the community. The modern city and the state of Arizona are the sites of major, noteworthy, and sometimes controversial infrastructure investments such as the Central Arizona Project (water supply)
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From page 45... ...
An important element in the completion of a number of the cib~r's most recent infrastructure projects has been a unique coalition of the arts and public works communities that has fostered imaginative ways of dealing with community concerns and enhanced the levels of communication and trust between infrastructure professionals and the public at large. How did this coalition develop, and how important has it been to success in infrastructure development?
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From page 46... ...
On city arsenals, this area is given special surface treatment or lane marking. The committee also visited the Central Avenue Beautification Project and Dunlop Avenue in SunnysIope, areas in which community groups have worked with the Phoenix 9The Strategic Highway Research Program reports that about 250 million automobile tires and 25 million truck tires are disposed of annually.
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From page 47... ...
City staff acknowledged that drainage maintenance problems have been encountered and explained the special design provisions to address safety concerns posed by possible vehicle accidents in the enclosed roadway below the park. The park itself served as an amenity that enabled the freeway's completion, balancing community concerns in He political forum in which decisions were made.
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From page 48... ...
Squaw Peak Parkway and Thomas Road Overpass Touring the Squaw Peak Parkway and adjacent neighborhoods, the committee had an opportunity to observe products of Phoenix's use of art to enhance visual and cultural aspects of the urban environment and to mitigate adverse impact of infrastructure. Jointly financed by the city of Phoenix and the Arizona Department of Transportation, the highway itself reflects a relatively unusual balancing of typically conflicting planning and design objectives: the widths of nght-of-way and roadway lanes were narrowed to reduce land taking and neighborhood disruption, while maintaining highway safety; pedestrian, bicycle, and equestrian amenities are included; pedestrian bridges were treated as urban design elements rather than simply utilitarian constructions.
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From page 49... ...
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The Arts Commission and Public Works Department worked together, adding artists to the design team. The artists spurred the designers to change, and construction bids some $2 million below estimates quieted skeptics concerned that the artists' involvement would increase costs.
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The Ar~zona State University's recently completed Metropolitan Canal Study, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Salt River Project, and the seven Valley Cities of the Phoenix Region, with support by the Junior 52
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SRP rights of way are used for siting power transmission lines, and the city is developing canal demon Stratton plans, a mulddepartment and citizen effort to demonstrate ways to maximize the recreational and scenic value of some 78 miles of Salt River Project and other canals in Phoenix. Plans involve improved access between the canals and adjacent commercial properties, reorientation of development, and community education.
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From page 55... ...
The Percent for Art Program was udlized, with community residents Participating in all aspects of this project. The SunnysIope Transit Center, a bus route terminus, also bears the mark of the Percent for Art Program, in the form of sculptures produced by a collaboration of a professional artist and local school children.
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From page 56... ...
A significant conflict with efficiency and reliability is introduced by the typical reluctance, on the part of elected officials and the public, to consider the full costs of ownership when making major investment decisions. The major federal input to highway and water projects in Phoenix suggests that federal programs favoring new construction of large projects may introduce significant distortions in the efficient and equitable distribution of investment and management efforts among regions and in development patterns within regions.
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From page 57... ...
Current projects (like the Papago Freeway and Squaw Peak Parkway) are frequently the result of decades of discussion and planning, and so can take advantage of new technology (e.g., improved pavement materials, electronic traffic condor devices, enhanced vehicle safety)
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From page 58... ...
· Bringing new points of view into the infrastructure management team, as the cases of the Thomas Road overpass and the 27th Avenue Solid Waste Management Facility illustrate, can be a very productive means for achieving innovation. New ideas were introduced that saved money and improved performance.
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From page 59... ...
Such education should always continue "on the job," but there may be improvements that university professional training programs could make to foster appreciation of the teamwork required to achieve effective infrastructure. There are benefits to be gained by both the individuals who develop a new idea and the city or other government agency that fosters the individual creativity in introducing infrastructure innovation.
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From page 60... ...
A relatively compact downtown area that is largely separated from the river by highways and sports facilities features He "nation's most complete slyway system." Much of this system, which remains open to public use 24 hours per day, is maintained by city crews under contract to more than 30 property owners Trough whose buildings He walkways pass. The city of Cincinnati lies within the boundaries of Hamilton County, where there are 49 local governments and county comm~ssions Cat share responsibilities for government.
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From page 61... ...
. Edacity staff estimated 90 percent of Cincinnati's infrastructure to be more than 50 years old, and at least 30 percent to be more Han 100 years old.
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From page 62... ...
This map demonstrated graphically that the problems were citywide, and helped the DPW to gain We city council's understanding and support of the need to take action. Drawing on experience from other parts of the United States, city staff proposed that a utility user service fee might be established to support stormwater system improvement.
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From page 63... ...
A telephone response system was established to answer property owners' questions and register complaints, and special efforts were made in the early weeks of the new program to ensure responsiveness. An effort was made to ensure that the billing system remained simple.
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From page 64... ...
The SMU estimates that dealing effectively with Hartwell's problems could cost some $7 million, a significant amount in terms of the utility's total budget, and would involve construction of retention caverns in the limestone beneath the community, a proposal that is outside the scope of SMU authority and, in addidon, has elicited vocal community resistance.
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From page 65... ...
S male called on 10 other community leaders, primarily from the business community, to senre with him. These leaders, in Burn, recruited other pareicipar~es from throughout the business community.
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S male also cited the goal that the plan would restore Cincinna~ci's infrastructure as a "source of pride and enjoyment to the people of this region," for today and succeeding generations. The Smale commission drew heavily on information provided by city staff and technical resources within the private sector to conduct its assessment and develop recommendations.
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From page 69... ...
The valley is also Me location of the Metropolitan Sewer Distnct's Mill Creek (Gest Sweets Wastewater Treatment Plant, which provides secondary treatment for 70 percent of the city's sanitary and industrial '3Experience has led city staff to wish that a less complex formula had been developed.
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From page 75... ...
· The earlier work of ache Phillips committee and the Cincinnati Business Committee's proposed midterm review of the Infrastructure Improvement Program are, in effect, community "peer reviews" of the work of city staff. These peer reviews may be an helpful too} for building mutual respect, deOning common goals, and enhancing government staffts ability to identify and implement realistic infrastructure strategy.
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From page 77... ...
Large-scale filling of an old milling pond extended the city's northern edge early in the nineteenth century, under a plan laid out by noted architect Charles Bullfinch. The "Bullfinch Triangle," a road patter, created by this plan, with Haymarket Square at its apex, responded in some degree to the radial pattern and survived intact for more than a century before being progressively obliterated by such projects as the initial Central Artery Scheme of the 1950s.
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From page 79... ...
One technique used, for example, was to ask neighborhood children to draw and discuss what they would like to see in the neighborhood, and then use that information in the landscape design of parks constructed on decking over the raid line. The plan that emerged for the Southwest Corridor replaced the highway with a transit line, as well as extensive parks and station area development.
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From page 81... ...
Building the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel Also resuldng from the review process that spurred the Southwest Corridor were plans to build a Gird tunnel under Boston Harbor and to reconstruct the elevated Cent Artery underground through Boston's downtown area. Management of these two projects was subsequently combined, creating the nation's largest transportation project, estimated to tote some $6.5 billion in construction costs (1992 dollars)
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From page 82... ...
Federal funding was in fact provided as part of the congressional action to override a presidential veto of a major highway bill. While such questions concerning the project's planning are still discussed, the CA/THT is now under construction, and the management team's primary goal is to maintain progress and thus control the costs and adverse impact of this construction.
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From page 83... ...
brn~ng the Tide on Pollution" Adverse impact and its prevention or mitigation are topics that assume major proportions when discussion turns to the construchon project at Deer Island, known as the Boston Harbor Cleanup or more recently as "Turning the Tide on Pollution." The wastewater and water system project, with a projected lO-year cost of $6 billion to $7 billion, is a court-ordered response to what some people view as the Boston region's years of neglect that had turned Boston Harbor into one of the nation's most polluted and persistent violations of federal Clean Water Act (CWA) requirements.
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From page 84... ...
In the agency's view, delay will only add to the project's already high costs, payment of which has multiplied the water and sewer rates of households in the region to levels that are now among the highest in He nation. Although some 87 percent of the estimated costs of the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel project are federally funded, 90 percent of the estimated costs of the Deer Island project will be local.
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From page 85... ...
How Representative Is the Boston Experience? The Boston experience, reflected in the Southwest Combor, Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel, and Harbor Cleanup projects, brings to the forefront the question of national interests in local infrastructures, primarily because of their large scale and use of federal resources.
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From page 87... ...
These large projects are often, as one ob sewer termed them, "fa~tk-based" investments. Nevertheless, the Boston experience demonstrates Mat such projects, once Key gain a critical mass, possess a momentum Cat carries them through changes in political leadership and economic cycles.
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From page 88... ...
1992. The Role of Public Agencies in Fostering New Technology and Innovation in Building.
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