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Economists and lawmakers are batting around increasingly large figures for the Obama admin's upcoming stimulus package -- 300 billion dollars, 500 billion, a trillion? Whatever the final sum, a big cut will get plowed into transpo projects. The question is whether all that money will perpetuate an outdated system or lead toward a future where cars and gas aren't seen as basic necessities for most Americans.

This piece from William Gale and Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution maps out some smart principles for the people who'll be making those decisions. Stop spreading transpo funds around the country "like peanut butter," they tell the feds, and target places with the biggest concentrations of people...

Lost in a morass of pork and politics, federal infrastructure policy today is an unaccountable free-for-all. Though there is little economic justification for making broad improvements in all places, that is exactly how the American transportation structure operates. The 6,373 earmarked projects in the latest federal transportation authorization illustrate the problem. It's not just the distaste for earmarks but the politically driven scattershot approach. The result is that only half of the projects go to places that matter most to the American economy and would benefit most from the investments: the 100 largest metropolitan areas, where 75 percent of GDP is produced.

Katz, you may recall, is one of the leading candidates to head up the new Office of Urban Policy in the Obama White House. So hopefully we'll get to see whether this idea can survive the Senate, where Alaska wields the same number of votes as New York. 

In terms of modal preference, Katz and Gale make no pronouncements, but the goals they describe don't seem all that compatible with 18-lane elevated highways:

The focus should be on investing in infrastructure that supports the competitiveness and environmental sustainability of the nation instead of funding individual states or spending on singular needs.

To score this, the nation needs a strong, deliberate and strategic federal government to do what is necessary to keep America competitive. What would that mean?

It means setting strict criteria for the billions of infrastructure dollars that are spent as part of the stimulus. Such criteria should include a real assessment of economic benefits and costs that consider environmental, energy, and social impacts. We should only invest those dollars where the nation has assurances of high returns.

It means holding the grantees -- the states and metropolitan planning organizations -- accountable through ongoing audits to ensure public dollars are being spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. The direct loss of future federal funds should be a genuine consequence for failing to meet basic accountability standards.

It means making focused, targeted investments in those gateways and corridors that are the critical nodes of international trade and inter-metropolitan commerce, rather than spreading infrastructure funding around the country like peanut butter. An independent national infrastructure bank should be established to define and finance those projects of substantial regional and national significance now and in the future.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons