Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative Upcoming Releases

Japan’s Stimulus Spending of the 1990s - Lessons for the United States (Fall 2009)
Edward J. Lincoln
Japan has become the poster child of pork barrel public works projects, popping up in casual conversations in Washington about the dangers of economic stimulus spending. However, Japan is a rather unique case. Japan clearly overspent on wasteful public works projects but mostly because of long-term structural reasons and not because of a sudden surge of infrastructure spending during its economic troubles of the 1990s.This essay discusses the Japanese infrastructure stimulus spending in the 1990s and lessons for the United States. Specifically, it focuses on the relation between the Japanese local governments and the central government in the infrastructure stimulus spending and its relevance to the US case.

Transportation Reform: Lessons from the UK (Fall 2009)
A policy brief by: Oliver Jones
The approach to transportation in many countries might be characterized as lacking clear direction, less than rigorous and sometimes evidence-free. The UK government, inspired by a radical independent report, the Eddington Transport Study, has developed a new strategy to transportation policy in the last two years. The new paradigm treats transportation as a solution to other, more important objectives- economic growth, standards of living, and environmental protection. Further, the new strategy moves away from transportation outcomes as the end goal in their own right. The US faces very similar transportation challenges to the UK. This policy brief will discuss the new transportation strategy adopted in the UK recently and the possible lessons for the US.

Every Tool in the Box: Climate Protection Through Technology and Walkable Neighborhood Design (Fall 2009)
Lawrence Frank, Steve Winkelman, Sarah Kavage, Michael J. Greenwald, Jim Chapman, Richard Gelb, Christopher Leinberger
In November 2007, Seattle hosted the largest meeting of American mayors devoted solely to climate protection. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, alarmed at low levels of snowfall in the Cascade Mountains, Seattle’s main water source, drafted the U.S Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, which hundreds of U.S. mayors have signed. To help achieve goals in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, King County is incorporating development-related CO2 emissions into Washington’s State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) review. King County is the first local government in the nation to officially add greenhouse gas emissions to the environmental review of construction projects This policy brief discusses the results of a study that links land use patterns to travel choices and CO2 emissions, based on land use data from King County coupled with travel and emissions data from the Puget Sound Regional Council.

Public Private Partnership Units- the Missing Institutional Link in PPPs (Spring 2010)
Robert Puentes and Emilia Istrate
The discussion about transportation in the United States today is dominated by a central theme: how to fund and finance the system. The traditional means of raising transportation dollars is almost out of gas and cannot keep pace with demographic and market forces, metropolitan development patterns, the aging of the nation’s existing infrastructure, and demands for upgrading the outmoded infrastructure we currently have. In sharp contrast, no less than 20 countries have begun implementing specialized units to assist with the expanding opportunities for public private partnerships (PPPs). These PPP Units fulfill different functions such as quality control, policy formulation and coordination, technical advice, standardization and dissemination, and promotion of PPPs. This policy brief will analyze the international experience with PPP units and applicability of the concept in the US at the federal and state level.

The Federal Capital Budget and the National Infrastructure Bank (December 2009)
Emilia Istrate and Robert Puentes
For more than half a century, a federal capital budget has been proposed as the solution to allocate more money to capital projects. While bold and overhauling, the idea never got off the ground. Strongly opposed by the budgeting community, it could not muster political support from both Congress and the Administration in the same time. A National Infrastructure Bank, while a much more modest alternative, is currently both in the 2010 budget and in a House bill. This paper examines the major questions surrounding the federal capital budget and possible lessons for the creation of a National Infrastructure Bank and for the general conversation about transportation and infrastructure finance that is going on today.