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| Nation needs to build bridge to better infrastructure everywhere Published/Last Modified on Wednesday, September 24, 2008 11:53 AM PDT This week, Caltrans will unveil the twin bridges that connect the tunnels at Devil’s Slide with Pacifica to the north in a public ceremony befitting a landmark moment in a $270 million public infrastructure project. It’s both a significant investment in the transportation system in the area and a mere drop in a leaking bucket. Just ask Jack Schenendorf. Schenendorf served as vice chairman of the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission which earlier this year called on Congress to set forth an aggressive plan to spend $225 billion annually for the next 50 years to reconstruct the nation’s aging complex of roads and railways. As luck would have it, he was in Half Moon Bay the same week as the Caltrans ceremony. He spoke at a meeting of the AAA board of directors. Schenendorf, long active in Republican circles, is calling for a tax increase to pay for it all. His committee told Congress earlier this year that it should institute as much as an 8-cent increase in the price of a gallon of gas to pay for roads, railways and better connections to keep our economy flowing. And that idea caused the recommendations to run off the rail, so to speak, for many. Notably, U.S. Secretary of Transportation and commission chair Mary Peters split from the majority opinion over the tax hike. Schenendorf said on the phone this week that such an investment is necessary to contemplate a comprehensive look at the nation’s transit system. Though he would streamline approval for road projects, he says he would keep all environmental protections. He would put an end to the current system of willy-nilly earmarks that builds bridges to nowhere while leaving roads crumbling virtually everywhere else. It’s not all about roads. Schenendorf’s proposal includes high-speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco and between 15 other urban corridors throughout the country. It would do something else: It would create jobs in an economy that could sorely use something like a 21st-century Works Progress Administration. Don’t count on any of this, mind you. It is much more likely — particularly given the financial cataclysm that has rocked our nation — that the current piecemeal approach to updating our nation’s infrastructure will continue. For the foreseeable future, getting roadwork done will likely require getting on the phone to your powerful local lawmaker. It is no accident that the Devil’s Slide project has been christened the “Tom Lantos Tunnels at Devil’s Slide” by the California Legislature. The late congressman brought home the lion’s share of the construction bacon and stuck with the project through decades of hand-wringing over the environmental considerations. Schenendorf, at least, would argue that’s no way to dig a tunnel. And it’s hard to argue with that. — Clay Lambert |