Infrastructure

Update Infrastructure, Update NY

By PETER GOLDMARK for Newsday

We have a sound budget for New York State now. There are painful cuts to
implement, but a strong budget is in place.

Yet man cannot live by cuts alone.

One of the reasons to strive for a sound budget and the solid credit ratings
that go with it is to build soundly for the future. For New York, as for the
country as a whole, that means investing in infrastructure.

That boring word, "infrastructure," stands for the life-support systems that
allow our economy and our interdependent society to work -- roads, water and
sewage systems, transit and electrical distribution. Parts of our road and
rail systems have been rusting out, wearing out and rotting out for lack of
reinvestment. And a serious drive to be competitive in the future hasn't
even begun.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo needs to design and sell statewide a capital program,
sized to our capacity for debt, that can build a state economy with more
jobs, boost private sector investment, and give citizens life-support
systems that are efficient, fast, modern and not too costly.

New York State has a system of public authorities with independent capital
capacity that's the envy of other states and can be used for this campaign
of investment in infrastructure. What kinds of things should we invest in?

Getting our existing roads into good shape. That will require full faith and
credit obligations of the state itself.

Investing in efficient energy, first in state or state-supported facilities,
from courthouses and colleges to hospitals and schools. This requires
providing the electric utilities with incentives to reduce rather than
increase energy sales volume (this is called "decoupling" and was pioneered
in California), thus converting them from marketers of electricity
consumption to sellers of conservation.

We also need to invest in safeguarding and upgrading New York's water
supply, as our watersheds are increasingly vulnerable to pollution.

But the boldest project we should tackle is building a "smart" electrical
grid, which "leaks" less electricity than the old-fashioned grid and saves
energy and money by adjusting flows to and from each home or business
continuously. Cuomo should consider doing this with New Jersey, which while
in a different regional electrical grid, is a powerful part of the
metropolitan economy. This would allow us to harness the huge capital
capacity and engineering talents of the Port Authority to this task.

Building a smart grid would sharply reduce energy consumption, thus reducing
the cost of doing business; it would give us a huge competitive advantage
vs. other regions and countries; and it would also reduce the vulnerability
of our regional economy and life-support systems to terrorism -- a reality
we have to be tough-minded enough to take into account. If it were coupled
with a system of neighborhood conservation corporations to install and
service the new equipment in homes and offices, building the smart grid
could provide two decades worth of jobs that could never be outsourced
overseas. That's a trifecta: a competitive edge for our businesses,
investment that will reduce energy consumption and thus make energy bills
cheaper than elsewhere, and neighborhood-level jobs.

Can we do something this bold and complicated?

New York was first in the country to build a massive, integrated, clean
water supply. We were the first to build a large-scale mass transit system.
We built the world's first container port -- before the first container
ships were even launched. It's time to recall that this is our heritage and
our talent: identifying a large, smart project and mobilizing the capital
and skills to do it first.

Now that we have prudently put in place a sound budget, it's time to define
the next generation of life-support systems and invest -- also prudently.