If we can put a man on the moon, why aren't we shovel ready?

If you are a member of the “Greatest Generation” and lived during the Great Depression and World War II, or are a Baby Boomer and were among the children of the “Greatests”, you probably had to hear a lot of “disappointment” about the use of technology. The expression began with “If they can put a man on the moon, why can’t they...” and followed by the problem of the day that was in need of a technology fix.  Examples ranged from the trivial (make the public address system in the New York City subway understandable to the altruistic (eliminate world hunger) and the strategic (solve the energy problem). Unsurprisingly, the expression was most popular during the 1970s right after the first manned lunar landing in July of 1969 when a lot of technological fixes seemed to be required: the first economy-threatening energy crises; air and water pollution; the increasingly obvious results of deferred maintenance of physical infrastructure, especially the mass transit systems, roads and bridges in urban America.

But the 1970s also came at the end of a century-long sequence of federally sponsored projects that collectively affected almost every American:
1. Transcontinental railroad
2. Land Grant Universities
3. Interstate Highway System
4. Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb
5. Large scale hydroelectric projects, including the Hoover and Grand Coulee dams

Less direct but equally influential were federal roles in:
1. cutting a deal with AT&T/Bell Telephone System to provide “universal telephone service”  in exchange for keeping their telephone monopoly
2. facilitating the construction of the now under-appreciated national electric power grid
3. upgrading secondary school education in math, science and foreign languages with the goal of producing more engineers. The National Defense Education Act (1958) was a reaction to the successful launching of the Soviet Sputnik satellite in 1957.

Many of these projects are iconic symbols of American engineering and science innovation as well as management skills. While not all such government endeavors have been successful (Nixon’s War on Cancer), it’s hard to imagine what the U.S. would be like without the ones that did work. These massive programs along with widely applied high American standards of building construction, water and sewage supplies and safe roads raise the quality of life of almost every American above that of most countries, even rich ones.

That last point is a very important one. The benefits were very broadly spread - with some significant exceptions - notably the poorer communities of the Mississippi River Delta, Indians stuck on reservations and stretches of Appalachia.  

The Apollo landing on the moon in 1969 seemed mark the end of the sequence of great technology initiatives. After that, many people wondered when the next megaproject would come up with the technological fix to meet the challenge of energy shortages or transportation congestion. Hence the question, “if they can put a man on the moon, why can’t we…?”

The answer most people might give as to why these programs didn’t continue is lack of money. The federal government has been accumulating deficits ever since the 1960s. Maybe if we threw enough money at a problem that would help. But the Stimulus Act (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) contained funds for “shovel ready” construction and repair projects. The delays in implementation brought attention to the fact that there was no such thing as “shovel ready”. In other words, there were very few project plans that are sitting on agency shelves with all the engineering and regulatory approvals complete and “good to go” except for cash.

Two types of barriers contribute to these hold-ups: local control and environmental impact procedures. There have always been ways for regular citizens to organize themselves to stop projects they didn’t like, but it is a lot easier today. In many parts of the country there have been parts of the Interstate Highway System that have been stalled out for decades because of local resistance - Interstate 710 in Los Angeles County is an outstanding example. There are also air and water quality requirements that provide procedures for slowing or stopping projects on environmental impact grounds.

Both local control and environmental impact rules were brought on by past abuses. A famous example is the stretch of U.S. Interstate 95 that destroyed several neighborhoods in the Bronx as it cut a diagonal through that New York City borough during the 1950s. And by the late 1960s, it was clear to everyone that air and water quality were deteriorating to unacceptable levels.

It should also be recalled that there were great waves of deregulation in commercial aviation, trucking and telecommunication service at the same time - during the 1970s and 1980s.

However it would be a mistake to hold new regulations and local bureaucracies solely responsible for all of the infrastructure malfeasance. Lack of money, and not government hindrance is what has held up the overdue maintenance of the water, and transportation systems that are already in place. The American Society of Civil Engineers regularly publishes a Report Card for America’s Infrastructure indicating the degree of obsolescence and disrepair of the systems that were mostly built decades ago. They come up with a 5 year shortfall of $1.176 trillion between what the U.S. is scheduled to spend and what is needed to bring those systems back to acceptable operating conditions. The report card summarizes the failure to fund the necessary efforts to attain the accepted engineering standards for upgrading the air traffic control system, cleaning up toxic and hazardous dumps sites, along with the more conventional bridge and levee upgrades and repairs. No doubt, lack of willingness to spend money is an issue.

But ignorance of the threats is not. The vulnerability of the New Orleans area to a category 4 or 5 hurricane was well known by state officials well before 2005. The price tag for fixing the levees was around $12 billion. The direct damages of Katrina was estimated at $16 billion. Total expenses for dealing with the disaster exceeded $100 billion. Although the $12 billion levee fix would not have prevented all the damage, it would have been a bargain.

The costs and hazards brought on by neglected technology challenges are fairly well understood, at least by the technicians who are responsible - and get worse with time. So why have responses taken so long in coming and been so weak?

The last 40 years have seen a resistance to an expanded role of the federal government in the economy. Although it would be a mistake to assume that there was unanimity in support for the the Interstate Highway System or other now-universally accepted facilities, the track record of bringing large scale non-military projects to execution suggests that the obstacles are much higher today.

One of characteristics that makes the United States an exceptional country, especially in the eyes of the rest of the world, is American success at designing, financing, and organizing massive engineering projects for peaceful objectives as well as for war.

Rather than try to find the complete political explanation for our recent retardation, we need to find a new way to harness the intellectual and management firepower to implement to technological fixes. There is no point in waiting for the solutions to become shovel ready.