America’s infrastructure is in crisis. Roads and tracks are old and dangerous, and dampen economic growth. Trump wants to change that – with incentives for private investors.
For the New York has started this Monday in the “summer of hell”. If the employees in the afternoon from work to rush home, the train station, Pennsylvania Station in Midtown is Packed full. The “Penn Station” commute every day 600,000 people to work in Manhattan, and then back to New Jersey or Long Island. The more travelers are as at the three New York airports JFK, Laguardia and Newark.
Ironically, this major node are placed since Monday, several tracks for the summer, still they need to be repaired urgently. The failure could lead to a chain reaction and the transport system in New York City to the brink of collapse, said Andrew Cuomo, the Governor of the state of New York, two weeks ago at a conference. The repairs are inevitable. In the spring, were derailed at Penn Station, two trains, called Cuomo then declared a state of emergency for public transport in New York State.
Workers in the Tunnel of the New York Penn Station, the busiest train station in the United States
Old and overloaded
Rail transport in New York City is chronically overloaded, and the U-Bahn for more than 120 years old. The streets are lined with shock-littered Tunnel in disrepair, bridges, and sewage system is dilapidated holes.
It looks better in the case of electricity networks, Gas and oil Pipelines, ports, rail-freight traffic and the Expansion of broadband Internet because these areas of the infrastructure are mostly said in private hands, says Ingo Walter, a Professor Emeritus of Finance at New York University.
The rest of the infrastructure decays, however, rapidly. The Association of civil engineers awards all four years of grades for roads, water and power supply. New York State received in 2017, a Four-plus, for the USA overall, there was a lack of adhesion.
2000 dams could break at any time, 56.000 bridges across the country are dilapidated, and each of the fifth street would have to be repaired. Potholes, detours, construction sites, and failure at the end of trains will cost each American household 3400 dollars in a year, says the Association’s Director Brian Pallasch.
Due to the defects, losses, threatened, by 2025, the economic output of up to 4000 billion dollars, according to the Association. The same amount you need to bring the infrastructure back on track.
More money – but how?
The crumbling infrastructure was a welcome election issue for Donald Trump. After all, 1000 billion dollars, he had promised the afflicted Americans. “We wish for a little more, but it is a good place to start,” says Pallasch, the Association of civil engineers.
In may, the White house released a six-page paper, the principle of recognizing: The state will pull back to in the future. The Budget shows that The Federal government in Washington will only put around $ 200 billion in promised infrastructure package. The remaining 800 billion will come from Federal, state and local governments. The mainly rural areas in the gorges of the Federal States.
Trump wants brackets attract private investors for the financing of public infrastructure projects through loans and tax relief. This subsidisation of the private sector to create jobs and the Treasury to relieve.
Detroit, once the center of the U.S. automotive industry, filed for 2013 for bankruptcy. It is the largest municipal bankruptcy in the United States.
“A gift to Wall Street”
However, private companies may charge additional fees, such as a toll for road use, to get attractive returns, says John Rennie Short, Professor of Public administration at the University of Maryland. Would be charged, ultimately, the citizens, in addition to their taxes.
Short called trump’s Plan, therefore, “a gift to Wall Street”. Private investors would be interested in more projects, bringing a rapid return on investment. Infrastructure requires a long breath. “A return in 20-25 years, a company can make to its investors, just hard-to-tasty,” says Short.
The same is true for projects in the rural areas, who bring neither fast nor high yields. Trumps model, reinforcing the inequality, and believes Short. “The cities that would need it the most, not investors.”
The editorial recommends
Investments: The 9000-Billion-Dollar Business
World’s bridges and tunnels, electricity and telephone networks, Wind and solar power plants to be built. This German engineer is needed to know. The order books also fills in the SME sector. (28.06.2017)
Trumps long shadow in Detroit
At the Auto Show in Detroit dominate heavy all-terrain vehicles in the exhibition halls. The Manager stress just before the inauguration of the new US President the importance of free trade. And VW catches up with the past. (10.01.2017)
The Federal Council gives free way for Car toll
The controversial toll for Cars is a done deal. The legislative package on so-called Infrastructure charge happened on Friday the Federal Council. A request for referral to the conciliation Committee, found no majority. (31.03.2017)
Detroit: a Symbol for the ascent and decline of the American Dream
Detroit is a former metropolis, which has slipped in the fall. Suitable for the Start of the largest automotive exhibition in the United States, David Maraniss tells in the Interview how the city can recover. (08.01.2016)
The U.S. economy loses the connection?
In Hanover, the world starts largest industrial trade fair. The partner country is the USA, President Obama is coming over. The U.S. industry has lost a great deal of their former strength. Uta stone dam in Washington. (23.04.2016)
Cities like Flint and Detroit, the former strongholds of the auto industry in the state of Michigan. On the list of the 150 “worst cities in America”, compiled by the financial website Wallethub, maneuvering them to the spaces 143, and 149, due to the lack of infrastructure. Here, there are no prestigious projects, believes Short.
Decades of not taken care of
Brian Pallasch from the Association of civil engineers. Many States no longer would anyway wait for help from Washington. And even in States such as Michigan there are interested investors, because trump’s plans to make infrastructure projects more attractive for you.
In addition, Pallasch believes that investors are only looking for quick returns: “pension funds are indeed long-term yields.” There, the investors pay today and want to see your returns in decades. As long as it will take to improve the infrastructure in the United States, he believes.
But why has it ever expire? “The Congress has not looked at a whole decade, the infrastructure, now we see the consequences,” says Pallasch. At the same time, the financial responsibility between the Federal States and the government in Washington had been shifted around, added a financial expert, Ingo Walter.
John Short adds that it had to come to a catastrophe before action is taken. The warning signs are piling up. Since the two incidents in the spring, more trains are derailed: the beginning of July, a commuter train near Penn Station, at the end of June a U-Bahn; 34 people were injured.