Here’s something that almost everyone can agree on: We need to rebuild and retool the country’s aging infrastructure for the 21st century. The difficult question is how — and President Trump’s infrastructure agenda isn’t the way.
The Trump agenda, while light on details, will surely rely on so-called “public-private partnerships,” which use expensive private financing instead of cheap, reliable public financing. By depending on such deals to rebuild America, the agenda poses serious risks to the public and fails to address the real issue causing our roads to crumble and water pipes to age: the long-term shortage of public funding.
Advocates of privately financed and operated infrastructure often claim that contracts shift risks from the public to private investors and operators. But all risks are not created equal. The potential for cost overruns and delays in new construction is real but is, in fact, where risk can be shifted to construction contractors with proven contracting methods such as Construction Manager at Risk and design-build.
THE HILL
BY DONALD COHEN AND DWAYNE ROYSTER, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS – 08/21/17 02:00 PM EDT