Cost overruns scrapping projects.

• Position: Infrastructure

In New Jersey, amidst much controversy. Gov. Chris Christie ended plans to build the Access to the Region's Core tunnel under the Hudson River--a decision that won him many critics, including U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, and much support, including 51% of the states residents, according to a Rutgers-Eagleton poll. Public works specialist Barry LePatner says the tunnel project and the controversy surrounding it provide the perfect opportunity to examine how public projects are built and funded in the U.S.

"Gov. Christie killed the tunnel project to protect New Jersey taxpayers from the possibility of massive cost overruns that had the potential to raise the price of the project by many billions of dollars." explains LePatner, author of Too Big to Fall. America's Failing Infrastructure and the Way Forward. "While he was right to be cautious. I fear that he--and any other politicians who shelve projects that have the potential to boost commerce in their states--may have done it for the wrong reasons.

"Today's political environment doesn't reward long-term planning. It is driven by the ability to cut spending at all costs while trying to get political credit quickly. Its a culture that lends itself to shortsightedness. Few politicians today are willing to take on long-term risk and, as Gov. Christie has shown, they certainly aren't going to do so based on a public megaproject that could end in great embarrassment, as the Big Dig did for the state of Massachusetts."

The problem is that there has been no plan from public officials on a state or Federal level for how to eliminate damaging cost overruns from public projects. "We absolutely need to address the serious condition of our nations poorly maintained roads, bridges, dams, and levees," stresses LePatner. "We need to bring a sense of order to the way we build and maintain the system that is responsible for moving products and people.

"A strong infrastructure system is necessary for our national security, but it is also the reason we have been...