It was one thing, nearly a year ago, to see the successful passage of the giant $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
It’s quite another to spur the funding and approval process for any number of road, bridge, water, and broadband projects across the country.
To that end, President Biden has just announced a renewed effort to get as many projects underway as soon as possible. “We just have to keep it going,” Biden remarked at the site of a new subway line project in Los Angeles. “And I know we can.”
So far, at least $180 billion has been approved for projects, with funding primarily going to state, local, and tribal governments.
As part of the effort to push things from the talking stage to the doing stage, the Department of Transportation has announced the creation of what is being called a Project Delivery Center of Excellence.
That center will be tasked with bringing together builders, engineers, project managers, and transportation officials, among others, to tackle such thorny construction issues as best practices, project cost estimates and overruns, and change orders.
Speaking at a White House summit on the topic, Mitch Landrieu, national coordinator for infrastructure projects under the new legislation, remarked: “We’re really going to push hard to make it go faster and try to do it better, and try to get at least all the federal agencies focused on accelerating the pace of design, construction, permitting.”
The Biden Administration has additionally announced the hiring of more than 2,500 engineers, environmental analysts, and technology specialists in a variety of federal agencies to help facilitate the implementation process for infrastructure projects.
By Garry Boulard
