The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
The infrastructure bill may help the United States close the huge gap with Beijing and its democratic allies on transportation, internet coverage, and infrastructure investment.
When the House of Representatives finally passed President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, my first thought was that maybe folks will no longer have to shake, rattle, and roll on Amtrak.
Anyone who regularly travels the Boston-to-Washington corridor on Amtrak has experienced train cars that shake so severely it’s almost nauseating.
These are just a few symptoms of our crumbling transportation systems, including roads, bridges, tunnels, and subways more suited to a third world country than a supposed superpower. Indeed, Beijing’s state-controlled media mocked the newly passed bill, calling it a “feeble imitation of China,” where bullet trains, broadband, and shiny new airports blanket the country.
Yet the bill’s $550 billion in new investments in roads, bridges, trains, aviation, broadband, and more offers Americans at least a chance to reenter infrastructure’s first world.
So hats off to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s tenacity, along with the 13 House Republicans (and 19 GOP senators) who voted for the bill. Unlike the Republican leadership, they were honest enough to recognize that America needs an infrastructure overhaul ASAP, not just for its own citizens but to compete with China in the 21st century.
“If we don’t get moving, they (China) are going to eat our lunch,” Biden rightly warned, when pitching the bill in February. “We have to compete more strenuously than we have.”
This infrastructure bill is about proving — or disproving — that America’s democracy can deliver as well as an authoritarian regime.
Many Americans have failed to grasp how far we have fallen from global leadership in critical areas, but the rest of the world clearly takes notice — especially Chinese leaders.
I have watched Beijing’s infrastructure boom since my first trip to China in 1986, when Chinese airports and train stations were primitive. When I visited Shanghai on that trip, it was a city of bicycles with hardly any cars, and the Pudong area was a marsh.
On my last trip, in late 2019, I stayed in Pudong, which is now the economic heart of the city, with a forest of glitzy skyscrapers outlined in neon in the evenings. I traveled to Pudong on a high-speed magnetic levitation (maglev) train from the shiny new Pudong airport. In fact, nearly every minor Chinese city has a new airport. And China boasts a 23,550-mile network of high-speed railways that link up the whole country.
Of course, when it comes to infrastructure, China invests at a national level according to central plans, while most U.S. infrastructure is funded at the state and local level. This means local politics interfere with any cohesive approach to construction.
But that is no excuse to ignore reality: America’s sagging infrastructure is surpassed not only by China. We have also fallen behind most of America’s wealthy allies.
One example is high-speed rail, so omnipresent not just in China but across Europe. The United States has failed dismally at introducing bullet trains, undermined by local politics and real estate disputes. Most notorious is the failed bullet train project between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The $65 billion in the new bill for railroads contains no plan for bullet trains. But it should do more than upgrade flailing Amtrak. “We can’t squander this generational opportunity by only investing in the last century’s infrastructure,” U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., told me. He has put forward a national high-speed rail plan. “We can’t afford to ignore the comparison with China,” he adds, “and with the rest of the developed world.”
The new infrastructure bill offers a critical chance to play catchup. We need to prove America is still capable of doing so — to convince ourselves as well as Beijing.
Morning Briefing Newsletter
Get a rundown of the latest local and regional news every Mon-Fri morning.
