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OCR for page 4
Research and Infrastructure Innovation
Opportunities and Challenges
America's public works wfrastructure,~ a complex and dy-
naniic system of physical facilities, operations, and management
practices, is an essential component of our quality of life, domestic
productivity, and international competitivene - . As a society, we
expect our infrastructure to brag us power and clean water, ret
move our wastes, and enable us to there! and communicate freely.
Over time, these expectations have changed; we travel faster, use
more water, and depose of greater quantities of increasingly ex-
otic wastes. We are more sensitive to the impact of these services
on other daily activities: we want clean air, clean water, and the
preservation of parks and wildlife regions; we expect services to
fin this report, the term public works infrastructures includes both
specific flmctional modes highways, streets, roads, and bridges; mass tran-
sit; airports Ed airways; water supply and water resources; wastewater
management; solid-waste treatment and disposal; electric power generation
and transmission; telecommunications; and hazardous waste management
and the combined system these modal elements comprise. A comprehension
of infrastr~cturc spans not only these public worics facilities, but also the
operating procedures, management practices, and development policies that
interact together with societal demand and the physical world to facilitate
the transport of people and goods, provision of water for drinking and a
variety of other uses, safe disposal of society's waste products, pro~rinion
of energy where it is needed, and transmission of information within "d
between communities.
4
OCR for page 5
s
accommodate special groups such as the elderly and handicapped;
and we have high standard of safety that we expect our Rife
tructure to uphold.
In the early decades of our nation, infrastructure elements
were relatively simple and visible. On the frontier, infrastructure
might be as elementary as a central wed, with every member of
the community drawing from it and therefore conscious of the
communal requirements for protecting arid maintaining the well.
As our communities have grown larger, our infrastructure has
grown more varied and complex and, at the same time, led terrible.
In modern times, the public deem almost unaware of the
facilities and services of infrastructure until a failure occurs. The
collapse of a bridge, a power failure, and freeway gridlock are
sure newsmakers with the more catastrophic failures prompting
demands for unprovements in design or operations. in these cases,
cost often becomes a secondary Rue. This is not true where
maintenance is concerned. Without a crisis, the maintenance and
improvement of our sewers, tunnels, bridges, and traffic controls
Ed other elements of infrastructure tend to be among the first to
suffer in tunes of fiscal restraint. The result In many puts of the
country ho been a slow but steady deterioration In the physical
condition and quality of service of our infrastructure (Peterson,
197~1981; Peterson et al., 1984; U.S. Department of Commerce,
1980; Congressional Budget Office, 1983, 1985~.
This deterioration has reached what some observers hare
termed crisis proportion (Choate ar d Walter, 1981), posing haz-
ard~ to human health and safety, environmental quality, and ecm
noetic well-being, for present and future generations. Even those
who may question whether a crisis ~ truly at hued must ac-
knowledge that America's infrastructure ~ a huge and unport~t
national asset that should not be wasted. Annual government
spending on public works, $97.3 billion in 1984, understates sum
st~tially the significance of infrastructure to the economy and
quality of life of the nation (National Council on Public Works
Improvement, 1986~. ~ recent Congressional hearings, Speaker of
the House James C. Wright, Jr. expressed hm views of the need
for action: "We must begin by recognizing that the rebuilding of
America ~ not an optional decision. Sooner or later, the work
must be Jones (Senate Subcommittee Hearing, Water Resources,
liansportatic)n and Infrastructure, July 22, 1987~.
OCR for page 6
ARE CB"LE:NGI: OF 1~:BUILDING
Recognizing the scope of our need to rebuild, and devising
and carrying out the plan of action to meet this novel, present a
major challenge to the nation's public works profession. While
there ~ no doubt that the work of ~mpro~r~g infrastructure smug
be done,n serious questions anise as to what ~d how. Can our
existing infrastructure serve the nation well enough, if adequately
maintained? Or are new ice" needed, perhaps even revolutionary
new systems? ~ so, what new ideas, what new systems? These
are questions for resear~h.2
The search for answers currently resides in the programs spon-
sored by the venous private countries, professional groups, and
government agencies responsible for building arid operating in-
dividual modes of public works infrastructure. Some modes fare
better than others in the competition for scarce research resources,
and there ~ no established constituency for research on inDastruc-
ture as a whole. Can this mode] orientation support real under-
st~mg of infrastructure problems and over new ideas for policy
makes' consideration? Or ~ a rrew approach needed?
The committee found these questiom competing. If the nation
is to meet the challenge of rebuilding its infrastructure, research
needed. If research ~ to be effective, our limited resources
must be appropriately distributed and effectively applied. The
committee concludes that there is a pressing need for a new ageIlda
for comprehensive infrastructure research ~ the U.S. This new
agenda must accomodate and balance the needs of both ~ndi~ridual
modes and infrastructure as a whole.
TO OPPORTUNITI1:8 1?0R INNOVATION
~ considering the need for a new agenda, the committee per-
ceives that this need coincides with unprecedented opportunities
for infrastructure innovation through resect. Ad~ces in many
2 The term ~research. in this report may refer to basic exploration of
mechanisms` underlying ~frastracture's performance, applications of scien-
tific and technical knowledge to address specific problems, adaptation and
transfers of technology established in one discipline to other disciplines, "d
the activities needed to apply new ideas from design concepts to demon-
strated applications in the field. These various activities, often distinguished
as basic research, applied research, technology transfer and demonstration
programs, are all needed to achieve innovation within infrastructure systems.
OCR for page 7
7
fields of science, technology, management, and public policy offer
the promise of new ways to maintain, enhance, and supplement
today's infrastructure services. The committee envisions a new
agenda that Will capture such opportunities. Chapter 2 of this
report addresses how these opportunities may be recognized and
structured into a new agenda for innovation to rebuild America's
infrastructure.
The committee recognizes there are barriers to innovation
that must be overcome if research ~ to make the most effec-
tive contribution possible in meeting the challenge of rebuilding
our infrastructure. These barriers, discu~ed In Chapter 3, stem
from cultural values, organizational inertia, and fragmentation of
funding and policy responsibilities all powerful forces that can
block the pursuit and unplementation of innovative solutions to
the problems of public works infrastructure.
What, then, can be done to overcome these barriers, to capture
opportunities, to encourage the Bow of better ideas?
The size, diversity, and complexity of infrastructure defies sim-
ple answers or a single strategy. It is possible, however, to begin
to addre" some of the more obvious problems. Chapter 4 of this
report presents the committee' view that a national institution
designed to bring cohesion and focus to the subject of ~nfrastruc-
ture research and development ~ ultunately needed. The nature of
that institution, its funding arrangements, the process for setting
research priorities, and the means for amur~g that research leads
to practical innovation-these Cues have yet to be addremed.
The effort to set a national agenda for research on ~nfrastruc-
ture, which must accommodate the legitimate interests of current
modal constituencies, will require further work, as recomunended
In Chapter 4.
CONCLUSIONS
Challenge and opportunity, barriers and institutional response
-these are the themes of this report. The committee envisions
a new agenda for infrastructure research and new institutional
mechanisms for ejecting that agenda. Together these steps should
encourage innovation ~ infrastructure, thus enhancing ~nfrastruc-
ture's contribution to the nation's health, safety, environmental
quality, and economic wed being.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
environmental quality
