Trump’s $1 Trillion Infrastructure Dream Faces the Same Old Nightmares

A month before taking office in 2009, Barack Obama promised “a bold agenda” to create jobs rebuilding U.S. roads and bridges with “shovel-ready projects.” Almost two years later, Obama conceded what Donald Trump may yet learn: “There’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects.”

In a Feb. 28 speech to Congress, Trump said he wants legislation to support $1 trillion worth of investments rebuilding roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, and other crumbling infrastructure, putting millions of Americans to work in the process. But as Obama found out with the $787 billion federal stimulus bill, lining up environmental reviews, permits, and the other approvals required for a large-scale project can consume years—in some instances even decades. William Ibbs, a professor of construction management at the University of California at Berkeley and president of Ibbs Consulting Group, points out that it took 23 years to replace the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge after it was damaged in the 1989 earthquake.