Is St. Louis Ready to Compete for Infrastructure Money?

stlcardsblues1989 · PostDec 21, 2008#762008-12-21T07:00+00:00

I don't think we'll get two-and-a-half billion dollars, but I appreciate the positivity. St. Louis could use some positivity. I think that's one thing that holds this city back.

Looking at that Forbes thing, San Fran wants $2.2 billion, and Atlanta wants $1.6 billion. But the job estimate for St. Louis is 60,694, compared to 12,704 for San Fran. Albuquerque wants $2.3 bil (5,181 jobs) , and La wants $2.4 billion (4,936 jobs). Philly wants $2.6 billion (24,527 jobs). Sacromento wants 2.8 billion (8,895 jobs). Miami wants $3.4 billion (55,355 jobs), including $280 million for street cars.

Not sure if this is useful, but I was bored. I made a graph of cost vs. jobs for the cities Forbes listed. I omitted Phoenix because they did not provide job estimates.

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee13 ... bsCost.png

Here's another chart I made, maybe not very useful.

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee13 ... sTable.png

These are the main projects listed by Forbes.

PostDec 21, 2008#772008-12-21T22:14+00:00

Here's another site:

http://www.usmayors.org/mainstreetecono ... s&State=MO

Wonder what this means...

Downtown/Central Business District Streetscape Improvements (66 Blocks) 33,000,000 997

$33 million and 997 jobs.

Lots of Streetscape improvements listed. While I agree that is important, to me MetroLink and schools are most important. Good schools will bring middle-class families back to the city, and MetroLink is important for the city's future. Before expansion should probably come stabilization. Why would the feds give us $900 million for MetroLink when St. Louis County won't pay a half-cent sales tax to keep MetroLink going?

Clayton wants $11 million.

http://www.usmayors.org/mainstreetecono ... n&State=MO

Florissant - $163 million

http://www.usmayors.org/mainstreetecono ... t&State=MO

Jefferson City - $64.5 million

http://www.usmayors.org/mainstreetecono ... y&State=MO

Columbia - $92.6 million

http://www.usmayors.org/mainstreetecono ... a&State=MO

innov8ion · PostDec 21, 2008#782008-12-21T22:38+00:00

Wow, this is going to be one hell of a boondoggle...

jlblues · PostDec 21, 2008#792008-12-21T22:41+00:00

^Hey, get your own "Democratic boondoggle" thread! Apparently, this one's mine.

innov8ion · PostDec 21, 2008#802008-12-21T22:48+00:00

Ha, one quarter and the largest line item of Florissant's $160M request is for "construction of a new Music Hall of Fame Building in Historic Old Town Florissant. This building would be a joint venture between the University of Missouri at St. Louis and the City of Florissant."

What a joke.

jlblues · PostDec 21, 2008#812008-12-21T22:52+00:00

^But I've heard that Florissant's tourism numbers have dropped dramatically. How else are they to win them back?

southsidepride · PostDec 22, 2008#822008-12-22T03:55+00:00

60,000 jobs is highly doubtful.

But it would be great to have a few.

I understand there are far more questions than answers at this time with this whole proposal, but it makes sense that we need improvements in our infrastructure, and we need to stimulate the economy.

Considering we are hearing about how much of the $700 billion Wall St. bailout went to bonuses is getting our transportation system into the 21st Century such a bad biproduct of a "boondoggle"?

innov8ion · PostDec 22, 2008#832008-12-22T05:03+00:00

^ Because you can't just throw money at problems. In practice, there are many practical issues that will present themselves. Lack of training, mismanaged projects, projects that provide little or no value. Why don't we just look at the past, eh? Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Prog ... favoritism

Now I'm not saying that the WPA was a bad thing, but we should be aware of what we're getting ourselves into. If we don't learn from our past, we'll be doomed to repeat it.

framer · PostDec 22, 2008#842008-12-22T05:23+00:00

^Yep. We just may end up with a trillion-dollar federal yoke around our necks for decades to come. These kind of "temporary" programs are damn near impossible to end once they get started.

southsidepride · PostDec 22, 2008#852008-12-22T13:39+00:00

Framer wrote:^Yep. We just may end up with a trillion-dollar federal yoke around our necks for decades to come. These kind of "temporary" programs are damn near impossible to end once they get started.

We already have a multi-trillion dollar national debt. Not saying we should go willy nilly into this and open up the federal trough. We are seeing what's happening with CEOs lapping at the bannk bailout $$

http://apnews.excite.com/article/200812 ... 9QE00.html

A lot of questions people on this thread have raised are good ones and need to be brought up before anything is implemented.

PostDec 22, 2008#862008-12-22T13:50+00:00

I agree that the questions raised here are good ones and need to be answered before we open up the federal trough once again.

And you don't have to go back 70 yrs. to find instances of people ripping off the federal govt. Look at how the bank execs have been suckling at the teat

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/ ... TE=DEFAULT

innov8ion · PostDec 29, 2008#872008-12-29T20:06+00:00

Bloomberg indicates that states appear to be winning the battle for funding over the mayors/cities. Ref: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... 2SxqQRuOFw. Bad news for us.

goat314 · PostDec 30, 2008#882008-12-30T00:17+00:00

If urban infrastructure funds are put into the hands of Missourah, were not going to see much of it........Can you say bridges to nowhere. That is why I'm praying the US Mayors get their way. Money needs to go directly to the cities or many urban areas are going to get screwed.

dredger · PostDec 30, 2008#892008-12-30T15:07+00:00

The Mayor's Council along with St. Louis City are shooting themselves in the foot. St. Louis City a city of 340,000 proposes 1.8 billion versus a state highway department for a population of 5,000,000 proposes 510 million. If you start taking a look at the lists you wonder who is proposing bridges to nowhere.

brickandmortar · PostDec 30, 2008#902008-12-30T15:32+00:00

I doubt that Congress will approve any list submitted by the Conference of Mayors or state DOTs. More than likely the money will be distributed to states DOTs or MPOs for distribution to the cities.

The Conference of Mayors list reminds me of the JC Penney Christmas catalogs my parents got in the mail when I was a kid. There was so much great stuff in there I couldn't live without, but I was lucky to get one or two things. Likely a small percentage of projects on the Mayors list will get implemented.

dredger · PostJan 07, 2009#912009-01-07T21:25+00:00

Obama made it pretty clear that he won't supprt earmarks from my take of his news conference this morning. So where does that put city and county? I see infrastructure grants coming through the likes of Federal Highway admin, transit grants through Federal Railroad Amin, Community development grants through HUD, etc. I think it will actually take longer to pass on the money then it would to actually to start most projects. Be prepared for East West Council to divy up any spoils on transportation.

urbanpioneer · PostJan 07, 2009#922009-01-07T22:41+00:00

Dredger wrote:Obama made it pretty clear that he won't support earmarks from my take of his news conference this morning.

While this is certainly true, I don't think it disqualifies projects like the North-South Metro line. While they may have historically been considered pork, under the new administration's emphasis on mass transit it likely fits well into his broader infrastructure plan and will (hopefully) avoid such "earmark" status.

What I took from Obama's earmark comment is that projects will be looked at carefully, line by line. So we aren't likely to see pet projects for certain groups get slipped into the package. Gone are the researching of bears in Montana and aquariums ect.

goat314 · PostJan 07, 2009#932009-01-07T22:47+00:00

I've been wondering about this too, but I still believe that the St. Louis area will see noticeable improvements in urban infrastructure.

I doubt any city will get all of those lovely wish lists the US of Conference of Mayors submitted, but I think some people may be surprised on what kind of projects get funding and who gets what. People have suggested that Obama will not stand for highway expansions that encourage sprawl and unsustainable maintenance costs....who knows there might be hope for metro after all.

PostJan 07, 2009#942009-01-07T22:55+00:00

UrbanPioneer wrote:
Dredger wrote:Obama made it pretty clear that he won't support earmarks from my take of his news conference this morning.

While this is certainly true, I don't think it disqualifies projects like the North-South Metro line. While they may have historically been considered pork, under the new administration's emphasis on mass transit it likely fits well into his broader infrastructure plan and will (hopefully) avoid such "earmark" status.

What I took from Obama's earmark comment is that projects will be looked at carefully, line by line. So we aren't likely to see pet projects for certain groups get slipped into the package. Gone are the researching of bears in Montana and aquariums ect.

Exactly, people also have to consider that the US Conference of Mayors list was not just a slick attempt at porkin' it up. Obama actually asked mayors around the country to submit shovel ready projects that could be started within 1-2 years and help create jobs.

I wouldn't be surprised if the economic stimulus plan is the mayor's list minus outrageous pork projects like dog parks and golf courses.

We also have to remember that this initial infrastructure package is just for "ready to go" projects to create some jobs and give the economy some immediate relief. There will most likely be more infrastructure spending for projects down the line later, if Obama sticks to his plans.

innov8ion · PostJan 07, 2009#952009-01-07T23:41+00:00

^ Much of this will depend on unemployment numbers as we progress in time.

jmstokes · PostJan 08, 2009#962009-01-08T00:17+00:00

innov8ion wrote:^ Much of this will depend on unemployment numbers as we progress in time.

December's numbers certainly help the argument.

innov8ion · PostJan 08, 2009#972009-01-08T00:30+00:00

JMStokes wrote:
innov8ion wrote:^ Much of this will depend on unemployment numbers as we progress in time.

December's numbers certainly help the argument.

I don't think so. Unemployment is likely to increase from 6.7% in November to 7% in December which is the worst in 15 years. Did we have a huge bailout in 1993? Don't think so. What it likely means is that we haven't yet seen the unemployment bug fully hit our economy. My take is that we may hit 12-15% unemployment before the correction has ended.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ioHc80xKMiATnqCpK0cDKJzk_nPQD95IIPT00 wrote:Even with a big government stimulus, economists still believe the unemployment rate will keep climbing, hitting 8 or 10 percent by the end of this year. Obama's economic advisers estimate that a $850 billion recovery package would lower the jobless rate to about 7.4 percent and create 3.2 million jobs by the first quarter of 2011.

Obama, who takes over Jan. 20, said Wednesday his recovery plan would "save or create" 3 million jobs.

Despite a flurry of radical government relief efforts and the Fed last month slashing a key interest rate to an all-time low, Federal Reserve officials fear the economy will be stuck in a painful rut for some time.

"The economic outlook would remain weak for a time and the downside risks to economic activity would be substantial," according to a Fed document of its closed-door December meeting released Tuesday. In fact, some officials worried about the "distinct possibility of a prolonged contraction."

And, "amid the weaker outlook for economic activity over the next year, the unemployment rate was likely to rise significantly into 2010," the Fed warned.

MattnSTL · PostJan 09, 2009#982009-01-09T06:15+00:00

The Mayor has put out a fancy pdf of the city's request. It can be found here. Some of the pics in the Crown Village write up are mine harvested off of the ONSLRG Flickr page.

dredger · PostJan 09, 2009#992009-01-09T16:56+00:00

It was actually nice to see some details associated with what has been requested. Especially, streetscapes and some of the infrastructure. I noticed a emphasis on LED lighting and dark night initiatives. Seem trivial, but long term benefits in terms of energy expenditures are there. Efficiency could be huge if we were to expend the capital up front.

Two areas that the City and County could strive to promote together would be the Lambert and any MSD requests. It would be better to see those with as much political capital as possible.

goat314 · PostJan 09, 2009#1002009-01-09T17:06+00:00

Yeah I saw this on mayorslay.com last night. I also remember the county's request list. Both of them were very well presented and had good ideas (compared to a couple other city request lists). I think that it is very visual and that will also help the city's case. Not all of these projects will be funded, but I think people will be surprised how much and what projects will get funded.

Is St. Louis Ready to Compete for Infrastructure Money?

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