Mobility and Public Works: Repair First, Build Fast, Measure What Works

What is broken and why it matters

What we would change

1. 1

   Repair first. Federal formulas require funded asset inventories, condition targets, and lifecycle maintenance plans before expansion, with exceptions for severe access and capacity gaps.

2. 2

   Guarantee basic mobility. Regions must measure access to jobs, school, health care, groceries, and civic life by time, cost, disability, and reliability, then fund the mix of roads, transit, walking, cycling, demand response, ferries, or shared service that closes the gap.

3. 3

   Publish an open infrastructure ledger. Every federally supported asset reports owner, condition, expected life, repair schedule, operating cost, climate risk, accessibility, contract changes, and outcome metrics in reusable data.

4. 4

   Create delivery teams. Multidisciplinary federal teams help states, tribes, and localities scope, permit, procure, and de-risk projects. One lead record coordinates reviews with firm schedules, concurrent work, early community design, and no waiver of substantive environmental, labor, tribal, disability, or property rights.

5. 5

   Procure outcomes. Use reference designs, modular components, performance contracts, open standards, and milestone payments. Contractors disclose beneficial ownership, change orders, delays, safety, and subcontractor payment.

6. 6

   Make accessibility and resilience conditions of funding. New and altered facilities follow current access standards. Projects test heat, flood, fire, seismic, cyber, and supply-chain risks over their useful life so recurring failures are repaired once.

7. 7

   Stop funding chronic non-delivery. Projects that miss cost, schedule, or service thresholds enter an independent recovery review. Sponsors may rescope or stop them; sunk cost is not a claim on future taxpayers.