Trump must keep pledge to upgrade infrastructure

Say what you will about the first two weeks of the presidential administration of Donald J. Trump, but one truism cannot be denied: He has worked with uncanny speed to deliver on a host of campaign pledges made over the long 18-month run-up to last November’s election.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with his executive actions ranging from building a border wall with Mexico to temporarily banning immigrants from majority-Muslim nations to sinking the first formal knife into the Affordable Care Act, neither his most ardent supporters nor his most vocal detractors should be too terribly surprised.

Another oft-repeated campaign pledge the nation’s new commander-in-chief echoed throughout the grueling and divisive campaign trail merits expeditious attention and action. That initiative is Trump’s pledge to rebuild and reinvigorate the fast crumbling infrastructure of America. It is one promise he must honor.

“We will build new roads and highways and bridges and airports and tunnels and railways all across our wonderful nation,” Trump asserted in his inaugural address two weeks ago today.

Toward those needed ends, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Cleveland, and a host of his party allies, have proposed a blueprint to help realize that goal of rebuilding America’s roads, bridges and water systems while putting additional millions of people to work.

The Democrats’ legislation, titled The Blueprint to Rebuild America’s Infrastructure Act, would provide $200 billion to repair roads and bridges, $110 billion to update aging and health-threatening water and sewer systems, $75 billion in aid to public schools’ physical plants, $100 billion to revitalize downtown areas and $20 billion to expand and enhance Broadband services, particularly in rural areas.

According to Brown and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., their blueprint would create 15 million jobs.

IMPACT IN VALLEY

Some of those jobs and projects would bring tangible results close to home. In a visit to Youngstown earlier this week, Brown noted that one major project for the Mahoning Valley that the blueprint could address is funding the $15 million “Meds to Eds to Tech to Rec” proposal. It was submitted last year by a consortium of Mahoning Valley entities to the U.S. Department of Transportation for funding. Unfortunately, that proposal that we strongly endorsed was summarily rejected last fall.

It called for numerous infrastructure improvements between and among four major downtown-area institutions – the campus of St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital, Youngstown State University, the high-tech America Makes-Youngstown Business Incubator corridor of downtown and the entertainment and recreational assets of the downtown and nearby fringe areas of Mill Creek MetroParks.

The plan included general cleanup, lane closures to traffic, construction of hiking/biking trails and enhancements to mass-transit services to better connect these vital assets of the city and the entire Mahoning Valley.

The plan also would provide potential funding for numerous road and bridge rebuilding plus water and sewer improvement projects sorely needed throughout our region.

Our region, however, is not unlike other regions of the state and the nation where decades of neglect have taken a destructive toll.

As Brown pointed out, nearly a quarter of Ohio’s bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, and it would take an estimated $14 billion in improvements to keep wastewater systems throughout Ohio up to date over the next 20 years. That includes a needed $144 million project to correct combined sewage overflow problems that fouled Mill Creek Park lakes in 2015.

The Democrats propose to fund the massive $1 trillion program largely through ending a series of substantial tax breaks to big business, a point that already has become a sharp bone of contention with Republicans on Capitol Hill.

U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has signaled to the White House that she and other Democrats are willing to negotiate and compromise on project details and funding mechanisms in order to ensure a strong commitment to repairing our plethora of unsafe roads, bridges and water systems.

The ball is now in the court of the Trump administration and congressional Republicans. We hope they demonstrate the necessary will to transform Trump’s infrastructure pledge into concrete and constructive action.