Sunday, January 25, 2009

Mayors Propose National Plan to Create 1.6 million jobs

The U.S. Conference of Mayors has issued another report on infrastructure needs that can be addressed through their proposed Main Street economic stimulus plan.

The mayors report that:

"...in 779 cities of all sizes in all regions of the country, a total of 18,750 local infrastructure projects are 'ready to go.' These projects represent an infrastructure investment of $149,758,339,126 that would be capable of producing an estimated 1,604,371 jobs in 2009 and 2010.

"These are the cumulative totals of projects, required funding, and jobs to be created that have been reported in the four surveys of cities conducted by the Conference of Mayors over the past three months. The populations of the 779 cities submitting projects total 77,946,664."

The report identified 10 priority areas for additional public investment:

It is important to understand that our MainStreet Economic Recovery plan calls for funds to flow quickly and directly to cities through 10 federal funding streams that are already in existence; many of these have demonstrated their effectiveness over many years.

The 10 infrastructure investments we are recommending are:

Community Development Block Grants – CDBG would be used to create jobs through: the construction of public facilities and improvements, water and sewer facilities, streets, and neighborhood centers; the conversion of school buildings for eligible purposes; activities relating to energy conservation and renewable energy resources; and assistance to profitmotivated businesses to carry out economic development and job creation/retention activities.
Energy Block Grants and Green Jobs – The new Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) program would be used by cities, counties, and states to create thousands of energy efficiency and renewable energy production projects. These projects could include energy retrofits of public and private buildings in local areas, installation of solar panels or wind turbines for the production of electricity on local buildings, deployment of new energy distribution technologies (such as distributed generation or district heating and cooling systems) that significantly increase energy efficiency, and development of systems to capture and generate power from methane at landfills.
Transit Equipment and Infrastructure – Transit funding would be used to purchase buses,street cars, rail cars, and other rolling stock and equipment needed to create additionalcapacity; help stabilize fare increases; and improve reliability. It would also be used torestore and maintain facilities and infrastructure in a state of good repair through projectsthat could, for example, expand station capacity, improve rail tracks, and provide customerinformation screens.
City Streets/Metro Roads – Highway funding must be distributed through the SurfaceTransportation Program (STP); this ensures that it will provide maximum flexibility to cities, counties, and states to undertake bridge, bus and rail, and road projects in metropolitan areas.
Airport Technology and Infrastructure – Projects funded through the Airport ImprovementP rogram (AIP) would include runway and taxi rehabilitations, extensions, and widening;obstruction removal; apron construction, expansion and rehabilitation; rescue andfirefighting equipment and facilities; airside service or public access roads; and noisemitigation and abatement (Part 150) associated with aircraft operations, including voluntaryhome buyout, which would fuel the local housing market, and residential and businessinsulation programs.
Amtrak – Amtrak would use infrastructure funding to make necessary upgrades to tracks,bridges and tunnels, electric traction, interlockings, signals and communications, andstations on the Amtrak system. In addition, Amtrak could refurbish rail cars that arecurrently in storage and return them to service.
Water and Wastewater Infrastructure – Local governments contribute 98 percent of the total investment in wastewater and 95 percent of the investment in water infrastructure. Water and wastewater infrastructure grants would be used to assist with rehabilitating agingwater and sewer infrastructure, complying with sewer overflow issues, and promoting sourcewater protection and availability.
School Modernization – Federal school modernization funds would be used to repair andmodernize school buildings in both large- and small-city school districts, improve theirenergy efficiency, and equip them with first-class technology.
Public Housing Modernization – Public Housing Capital Funds would be used for repair and construction projects, including safety repairs.
Public Safety Jobs and Technology – Providing COPS hiring grants to local policedepartments would allow them to put additional police officers on the streets and in theschools as school resource officers. Additional Byrne Justice Assistance Grant funding could be used to hire personnel, support those personnel, and purchase equipment and new technologies which make law enforcement personnel more effective in their jobs.

Read the full report and list of projects

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