The state of poor repair of American infrastructure is evident to anyone who spends time navigating pothole-ridden highways and roads that are crowded well beyond their designed capacity.  This bleak state of affairs is upon us at a time when the current level of infrastructure funding is wholly insufficient.  According to the American Society of Civil Engineers in their 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, “The current spending level of $70.3 billion for highway capital improvements is well below the estimated $186 billion needed annually to substantially improve the nation’s highways.”  The problem is projected to get much worse in the near future: “Usually built to last 50 years, the average bridge in our country is now 43 years old.”

In light of these massive challenges, we are in need of creative solutions to close the funding gaps that are already significant and will only get worse.  One possible solution comes by adapting an idea proposed by Gordon Wu et. al. in their 1995 paper, “A Modified Highway Interchange Design for Improved Land Use and Transportation Efficiency: Case Study of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Superhighway in Guangdong, China.”  Similar to our situation today, Wu’s company, Hopewell Holdings, was faced with a funding gap between the cost of the highway it was constructing and the expected toll revenues.  Wu’s proposal centers on the observation that in a typical “clover-leaf” highway interchange, large tracts of land enclosed by the loops are underutilized.  By designing a more efficient means of highway access and egress, Wu was able to free land for more constructive purposes.  Furthermore, he envisioned elevating the highway at these interchanges and filling the space underneath with commercial and residential development.

There are numerous advantages to concentrating development around highway interchanges, further details of which I will flesh out in future posts:

-  Facilitates public transit.  Buses can simply pull off the main highway and then re-enter directly, without having to navigate clover-leaf exits and turn around on local roads in order to continue in the same direction.  Local feeder busses can stop at the same platform and pick up or drop off commuters as well.

-  Improves access.  Having a commercial center integrated into the highway interchange eliminates the distance and travel time for shoppers, and mitigates suburban sprawl.

-  Pays for itself.  The government can be a shareholder in the development company (utilizing the land at interchanges which it already owns) and thereby generate revenue from property leasing and sales, rather than depending only on tolls and taxes to cover the costs of highway construction, maintenance and improvement.

-  Promotes sustainable development and operation.  The scale of an interchange development is perfectly suited for implementing the latest advances in sustainable construction and operation techniques, such as low-carbon concrete, highly effective insulation, and energy-efficient district heating and cooling systems.

If successful, this model could be implemented throughout America in order to help fund the massive infrastructure improvement projects which are direly needed.  Further feasibility and technical studies are needed to iron out implementation details and determine whether this model really can deliver on its theoretical potential.