Opinion/Slade: Better infrastructure through private, public partnerships

Lawrence Slade serves as chief executive of the Global Infrastructure Investor Association, an organization representing investors with $1 trillion of infrastructure assets under management.

If, as the old adage says, a fish rots from the head down, a state's economy crumbles from the infrastructure out. That's certainly the case for America's smallest state.

Owing to excellent seaport access and thoughtfully managed waterways, Rhode Island was once a commercial anchor of one of the most prosperous enclaves in the history of the world. Now, the state's economy is free-falling after decades of industrial collapse, and civil engineers rate its derelict critical infrastructure systems — everything from energy and dams, waste and waterway systems, and bridges and roads — among the very worst in the nation.

It's no coincidence, either: economies rise and fall on infrastructure because it expands access to opportunity by enabling the efficient delivery of people, goods, and services. But in the case of Rhode Island, chronic infrastructure instability is throttling opportunity — and will continue to do so unless and until policymakers adopt more comprehensive, market-based solutions to this crisis.

At a seemingly manageable 12,664 miles, Rhode Island has the second smallest state paved road inventory in the United States. But despite spending more than $438,000 per highway mile — a figure that far exceeds all but eight other states — fully half of its roads are in poor condition, according to the most recent survey by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

If you're looking for a bright spot, you won't find it in the state of bridges. Rhode Island is home to the country's third-highest percentage of structurally deficient bridges, a slight improvement from two years ago when it owned the greatest share. Some of the most-crossed interstate bridges in the state capital are rated structurally deficient, and all were constructed in or before the 1960s.

The period of economic expansion following the Second World War was a golden age of infrastructure investment. We built bridges, dams, and airports, deepened ports, and laid tens of thousands of freight and passenger rail miles. Today, the majority of these historic projects are reaching the end of their functional and safe life.

Unfortunately, the state's infrastructure will only deteriorate when countless critical assets approach a mass grave. What we've been doing for decades, blindly throwing millions of tax dollars at potholes, isn't working. It's time to get creative with the funding mix for infrastructure projects.

Private participation in infrastructure has been successfully leveraged by governments worldwide. The public-private partnership model spreads the risk (and return) between government and private enterprise to deliver a better experience for customers. Even the National Institutes of Health leveraged public-private partnerships to develop coronavirus vaccines that millions of Americans have trusted.

With transparency in the bidding, hiring, construction, and operation of infrastructure assets, public-private partnerships provide infrastructure better and more efficiently than either sector could alone. Still, many state and local governments, particularly blue and Northeastern jurisdictions, have been hesitant to invite the resources and expertise of the private sector. This is plainly foolish in the face of enormous funding shortfalls.

Someone needs to say it, and Providence needs to hear it: Rhode Island spends like it's Massachusetts but delivers infrastructure like it's Mississippi, and it's working families that shoulder the burden.

Infrastructure once made Rhode Island an enormous success and envy of the industrialized world. It can do that again, but policymakers need to get wise to the value of private sector participation.