Though expenditure of the funds has been slow and an inordinate amount of sidewalks are being constructed, attention has finally been turned to this significant issue. The problem, as the proliferation of sidewalks to nowhere demonstrates, is what to spend all this money on.

At the Atlantic Politics blog, Chris Good sought out Col. Bob Stephan, formerly assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the Department of Homeland Security for clarification. Col. Stephan is understandably concerned about how the stimulus funds are being spent and, in particular, worries that infrastructure “that pose[s] the greatest safety risks should be attended to first” (Good’s paraphrasing). Infrastructure spending should be based on risk. In other words, on avoiding another Minnesota bridge collapse.

While Col. Stephan’s points are both valid and important to keep in mind, he ends up conflating “projects of national significance” with “risk of disaster”. Fixing up dangerous bridges and roads and only then moving on to projects that encourage less driving or improve electricity transmission is simply counterproductive.

In fact, infrastructure spending on “projects of national significance” involves taking into account land use, mobility, alternative transportation options, and population density, among myriad other factors. Deciding to repair a bridge instead of increasing parking capacity at an end-of-the-line train stop is not simply about calculating the number of people who might perish if the bridge collapsed. In fact, it must subsume the benefits and the costs of drivers switching to transit because of the increased parking space, of drivers increasing usage of a bridge they know has been repaired, of the increased opportunities for development around the train stop.

People should never die because some critical (or not critical) piece of infrastructure has not been repaired. Indeed, potholes on I-95 should probably be fixed before pretty much anything else. But criteria that require infrastructure spending on projects of national significance involve much more than safety concerns. Such a policy would leave little room for investment in the projects necessary for an economic recovery that involves improved land use, development, and energy efficiency, the keys to a recovery that works for the majority of Americans.