Where’s the Plan?
We all know that our city faces a big public infrastructure deficit – bigger than the “Big Project” can fix on its own and bigger than just delayed maintenance of the city’s water, sewer, and road systems. In fact, the city’s overall public infrastructure deficit includes much of the city’s essential public infrastructure. Beyond the “Big Project” is the “Even Bigger Project” of fixing all that needs rebuilt for our community’s future prosperity, growth, and quality of life.
Given this, the city should develop a comprehensive plan to fix all its public infrastructure. With a plan, the city can prioritize what to fix first, decide how phase-in fixes, and work within our means through responsible financial management of such a major investment in rebuilt public infrastructure. By planning, trade offs can be made up front. The overall costs and benefits of fixing our public infrastructure can also be understood through planning.
Fixing things won’t be easy and will require the entire community working together – including businesses of all sizes, private-sector and public-sector unions, community groups, residents, politicians, city staff and contractors, and all levels of government working together. All this requires putting in place processes for working together, having effective project management at the forefront, and making a commitment to tackling the overall challenges we face.
A plan for rebuilding, maintaining, and building Prince Rupert’s public infrastructure should include these strategies:
- TAKE PLANNING SERIOUSLY BY ADOPTING A “DO IT ALL” ATTITUDE
Any plan capable of addressing our overall public infrastructure deficit must start with the recognition that city government’s job is providing all essential (not just some essential) services and infrastructure. An effective public infrastructure plan will not ignore the full extent of the city’s public infrastructure needs. By including all public infrastructure that needs repairing or rebuilding, we’ll know the full extent of the challenge we’re confronting. Then we can we start working out a plan to get out of the hole. The plan’s rule of thumb should be: If it’s needed for our city, then we need it. And if we need it, then we must figure out how to build, rebuild, or maintain it. - WORK WITHIN OUR MEANS – Do It All, Not All at Once
Next, the plan should reflect realistic spending and borrowing levels. Based on the size of the overall public infrastructure deficit, a realistic plan will have to be phased-in over time. Yes, we can do it all. But no, we cannot do it all at once. Working within our means requires doing the hard part: Prioritizing and sequencing. But the advantage of planning is that the order of things can be done with ends in mind. Phases and stages can build on each other. - FOCUS ON GROWTH
The plan should focus on growth. Public infrastructure exists to support a strong economy for the benefit of the community. One way to build public infrastructure is by focusing on the gains that result from economic infrastructure investments. Prince Rupert should therefore focus on growth in how we plan public infrastructure, both in terms of growth of overall population and in terms of growth of overall economic productively,. One way to do this: Make growth a factor in deciding what gets built or rebuilt first. (Growth and liveability are connected. We cannot grow our economy without retaining businesses and workers who want to stay in Prince Rupert.) - NOT ESSENTIAL? THEN DON’T DO IT
Finally, any workable plan should also include a commitment to focus only on rebuilding and maintaining essential public infrastructure; anything that’s not essential must wait until all essential facilities are built, maintained, and sustained. Gravy comes last. Deciding what’s “essential” and “what isn’t essential” won’t be a simple matter, as we’ll likely disagree on the margins. But we can no longer afford to put off the conversation. Just as with operating budgets, the process should start with an overall, long-term, assessment of city needs and wants. We should ask ourselves: What should the city invest in? How can we maximize the public benefits of these investments, in terms of both quality of life benefits and in terms of economic benefits?
