The Northeast Corridor spans 8 states and the District of Columbia (9 jurisdictions). The municipal-level juristictions complicate the problem.
schedules predictably clash with the rapid turnover of American politics. Put simply, infrastructure projects outlast the politicians that back them. Politicians do not often want to support a project if the public will not be able to see the results within their term. A 20 year investment in a new rail line does little to benefit the reelection of candidates whose terms last 2, 4, and 6 years. In backing infrastructure programs, politicians run the risk of taking large amounts of money in their term and having nothing to show for it. As a result, advocacy groups like RPA must work very hard to convince politicians of the long-term social benefits of proposed programs, and help guide them through the political ropes of supporting such programs.
39 RPA
politician tern graph created by Renae Zelmar
NEPA table from http://www.rpa.org/sites/rpa.civicactions.net/files/NEPA-Time.png
Large infrastructure projects take many years to comple, often over a decade. The lifespans of U.S. politicians do not match such long timelines. A Congressman elected every two years is unlikely to have anything to show for a project s/he initiates when it is time for relection in two years.
The above graph, created by RPA for their report "Getting Infrastructure Going: Expediating the Environmental Review Process" (Schned and Todorovich 2012), shows how cumbersome the environmental review process has become over the years. Part of the process involves the completion of an Envriomental Impact Statement, a document the outlines the pottential environmental effects of a proposed project. Since the 1970s, the time it takes for the average highway project to complete such a document has increased from a little over 2 to 8 years.
Figure 2
Figure 3