Washington, D.C. is developing a tradition: With the start of a new administration comes grand promises of federal solutions to our nation’s infrastructure challenges. Yet from the Obama administration’s “shovel-ready” projects to the Trump administration’s trillion-dollar plan, tangible results have been vexingly scarce.
Starting in January 2017, I spent 15 months in the Trump White House working with hundreds of governors, mayors, county executives, and members of Congress—all of whom were eager to come up with sensible policies to improve our nation’s infrastructure. But the administration’s plan faltered due to several missteps. Now, as President Joe Biden takes his own shot at broad infrastructure reform, his team would do well to understand what went wrong for the previous White House.