Public Works Management & Policy

Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) hold great promise for public works professionals seeking to optimize those public investment strategies that deal with traffic congestion and other growth pressures. Advanced traffic and fleet management systems as well as traveler information and vehicle-based systems can take advantage of information technology advances and private market products to substantially improve the productivity, connectivity, and safety of transportation. And as the new federal transportation act further spurs deployment of these systems, ITS research programs will continue to play a vital role in supporting such deployment and the overall evolution of ITS. Such research includes developing technology tools, providing testing and evaluation environments, and helping advance the state of the practice.

As the aggregate level of outsourced highway maintenance and operations work rises, so too does the potential for public works agencies to lose control of service quality. To minimize this risk and maximize the effectiveness of service contracts, public works agencies must clearly define the specific performance standards they expect their contractors to achieve. If a contract is silent or unclear about an agency’s requirements with respect to quality, timeliness, or responsiveness to customer needs, the work performed may fall short of the agency’s expectations. This article will analyze these issues and present a framework for public works agencies to use in developing effective performance measures for highway maintenance and operations contracts. It will also provide guidance in how to monitor and enforce compliance with defined performance standards when agencies elect to outsource this work.

A recent study by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) found that years of underfunding through 1994 had left investment in U.S. public schools short by $126 billion. To better understand the GAO finding, the authors estimated capital stocks in U.S. public schools; they then projected future capital stocks and infrastructure deficiencies. They use this framework to interpret two federal public school construction financing options: tax credit bonds, promoted by the Clinton administration, and expanding “arbitrage” earnings possibilities for those state and local governments that issue school bonds, promoted by many Republicans in Congress.

The implementation of thousands of municipal recycling programs in the United States has increased recycling’s portion of solid waste from 10% to 30% over the past decade. But the lack of accurate data has spurred a debate over whether the growth in recycling can be attributed to market or nonmarket factors. To address this issue, this article conducts a benefit-cost analysis of a municipal recycling program. Results suggest recycling is costly. So why, then, does it remain popular? This article suggests that local governments could be responding to households that perceive a benefit from recycling services. These benefits are estimated with a contingent valuation survey.

This article examines the argument that using design-build-operate (DBO) contracting instead of traditional approaches (such as contract operations) to expand the private sector role in the management of municipal water and wastewater systems will lead to more efficient investment and operational practices. Privatization research reviewed in this article suggests that capturing and maintaining the benefits of market competition on the cost of service under a DBO contract may be an elusive objective. For cities considering long-term DBO privatization, the research and case studies presented demonstrate the importance of investing in the necessary expertise to (a) plan and structure a procurement process that generates meaningful price competition, (b) develop contract terms that give the public owner input into and control over key design criteria for capital improvements, and (c) realistically assess the impact of changing circumstances on future costs to develop accurate long-term cost projections.

Drawing on data gathered from personal interviews conducted at multiple sites within the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, this article explores four key factors that affect site progress toward coming into environmental compliance. These factors are (a) the degree of environmental difficulty, (b) stakeholder relationships, (c) organizational transformation, and (d) politics. The Fernald, Ohio, site is then presented as a case that reveals the importance of these factors in explaining a site’s successful progress toward environmental compliance. There are two outstanding features of the Fernald cleanup effort: (a) the extent to which the site has been able to work effectively with stakeholders and (b) the comprehensiveness of the site’s successful organizational transformation.