Infrastructure We Ride On

Joseph Berechman is the Marvin Kristein Professor in the Department of Economics and Business at the Colin Powell School, the City College of New York, USA. Between 2007 and 2014 he was the department’s chairman. Before coming to CCNY, he was the CN Chair Professor in Transportation and International Logistics at the Sauder School of Business, the University of British Columbia, Canada. Dr. Berechman has consulted on a variety of transportation and urban projects in different countries and has been a principal investigator in several major studies done for the European Union. For the past several years he has been engaged in major cost and investment studies of transportation infrastructure projects in New York and elsewhere. He has published numerous journal papers and six books.

• 1. Introduction.- 2. Infrastructure Needs and Reality.- 3. The Dubious Status of Formal Project Evaluation Procedures.- 4. Inferior and Unworthy Transportation Mega-Projects.- 5. Inaccuracies in Cost and Demand Forecasts.- 6. Mega-Project History and Decision-Making.- 7. Interest Groups: Advocacy and Opposition.- 8. The Decisive Role of Project Funding.- 9. Overseeing Institutions.- 10. Alternative Decision Criteria: Equity, Economic Development, and Environmental Externalities.- 11. Why Unworthy Mega-Projects?.