InfrastructureUSA.org is a non-profit, online community whose mission is to bring together infrastructure experts, industry leaders, government officials and most especially interested citizens, to participate in vigorous conversation and generate action to address the U.S. infrastructure crisis.

2017 was, by many accounts, a turbulent year. Infrastructure was no exception.

Whether due to new political paradigms, unprecedented natural disasters or new funding opportunities, American infrastructure faced a wide range of challenges throughout the year. Our annual infrastructure review recounts some of the key infra topics that shaped discussion–and action–in 2017.

Drinking Water

2017 was the year of reckoning for drinking water systems around the United States. Triggered largely by the high levels of lead found in municipal drinking water in Flint, MI, a wide variety of new and old organizations made drinking water a local, regional and national priority. The result was a massive uncovering of toxicity, maintenance backlogs, misinformation and rotting pipes that went far beyond Flint. Further exacerbated by an especially vicious hurricane season, the drinking water issue will most likely remain on the table well into 2018.

• Get the lead out: Ensuring Safe Drinking Water for our Children at School
• Threats on Tap
• Adam Krantz of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies on The Infra Blog

Autonomous Vehicles

You probably won’t be taking one to work next week, but autonomous vehicles (AVs) received significant attention throughout 2017. Private companies, enthusiastic citizens and government agencies all joined the discussion, hashing out the pros, cons, hazards, costs and overall utility of driverless cars. Despite questions of safety (and a few highly publicized crashes) the level of dialogue among transportation officials suggests that decision makers are taking AVs very seriously.

• Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030
• Driverless Future: a Policy Roadmap for City Leaders

Electric Vehicles

Gas prices stayed low in 2017, threatening demand for hybrids and EVs across the board. Still, innovators continued to make EV technology more available and more practical than ever before. From an infrastructure perspective, EV charging poses important questions: Who owns charging stations? Who pays for the power? Will EV charging over-stress the grid? With the late-2017 release of electric-only freight trucks, it looks like it’s time to get those questions answered.

• Powering the Future of Mobility
• The Road to Electric Vehicles
• Transit Trends Episode 10: Electric Vehicles and the Environment

Sharing

Ridesharing, carsharing, bikesharing, boardsharing–you name it. If it moves, it was probably shared in 2017. Driver and passenger networks for rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft continued to grow. Still touted as solutions to the “last-mile” debacle of transit agencies, ridesharing also proved to put more cars on the road and worsen congestion in major cities. Bikesharing also broke records, driven by large-scale adoption of docked bikeshare stations in cities around the world. The arrival of dockless bikeshare systems offer even more convenience, and if we prove that we can act like grownups, we might see a lot more bikes on the road in 2018.

• Empty Streets, Full Seats
• The Last Mile: Connecting Workers to Places of Employment
• Private Mobility, Public Interest

Renewable Energy

As public sentiment sours on fossil-fuel-based energy production, renewable energy continues to gain popularity. Fortunately, technology in wind and solar sectors is keeping pace, leading to massive improvements in renewable energy supply. While we probably won’t achieve 100% renewable energy in this decade, the possibility of transitioning away from a fossil-fuel grid is no longer science fiction.

• Renewables on the Rise
• Electricity Markets, Reliability, and the Evolving U.S. Power System

Public-Private Partnerships

President Trump surprised the nation when he deemed public-private partnerships “more trouble than they’re worth,” but infrastructure stakeholders are increasingly enthusiastic about these new funding opportunities. Also known as PPPs or P3s, public-private partnerships are already behind airport expansions, toll roads, broadband initiatives and national park concessions–to name just a few. Love them or hate them, in 2017’s climate of uncertainty surrounding infrastructure funding, many projects simply would not have started without PPPs.

•  Can P3s Rescue U.S. Infrastructure?
• Namrita Kapur of EDF+Business on The Infra Blog
• Practicality of Private Sector Funded Infrastructure

What do you think?

What were the most pressing infrastructure issues of 2017 for you and your community? Let us know in the comments!

Tags: 2017, Autonomous Vehicles, Bikeshare, Careshare, drinking water, driverless cars, Electric Vehicles, EV Charging, EVs, New Year, P3s, Renewables, Rideshare, Water

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 3rd, 2018 at 9:51 am and is filed under Competitiveness, Congestion, Drinking Water, Funding, Private Investment, Public Transportation, Smart Growth, Technology, The Infra Blog, Transit, Urban Planning, Water Treatment . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.