A Tappan Zee Bridge Without Transit Is a Lousy Jobs Program

Not all employment programs are created equal. There are many ways to create jobs, including monetary policy, unemployment insurance and infrastructure spending. You could create jobs by rebuilding the Tappan Zee Bridge, but it's a wasteful and environmentally destructive way of satisfying that basic economic need.

On a basic level, you could pay people to dig holes and fill them up for years, and stimulate the economy that way, but some forms of stimulus are better and others are worse. For years, Smart Growth America has been highlighting data showing that government spending on mass transit projects creates more and better jobs per dollar than road projects.

If you want to create jobs in the Lower Hudson Valley, why not spend it rebuilding the old rail infrastructure? I bet that five billion dollars would be enough to rebuild the tracks on every train line that ever existed in Orange, Bergen and Rockland Counties, double-track them, lower the floor on the West Shore Line, and restore passenger service on all of them. Any leftover money could be spent rebuilding the Putnam Line and NYW&B in Westchester, or digging the Cross-Harbor Rail Freight Tunnel. Tons of good jobs there. No need to rebuild a bridge that has filled the area with sprawl and will only generate more sprawl.