Infrastructure Demands: The Role of Strategic Planning
Chris Provost, PE, Executive Vice President, Chief Strategies Officer, Barge Design Solutions
Key Points:
Communities across the U.S. face significant challenges in navigating infrastructure demands. Balancing growth, maintenance, technology, and disaster recovery requires strategic planning and efficient use of resources. Today, informed infrastructure planning is not just necessary—it is foundational for long-term sustainability and resilience.
Drivers of Modern Infrastructure Demands
Several key factors steer the decision-making process that eventually shape how federal, state, and local efforts address public needs for infrastructure. These factors include population growth, the condition of existing infrastructure, advancements in technology, and government policies. Each of these elements plays a crucial role in how communities prioritize and implement infrastructure projects.
Growth Pressure. Rising populations are increasing the demand for essential infrastructure, such as water, transportation, and healthcare, particularly in high-growth urban centers across the South and West. Cities are finding it increasingly challenging to meet these demands.
Existing Infrastructure Condition. Maintaining aging infrastructure is costly, and available resources often fall short. According to the 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Report Card, U.S. infrastructure averages a grade of C-, with sectors such as aviation, wastewater, and roads rating even lower. 1 Annual budgets often fail to provide adequate funding to address demands on existing infrastructure.
Advanced Technology. Technology advancements, including AI and automation, are reshaping infrastructure demands. While technology helps us in many ways, and the power of AI is in its early stages, its own implementation is creating infrastructure pressure, especially for energy. McKinsey & Company estimates that energy demands for data and AI could rise to over 10% of U.S. power demand by 2030. Addressing these challenges requires not just investments in energy grids but also strategic integration into broader infrastructure plans.2
Government Policy. Policy decisions can drive the development of infrastructure investments. For example, fiscal policies can influence interest rates and investment markets, while recent economic stimulus measures and incentives for electric vehicle production have increased demand for transportation, water, and energy infrastructure.
Challenges in Funding and Prioritization
Public infrastructure investments often compete for funding, with visible projects like parks and bridges overshadowing underground systems such as water and stormwater utilities. Despite being crucial to daily life, these hidden assets often fail to secure the funding they need, underscoring the importance of public awareness and smarter prioritization.
In the 1970s and 80s, the Environmental Protection Agency allocated more than $60 billion to public utilities for the construction of new wastewater treatment facilities – that’s nearly $500 billion in 2024. This investment significantly improved water quality across the U.S., but that level of clean water spending is not the priority it once was. Unfortunately, many of those facilities are now aging and operating beyond their intended lifespan. Consequently, these utilities face substantial investments in existing infrastructure merely to keep pace with current demands, let alone accommodate future growth.
While balancing repair and growth is a challenge, unexpected events such as natural disasters add a layer of unpredictability to infrastructure planning.
Balancing Repair and Growth
Strategic planning ensures that limited funds are balanced to meet immediate needs, such as repairs, with long-term growth. For instance, Metro Nashville’s stormwater master plan evaluates current infrastructure while projecting future demands. These plans, when regularly updated, help communities adapt to growth, economic shifts, and unforeseen challenges like natural disasters.
Barge Design Solutions is currently working with the City to develop this plan, assessing current infrastructure and future needs. Master plans for public utilities help establish sound financial projections and guide short- and long-term investments. These plans, however, require regular updates that adapt to evolving growth patterns, economic shifts, and changing political climates.
Even the best-laid plans face challenges when unexpected events arise, such as natural disasters, which can disrupt carefully crafted infrastructure strategies. Following hurricanes Helene and Milton, multiple communities now understand the strain disaster recovery places on state and local resources. Initial recovery efforts alone will cost billions, revealing gaps in federal funding. Long-term recovery requires sustained investment, and the full economic impact on these areas remains uncertain.
Learn more about how states prepare and respond to infrastructure needs in times of crisis..
Tennessee’s Transportation Initiative
One example of innovative funding solutions for growth comes from Tennessee’s approach to modernizing transportation infrastructure. The State of Tennessee’s Transportation Modernization Act exemplifies innovative funding approaches. By combining public and private investments, such as the "choice lanes" program in Metro Nashville, the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) addresses growing congestion while ensuring state funds remain available for future transportation needs.
TDOT is leveraging infrastructure funding from multiple sources, including the 2023 Transportation Modernization Act (TMA). It introduces a new strategy and establishes a $3.3 billion fund, primarily sourced from a one-time allocation from the Tennessee General Fund. This fund will be distributed statewide, with $750 million allocated to each region.
Much-needed roadway and bridge improvement projects are underway. In addition, TDOT and local governments are taking advantage of competitive grant programs, such as Safe Streets for All (SS4A) or the Bridge Investment Program (BIP). The federally provided Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act notably increased the budget for TDOT programs by approximately 30% based on the funding formula, resulting in roughly $1.24 billion in annual Federal funding.
With assistance from state and local partnerships, TDOT looks to the private sector to address significant congestion problems in the Middle Tennessee Region. TMA funds are being used to plan and design the state’s use of choice lanes in the Metro Nashville area, providing access to additional traffic lanes at an extra cost to the drivers who choose to use them. While state funds are being used for the planning and design phase, this “pay-as-you-go” concept allows private entities (also known as concessionaires) to construct and operate the choice lanes and recover their investment through the operation and collection of fees from their users. Additionally, TDOT expects funds to generate a return to the state as an investment in future transportation projects.
The Consultant’s Role: Guiding Smart Investments
It is important for consulting firms to understand their role when advising clients on how to address infrastructure needs. The consultant’s traditional role is to provide expert advice based on knowledge and experience in a specific area. Today, firms must look beyond engineering, architecture, and science, extending their role to help their clients solve problems that are not easily defined.
A big challenge for clients in both the public and private sectors is making decisions on what infrastructure projects should be prioritized within real funding constraints. These needs might be dynamic and reflect changes in priorities from economic or political influences, but the consultant should navigate the changing landscape by focusing on the fundamentals of the business, service, or operation they are navigating.
Consultants play a vital role in guiding clients through complex infrastructure decisions in four key areas:
Provide Informed Knowledge. Use accurate, up-to-date data to inform infrastructure decisions.
Give Honest Assessments. Help clients with honest assessments of priorities for immediate infrastructure needs.
Align with Growth Plans. Ensure infrastructure decisions align with long-term growth objectives.
Deliver Technical Expertise. Advise on the best technical solutions and methods for short- and long-term investments.
Communities are better equipped to make the final decision when consultants help their clients make an informed decision on how and when to make infrastructure investments. Addressing infrastructure demands requires a multi-faceted approach: strategic planning, funding innovation, and leveraging expert guidance to balance current needs with future growth.
As history has shown, human ingenuity and collaboration will rise to meet infrastructure demands. Our ability to balance immediate needs with future growth is necessary to ensure resilient infrastructure systems. While public and private sector leadership will continue to evolve, the responsibility is shared by multiple stakeholders, community leaders, government entities, and consultants. Through strategic planning, informed policies, investments, and priorities, we can shape the infrastructure that meets our needs today and in the future.
About the Author
Chris Provost, PE, is an executive vice president and the chief strategies officer for Barge Design Solutions. He has 40 years of experience in master planning, facility design, and project management across various sectors. He has overseen projects nationwide, ranging from small budgets to several hundred-million-dollar programs, and is well-versed in environmental regulations from his tenure at the U.S. EPA Region IV.
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