In The News › Infrastructure

“That you would end up with a major blight problem was absolutely predictable,” said Janet R. Howard, executive director of the Bureau of Governmental Research, a nonprofit advisory group here. “You come to a point where you have to get beyond the political question to the actual question.”

Experts cautioned that, even with billions of dollars in aid expected to flow to the city, New Orleans wouldn’t get enough to properly rebuild every section of town — or to keep rebuilt facilities in good shape.

“Unless the city’s plan addresses the mismatch between the city’s footprint and its population by initially directing development into more compact areas, the outcome will be random, scattered development in a sea of blight,” the nonprofit Bureau of Governmental Research wrote in December 2005.

The Bureau of Governmental Research has put out a new report addressing the infrastructure needs of the city of New Orleans and recommendations for how to budget for improvements that need to be made. Dennis sits down with Janet Howard, the CEO of the Bureau of Governmental Research, to discuss the findings.

New Orleans, at age 292, has far more creaky infrastructure than any agency can afford to fix, according to a new report from the Bureau of Governmental Research. “The Price of Civilization” defines the problem in detail, although researchers say their tally of capital needs is not complete.

A new study by the independent Bureau of Governmental Research suggests there are “startling gaps” in the city’s ability to prevent the type of flooding seen in parts of New Orleans, Wednesday morning.

A report released Wednesday from the Bureau of Governmental Research indicated that the city needs billions to upgrade its badly impaired infrastructure.

While much attention has been paid recently to a projected $67.5 million shortfall in New Orleans’ 2010 operating budget, the Bureau of Governmental Research has been focusing on a shortfall of billions of dollars in the city’s ability to address its infrastructure needs.

The Bureau of Governmental Research in 2008 called on City Hall to adopt such a program to cure what the watchdog agency saw as three critical problems: “the unsophisticated, and at times ad hoc, process for managing street work; inadequate coordination with utilities, particularly the Sewerage & Water Board, (in planning construction); and the city’s utter failure to invest in preventive maintenance and rehabilitation.”

The nonprofit Bureau of Governmental Research today threw its support behind two Jefferson Parish transit taxes up for renewal by voters, saying that “serious cuts in service” will result if they are not renewed.

The city of New Orleans spends about $3 million every year fixing our streets, and in Baton Rouge they spend in the neighborhood of $26 million.

Virtually everyone living in New Orleans would agree its suffering streets are a major detriment to a
first-rate quality of life in the city. Understanding that is easy.

New Orleans City Council members spent more than an hour Thursday grilling Nagin administration officials about the city’s crime camera program, questioning whether the millions spent on the cameras were properly authorized and whether they have produced meaningful results.

New Orleans spends far too little money on maintaining its notoriously bad streets, but the city can do a better job even with its limited resources, a private, nonpartisan research organization said Tuesday.