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Biden will be better on infrastructure on Trump (it would be difficult not be), but unless something is done about construction costs not much is going to be built https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-11-18/want-more-infrastructure-make-it-cheaper-to-build
Federal infrastructure spending in FY 2019 was the lowest it's been as a share of GDP since 1957
There's been a lot of interesting stuff written over the past few years about why U.S. infrastructure costs are so high. My favorite is probably this rundown from @alon_levy https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/03/03/why-american-costs-are-so-high-work-in-progress/
Now Leah Brooks of GWU and @ZLiscow of Yale Law have a couple of papers that examine the question through the lens of interstate highway spending, and they're really interesting, especially this one https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3428675
One of the fun things that Brooks and Liscow found is that interstate highways got wigglier over time, even after adjusting for the geography they were going through
Explanation: Highway neighbors, environmental groups and others were able to force changes in interstate-highway design, thanks to a bunch of 1960s/1970s legislation and court decisions that increased "citizen voice"
Sometimes the changes forced by "citizen voice" are worth it and sometimes they aren't, but they almost always increase construction costs https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-11-18/want-more-infrastructure-make-it-cheaper-to-build?srnd=opinion
By the way, there's a whole episode of the @DenselySpeaking podcast on this research. It's what inspired me to write the column https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/densely-speaking/ep2-leah-brooks-irBSgzfAC3D/
