Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), a progressive Senator from America’s most Smart Growth-oriented city of Portland, apparently feels that the best economic stimulus would be more money for road resurfacing. No wonder America has such a hard time weaning itself from road-building.

According to Bloomberg, Oregon’s senior Senator thinks “infrastructure spending—

specifically road resurfacing—

would be a faster and better use of the money [that Congress wants to spend on economic stimulus]. ‘There are infrastructure projects that can get off the ground faster than rebate checks,’ said Wyden.”

How about, instead of supporting the highway industrial complex, if Wyden really wants to stimulate the economy through infrastructure, why doesn’t he support transit projects in his home town and Metro expansion between the city where he works and the airport he probably uses to get to Oregon? Or at least let metro areas decide if resurfacing their roads is really more important than providing alternatives to driving? Both would stimulate the economy, but transit expansion would stimulate it more in the long run as well as reducing our dependence on oil.

The Bloomberg article even makes it sound as though Wyden wants to spend money on road resurfacing instead of expanding unemployment insurance, the change Senator Schumer favors. Though in fairness to Wyden, it may well be that “road resurfacing” is Bloomberg’s sound bite. But whether Wyden is part of the problem or not, Congress’s ISTEA bills, which allocate the lion’s share of money to road-building regardless of cities’ wishes, is a definite problem.

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.