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‘Time Is Always Money’: Pandemic Lockdowns Hasten Infrastructure Work - The New York Times

Sylvia Lamb, the assistant chief engineering officer for the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, started poring over the numbers in January. She and her colleagues were looking for answers to one key question: If the coronavirus hit California, what would that do to repairs and operations?

“We started to look at all the data, to the work getting done, and there were a lot of ‘what ifs,’” she said.

By March, when the pandemic had hit in full force, and ridership was rapidly declining, Ms. Lamb and her team already had a clear idea of which projects they could jump on to speed up maintenance and repairs. And by suspending transit service at 9 p.m., four hours earlier than usual, “we could almost double the wrench time,” she said.

Across the country, the pandemic has produced something of a silver lining for infrastructure projects as commuting decreased drastically and railways and highways emptied. And low interest rates have helped reduce borrowing costs, spurring construction activity.

But the crisis is already straining state and local finances, muddling the long-term prospects for infrastructure improvements and the real estate developments that count on them.

“Several states and localities really did take advantage of the fact that when this pandemic started, they saw fewer people on the road or transit systems and the opportunity to accelerate work already planned for the winter and spring time period,” said Jim Tymon, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

“It was a great opportunity to enable some of those projects to get done a little faster than planned with minimal impact on commuters and people who used that system,” he added.

The decline in people on the road and rails also made it easier for commercial construction projects to move ahead after downtown business districts and suburban office parks emptied out.

Credit...Maria J. Avila/BART

“Any time you can grab efficiencies, whether in the price of materials, speed of work, even the interest rate on the paper you borrow to do the work, all can help projects get done more quickly,” said Adie Tomer, who heads the Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative at the Brookings Institution, a public policy organization based in Washington.

“That is absolutely the environment we are in right now, even with the return of driving levels in the past few weeks,” he said.

For example, work sped up on a project for a tech company in Seattle, said Patricia J. Loveall, an executive vice president at the real estate firm Kidder Mathews.

“There was no one on the road,” she said. That made it easier to complete ground preparations and pour the slab for the building. And cost savings will be inevitable, though how much remains to be seen. “Time is always money,” she said.

In New York, officials are predicting that roadwork at La Guardia Airport will be completed six months ahead of schedule. Track work on the city’s subway system, including upgrades to the subway shuttle between Times Square and Grand Central Terminal, is also ahead of schedule. Road work on the New York Thruway has also gained speed.

Similar increases in highway and transit work are evident in other parts of the country. In the District of Columbia and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs, for example, the Metro subway system has been able to accelerate planned improvements and track work. The system was able to shutter nine stations, instead of three, to make improvements to the lines that go into Virginia.

But the looming question for developers, planners and commercial enterprises is: What happens next?

As industry insiders try to predict revenue for the next six to 18 months — the time expected for a coronavirus vaccine to be developed — they see a likely decline in gas taxes, permit fees, tolls and other user fees that fund infrastructure. That will have a ripple effect on commercial real estate projects that rely on the infrastructure to be in place.

“With those available funds diminishing, it will be more of a challenge to develop properties,” said Chris Runyan, president of the Ohio Contractors Association.

This also could translate into reduced incentives that governments offer to lure new development, as well as an increase in permit fees. “Are fees going to go up?” Ms. Loveall said. “Absolutely, they are.”

That makes the construction industry increasingly nervous as it tries to figure out how many workers to keep on the payroll. Construction jobs have risen steadily in the last two months, according to Department of Labor figures, climbing to nearly 7.2 million in June after falling to about 6.6 million in April, when pandemic-induced lockdowns were in full effect.

The Coronavirus Outbreak

  • Frequently Asked Questions

    Updated July 7, 2020

    • What are the symptoms of coronavirus?

      Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.

    • Is it harder to exercise while wearing a mask?

      A commentary published this month on the website of the British Journal of Sports Medicine points out that covering your face during exercise “comes with issues of potential breathing restriction and discomfort” and requires “balancing benefits versus possible adverse events.” Masks do alter exercise, says Cedric X. Bryant, the president and chief science officer of the American Council on Exercise, a nonprofit organization that funds exercise research and certifies fitness professionals. “In my personal experience,” he says, “heart rates are higher at the same relative intensity when you wear a mask.” Some people also could experience lightheadedness during familiar workouts while masked, says Len Kravitz, a professor of exercise science at the University of New Mexico.

    • I’ve heard about a treatment called dexamethasone. Does it work?

      The steroid, dexamethasone, is the first treatment shown to reduce mortality in severely ill patients, according to scientists in Britain. The drug appears to reduce inflammation caused by the immune system, protecting the tissues. In the study, dexamethasone reduced deaths of patients on ventilators by one-third, and deaths of patients on oxygen by one-fifth.

    • What is pandemic paid leave?

      The coronavirus emergency relief package gives many American workers paid leave if they need to take time off because of the virus. It gives qualified workers two weeks of paid sick leave if they are ill, quarantined or seeking diagnosis or preventive care for coronavirus, or if they are caring for sick family members. It gives 12 weeks of paid leave to people caring for children whose schools are closed or whose child care provider is unavailable because of the coronavirus. It is the first time the United States has had widespread federally mandated paid leave, and includes people who don’t typically get such benefits, like part-time and gig economy workers. But the measure excludes at least half of private-sector workers, including those at the country’s largest employers, and gives small employers significant leeway to deny leave.

    • Does asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 happen?

      So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare,” but she later walked back that statement.

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      Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus — whether it’s surface transmission or close human contact — is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.

    • How does blood type influence coronavirus?

      A study by European scientists is the first to document a strong statistical link between genetic variations and Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Having Type A blood was linked to a 50 percent increase in the likelihood that a patient would need to get oxygen or to go on a ventilator, according to the new study.

    • How can I protect myself while flying?

      If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. (Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)

    • What should I do if I feel sick?

      If you’ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.

“It is very unsettling with all the uncertainty because our construction folks have been poised to do a lot of work, and now the rug has been pulled out from under them,” said Dave Simpson, president and chief executive of Carolinas AGC, a trade group for construction and related industries in North Carolina and South Carolina.

That leaves developers looking to the basic tenet of real estate deals — location, location, location — as they try to read the future.

In Pittsburgh, for example, city officials have been working to improve options for cyclists and pedestrians, including expanding bike lanes and walkways, said Patrick J. Sentner, a vice president for CBRE, the commercial real estate firm. But whether the city can sustain those efforts will depend on the revenue picture for infrastructure supporting development.

“Every market will be impacted a little differently,” he said. “What happens in New York will not be the same as Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago or Tulsa.”

Industrial spaces such as warehouses for e-commerce may emerge as the winners of the pandemic-induced changes, said Ms. Loveall, who is based in Seattle, home to the tech giant Amazon. The ability of many people to work from home has increased the opportunities for e-commerce, she said.

But those commercial warehouse projects cannot succeed if the infrastructure around them is not maintained, because they rely on well-maintained highways with easy access for trucks to move their goods.

The need to pay for those parts of the infrastructure puzzle remains to be sorted out, she said: “Cities are looking for ways to replace lost revenue.”

Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Some markets are already adapting. In San Francisco, BART officials are combining system operation and infrastructure maintenance with work on so-called transit-oriented developments, which are commercial real estate projects built along mass transit lines to try to address severe housing shortages in parts of the nation.

These dense communities are designed to move residents in and out quickly, but some include amenities like restaurants and shops. Already, some developers are rethinking infrastructure elements like wider sidewalks and narrower roads to allow people to spread out more.

“We did not let the pandemic completely take over,” said Bob Powers, BART’s general manager.

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‘Time Is Always Money’: Pandemic Lockdowns Hasten Infrastructure Work - The New York Times
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