Karen Lightman is the executive director of the Metro21 Smart Cities Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. She said that, “The American Society of Civil Engineers gives American infrastructure a C- [and notes] that there’s a water main break every two minutes in the U.S. and 43% of our roadways are woefully deficient.

Carnegie Mellon University’s Lightman said, “My hope is that the [recently approved federal funding] will also support more collaboration with private and non-profit sectors. The funding from the U.S. government is meant to be a catalyst for other private sector funding, whereby it reduces the risk and will encourage developers to make improvements on their properties, for companies to grow and expand.

“I look for infrastructure investments that are mindful of sustainability goals such as focusing on electrification and the use of renewable sources of energy (wind, solar, etc.) and also is focused on enhancing digital infrastructure such as equitable deployment of broadband— at the last mile as well as the very-important middle-mile infrastructure needed,” she recommended.