The power of 3-D printing, commercial drones, self-driving vehicles, electricity storage, and the Internet of Things is pushing the North American infrastructure market toward a tipping point, according to the latest study by the nation’s infrastructure advisory firm CG/LA Infrastructure.
CG/LA’s Building Prosperity: 2015 Strategic 100 North American Infrastructure Report identifies those strategic projects, all incorporating transformative technologies to unleash $376 billion in infrastructure opportunities over the next 18 months.
“Advanced technologies promise a transformation in the marketplace that will propel revolutionary new undertakings and modernize legacy projects in highways, bridges, rail, the power grid, and urban mobility,” CG/LA Infrastructure President and CEO Norman Anderson said. “Our challenge as an industry is to create a new market framework, creating better projects, faster approvals, and channeling great ideas into prosperity driving reality.”
The Gateway Project—the critical tunnel between New York and New Jersey—was ranked number one for 2015, a project crucial to the prosperity of the New York region. On a regional basis: New England had eight projects, valued at $28.5 billion; the Mid Atlantic had 17 projects, valued at $43.8 billion; the South/Southeast had 24 projects, valued at $39.1 billion; the Midwest had 5 projects, valued at $20.3 billion; and the West had 26 projects, valued at $163.6 billion. Canada had 12 projects on the list, collectively valued at $61.2 billion and Mexico had 8 projects, valued at $19.9 billion.
The Strategic 100 Rating System. In addition to technology, the Strategic 100 projects were ranked by CG/LA’s proprietary model, which scored projects according to the following criteria:
- Competitiveness - How does this project align with a region or state’s economic needs?
- Productivity - How does this project add value to a community by enabling improved economic productivity?
- Sustainability - Does this project enable a city to operate more sustainably?
- Business opportunity - Does this project have a business opportunity in the next 3-12 months?
- Job creation - What is the projected impact on creation of jobs on the local economy?
The Strategic 100 comes on the heels of CG/LA’s Blueprint 2025 initiative launch, an 18-month, 100-nameplate initiative for U.S. CEOs to craft an infrastructure plan for the administration that will take office on Jan. 20, 2017. Blueprint 2025 aims to raise infrastructure to a priority level on par with national security while generating long-term, bipartisan support through at least the next three election cycles.
CG/LA’s upcoming 7th North American Infrastructure Leadership Forum in Washington, D.C. is a selective gathering of more than 500 C-level executives representing technology firms, engineers, construction principals and investors who represent the private and public sectors, and project sponsors from throughout North America.
Source: CG/LA Infrastructure
