Mark Pisano

Leadership and Strategy: A Comparison of the Outcomes and Institutional Designs of the Alameda Corridor and Alameda Corridor East Projects

This research examines and compares the development of two large-scale projects in Southern California, the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority (ACTA) and the Alameda Corridor East (ACE), sharing a number of features for useful paired comparison. Both have similar political institutions at the regional and local levels, serve the same ports and the same private sector railroad parties, and have a similar regional purpose. This paper uses a specific model of strategy to consider a set of outcomes designated by the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) as a framework that can be applied across different projects and regions. The TBL framework tests the strategy model for explanatory power, for the criteria needed for large scale projects to move forward. This model makes explicit the strategic components of each project that advance a triple bottom line as three distinct outcomes: Increased freight velocity (efficiency), improved air quality and reduced traffic congestion (environment), community protection and safety (equity).

Toward a National Strategic Investment Framework

America is entering a tumultuous period unrivaled in recent history. We are facing a disruption of our economy only rivaled by the Great Depression. We need to come to grips with our reliance on foreign oil that is at the heart of our national security problems. We are confronted with the challenge of global survival because of climate change. Finally, our economic growth over the past several decades has left many in America behind. These were the key issues in the recent presidential election, which was essentially an 18-month national visioning process that established societal goals of reducing CO2, decreasing dependence on imported oil, and increasing economic well-being for all Americans. The goals established through this extensive national debate and election started a transformation process that will enable America to overcome the enormous challenges we face and initiate an investment program that will continue for decades and through this century. The societal goals, articulated in broad scope, must now be translated by the President and Congress into explicit performance standards and policy directives, which will, in turn, be applied within each of the nation’s megaregions to create a “Strategic Investment Framework” to meet the national vision and goals. Our global competitors are keenly focused on how to envision and build this new 21st-century society. We must do the same.

Aligning Fiscal and Environmental Sustainability

The future of environmental sustainability will be driven by the capacity of local, state and federal levels of government to develop fiscal sustainability. For example, in the case of the Alameda Corridor in Los Angeles County environmental sustainability advanced only because of the fiscal sustainability of the project. The environmental improvements of reducing particulate car and truck pollutants, as well as remediation of underground water pollution, were financed by the innovative public-private partnership that generated revenues to pay for long-neglected environmental degradations.

Developing the Institutional Capacity to Implement Large-Scale Infrastructure Projects

Implementation of new large-scale infrastructure projects and systems continues to be elusive. Using a case study approach, this article suggests that leaders who acted strategically, mobilized resources and assets that provided outcomes that were then linked to payment by users in a business plan, and satisfied multiple objectives were successful. To realize this success, new institutional designs or “rules of the game” are developed for the organizations involved in implementing the project. Implementation is possible when leaders are willing to change how they approached solving problems.