The Infrastructure Decade: Progress and Pitfalls

November 15, 2025 will mark four years since the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was signed into law. Since then, communities have deployed hundreds of billions of dollars on tens of thousands of infrastructure projects, from replacing bridges to upgrading airports to building high-speed rail. Even with this increased federal investment, there are still massive unmet needs for transportation infrastructure and an unclear future for federal funding after the IIJA expires next year. Also, building infrastructure in the U.S. takes longer and costs more than comparable projects in peer countries, as highlighted in the book Abundance and NYU's Transit Costs Project. This event will consist of a conversation between three experts in the field to reflect on four years of the landmark bipartisan infrastructure law, discuss ongoing challenges to getting projects built on time and on budget, and explore solutions for efficiently and effectively delivering transformative infrastructure. 

Shoshana M. Lew was appointed as the executive director for the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) in December 2018. She is charged with leading the department in planning for and addressing Colorado's transportation needs, and overseeing 3,000 employees statewide and an annual budget this year of approximately $2 billion.

Prior to coming to Colorado, she served as the chief operating officer (COO) for the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT). Also, she was the chief financial officer and assistant secretary for budget and programs for the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), as well as the deputy assistant secretary for transportation policy at the USDOT.

Lew has also worked in other areas of the federal government, including the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the Office of Management and Budget and Domestic Policy Council within the White House. Prior to her federal service, she worked at the Brookings Institution.

Zach Liscow is Professor of Law at Yale Law School. In 2022–23, he was the Chief Economist at the Office of Management and Budget at the White House. His wide-ranging work in law and economics currently covers tax policy, benefit-cost analysis, and infrastructure construction costs. He is particularly interested in developing cost-effective policies to address inequality and understanding what drives the high costs of building U.S. infrastructure. He has also worked in a variety of other areas, including environmental policy and empirical legal studies. Liscow's work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Atlantic, Bloomberg, CNN, and elsewhere. 

Samantha Silverberg is a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government. She is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. She served in the White House under President Joe Biden from 2021-2025 as the Special Assistant to the President for Transportation and Infrastructure and Deputy Assistant to the President for Infrastructure Implementation, where she was responsible for designing, negotiating, and implementing the President's signature infrastructure legislation. She held prior roles at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, the Office of Management and Budget, and U.S. Department of Transportation.