I’ve spent two decades working as a municipal engineer across counties, tribal nations and state transportation departments, and I’ve seen firsthand how infrastructure quietly shapes public trust. A well-maintained curb ramp or crosswalk might not make the news, but its presence tells a story: Someone thought of you. And its absence tells another.
Public systems don’t just move water or people. They signal who belongs.
We’ve inherited an infrastructure culture built on throughput, compliance and efficiency — goals that are valid, but incomplete. When we prioritize short-term savings over long-term care, or treat access as an afterthought rather than a baseline, we chip away at public trust.
Consider this: A perfectly code-compliant sidewalk may still force someone in a wheelchair into the street if the ramp is misaligned. A transit shelter may technically meet specs but fail to provide shade in the hours it's needed most. They may seem like small gaps, but for the person navigating them, they’re daily reminders of neglect.
In one city I worked with, we installed an audible pedestrian signal for a newly blind resident. A nearby business owner complained about the noise. But I held the line and the signal stayed. Accessibility isn’t noise. It’s a lifeline.
These aren’t just design choices. They’re acts of public ethics. A quarter-inch difference in ramp grade or transit shelter panel placement can mean the difference between access and exclusion.
Too often, our infrastructure is designed to meet minimum standards instead of moral ones. We wait for complaints, lawsuits or crises to force improvements, rather than embedding care into the systems we maintain.
These decisions don’t just show up in big capital projects. They play out in every annual street plan, every resurfacing proposal, every conversation about where to invest a sidewalk or drainage dollar. Local public works professionals navigate these tradeoffs constantly — often without language to describe the ethical stakes involved.
Cities across the country are beginning to integrate ethics into infrastructure prioritization. Seattle’s Transportation Equity Framework, for example, directly maps vulnerability and historic disinvestment to shape how public investments are made, placing sidewalks, crossings and safety improvements where they matter most. Similarly, Minneapolis’ 20 Year Streets Funding Plan explicitly blends long-term asset management with sidewalk repairs and equity-driven reinvestment in underserved neighborhoods. Organizations like Strong Towns have long argued for this shift, calling for investment strategies that favor enduring value, local wisdom and maintenance as a moral act.
These design decisions aren’t made in a vacuum. They surface in budget meetings, resurfacing schedules and staff-level discussions, such as those about which curb ramps are prioritized this year and which are deferred. Most cities don’t have enough money to fix everything. And most public works staff don’t have time to stop and philosophize about every tradeoff. But if we don’t acknowledge the ethical weight of our choices, we risk building systems that technically succeed and morally fail.
Across the country, I’ve seen local public works teams stretch limited budgets to do extraordinary work — especially in smaller communities. These professionals don’t need more pressure. They need frameworks that support ethical reflection, transparency and prioritization when the manual runs out.
Ethical infrastructure doesn’t require perfection. But it does require intention. And in a time when trust in public systems is fraying, we should be doing everything we can to build it back. That starts at the curb. With the ramps we fund. The projects we prioritize. And the details we no longer treat as peripheral.
Because the truth is a street can connect — or divide. A curb can empower — or isolate. Every detail tells the public whether they matter. Let’s design and take care of our public works like someone we love will use it.
Larry M. Summers is the city engineer of New Albany, Ind., and the author of the forthcoming book Ethical Infrastructure and its companion volume, The Ethical Infrastructure Field Guide. For more information on the books and the issues addressed in this column, visit his project site.
Governing’s opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing’s editors or management.
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