These sound like good ideas, but it doesn't change the fact that, every once in a while, roads and bridges need to be rebuilt. Our transportation infrastructure has been in need of an update for years.
I wonder if there are more creative ways to go about it like encouraging private firm participation through road privatization (which means that you get the same impacts without the government spend from private firms that are incentivized to be more efficient to maximize ROI). There are also creative experiments like congestion pricing that have the potential to greatly recoup costs while improving productivity.
There also obviously environmental impacts though of cheap free roads which have also been blamed for enabling urban sprawl. Again, it would just seem to me that yes, infrastructure is important (and much of the existing infrastructure is aging and needs to be replaced) but the way that we've gone about building it in the past and in how it's being proposed to build out now as stimulus, is less than optimal.
These days, I'm not sure the issue is black and white what with quasi public/private partnerships where an infrastructure project is owned by the public but leased to an infrastructure firm, or capital is raised using bonds sold to the public.
I think it's a bit naive to think that in the hands of government, rent seeking behavior doesn't happen - it is possibly even worse with contracts developed and awarded based on political connections/favor or in building roads/infrastructure in places that neither need it or even want it in some cases. There are however good and bad ways to privatize as well. I live in Ontario and the privatization of the 407 has been highly successful (both profitable and useful for private users and performs its function admirably). I try to avoid it during rush hour because of the cost (as is encouraged) but it's quite well maintained and built. Can you provide a few examples where roads have been privatized but made public again because "rent-seeking behavior and slow decay while the current owners try to wring every last possible nickel and dime out of users before reselling the husk down the line to someone else who thinks they can squeeze a few more pennies"?
Roads and bridges won't help move information, at least not directly; and moving information is more important to our economy now than it was in the 1930s. But information is far from the <em>only</em> thing we move, thankfully. As long as we've got the workforce and the will, let's work on both kinds of infrastructure.