Considering the Future in Public Works Planning

Abstract

It can be argued that designers of public works projects, in common with others, have some duty to provide for future generations. Various ideas about the nature of that duty have been advanced, including some discussions of resource conservation and environmental protection, but no philosophical theory about future generations is available which can be directly adapted to problems of public works design. The principle is proposed that the duty of designers of public works is to minimize restrictions upon options open to future people. This concept leads to a proposed method for quantitative determination of the design period for which a public works project ought to be planned. The quantitative method, related to a well known problem in operations analysis, involves computation of the design life associated with minimum total project cost per unit time (including construction, maintenance and operation). Further research is needed to establish the numerical parameters needed for application of the proposed method, but the philosophical basis is fully described, and certain advantages of the proposed criterion over the benefit/cost ratio are claimed.