Infrastructure is a tool for society, a capability. It is not an end in itself. The question for us is, are we managing it so it is an effective capability for our communities to use as they need?

If we forget that what we are managing is a capability that a community uses, and get distracted – for example, by spending time on things that are not central to managing the assets and services – we run the risk of making infrastructure a blunt, ineffective tool. We are not doing what we have taken on to do.

Take, for example, a transit agency: as its stewards, we commit to provide transport where it is most needed (and to provide it cost-efficiently, safely, and legally). We do not have the ultimate say in where it is required, because that is a dialog with the community about what the community needs.

Our job as infrastructure stewards is not to sort out non-transport issues in our communities, like homelessness or equity: no, that is a community commitment, and what we can do is to ensure transport can play its part effectively.

If we don’t run the transit services well, we are much less useful to anyone, including to support homelessness or equity. The community has delegated managing transit to us on their behalf; we have a commitment, a responsibility, to do it well.