Highway and transportation projects in New York are rarely recognized for their timely completion. And generations of New Yorkers have learned to live with it. Excessive delays, problems and cost overruns just go with the landscape.

So it was especially noteworthy earlier this month when Governor Andrew Cuomo outlined a $15 billion plan to build infrastructure and repair major roads and bridges.

"We are planning to improve more than 100 bridges which will include, finally building a new Tappan Zee Bridge because 15 years of planning and talking and commiserating is too long. It is time to build," Cuomo said.

The Tappan Zee is in critical condition according to commuters who park their cars on it every day. The bridge that spans the Hudson River was completed in 1955, linking Rockland and Westchester County and is a major route for commuters bound for New York City. When it first opened, approximately 18,000 vehicles crossed it daily. Today the vehicle capacity often reaches 170,000 each day.

"We are going to repair 2,000 miles of roads," Cuomo said. "That's from Buffalo to New York City five times."

But what was especially noteworthy, which may elighten some transporation planning discussions in every state, is that Cuomo did not specifically refer to "transit projects" in his state of the state address. Cuomo said all of the investment would come under one umbrella "New York Works" fund.

"Right now, believe it or not, agenciesand authorities do their own construction, their own development, their own master plan -- all disconnected one from the other, without any conversation."

"So the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) has a capital plan that they are pursuing different than the Port Authority, which has a capital plan which it's pursuing, different from the Department of Trasportation, which has a capital plan which it's pursuing, different from the Department of Housing, which has a capital plan that it's pursuing. It makes no sense. It never did. This is not the time to be squandering resources."

"You can't have that many agencies and authorities coming up wih their own vision for the state; we need a comprehensive vision and we need the expertise, frankly, to help us get it done. It's not the state's forte," he noted.

"We can't do this on government time. This has to happen on real time. It can't take 3 years to put a shovel in the ground; it just can't work that way any more. And it's not going to."

It's an ambitious vision and New Yorkers should be delighted that, finally, the man in charge is looking to cut out the bureaucracy that chokes progress and growth.