By Gord Reynolds
I have been around construction sites long enough to recognize the moment when a project starts to slip, even before anyone says it out loud.
A machine pauses, not because it is broken, but because no one is sure what comes next. An engineer studies a drawing that no longer matches the ground beneath their boots. A schedule quietly loses its authority. Nothing dramatic happens. No shouting. Just the shared awareness that something important was missed earlier and that discovering it now will cost time, money, and public patience.
I have watched this scene repeat itself on roads, transit corridors, beside power substations, under city streets and along fiber routes that were supposed to change regions. Different projects, same outcome. Something was there that no one expected. Something was missing that everyone assumed. Something had to be rebuilt because admitting the first mistake felt harder than paying for it.
We tell ourselves this is normal. That infrastructure is complex. That cities are old. That records are imperfect. That coordination is hard. All of that is true. What is not true is that this outcome is unavoidable.
I know this because I have seen the same challenges handled very differently depending on where you stand in the world.
In America, we tend to treat infrastructure data as a convenience. Useful when it helps. Optional when it complicates things. Always something we promise to improve later, once budgets allow and politics settle.
Across much of the Commonwealth, data is treated as a foundation. It is not romantic. It is not endlessly debated. It is enforced quietly and used consistently. That difference shows up in outcomes.
The U.S. builds first and reconciles later. Commonwealth countries decides once and enforces early. That distinction matters now more than ever.
We are very good at building big things. We move mountains, span rivers, electrify regions, and connect continents. We are not short on talent, ambition, or technology. What we lack is discipline around information.
Our institutions are siloed, so our data is siloed. Transportation here. Energy there. Telecom somewhere else. Water, gas, drainage. Each governed separately, digitized separately, if at all, and funded separately. We plan infrastructure the same way we organize ourselves.
Each agency builds its own systems. Each project defines its own standards. Each sector promises interoperability later. Later rarely arrives.
Instead, we reconcile reality in the field. We discover utilities with excavators. We resolve conflicts with change orders. We learn what exists by breaking it. Over time, this becomes familiar enough that we stop questioning it.
When projects stall or budgets explode, we blame permits, inflation, labor shortages, or politics. Rarely do we blame the absence of shared, trusted, enforced data.
In the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, the same pressures existed. Dense cities. Aging assets. Competing utilities. Growing demand. What changed was tolerance.
Repeated failure stopped being acceptable. Too many utility strikes. Too much public disruption. Too much wasted money. Too little trust. Those systems made a choice.
They stopped debating whether better data was a good idea and started deciding who was responsible for providing it, maintaining it, securing it, and using it. Not through slogans or speeches, but through rules tied to funding, approvals, and long-term accountability.
The result was not perfection. It was predictability. And predictability, in infrastructure, is a form of respect.
This gap used to be expensive. Today, it’s risky.
We are asking more of our infrastructure than ever before. Climate stress, electrification, digital dependence, urban growth, geopolitical tension, and cyber risk are converging. Yet we still manage critical systems with partial information and crossed fingers.
A power grid that is not accurately mapped is not resilient. A transportation network built without knowing what lies beneath it is not efficient. A digital twin built on partial truth is not insight. It’s a polished guess.
Somewhere along the way, North America decided that infrastructure data was something you captured after the real work was done. Dig first. Build fast. Document later, if required. That approach made sense when projects were smaller and failures were contained. It no longer does.
Today, data is what allows infrastructure to behave like a system rather than a collection of parts. It is how assets are coordinated, maintained, secured, and adapted over time. Treating data as an afterthought is like pouring concrete without checking the ground. You can still build something, but you should not be surprised when it cracks.
There is a belief that rules and standards slow progress. That they limit flexibility. That they stifle innovation. I have heard this argument for decades, usually from people who benefit from ambiguity.
Clear standards do not slow capable teams. They slow avoidable mistakes. They replace guesswork with shared reality. The irony is that the U.S. created many of the standards it now hesitates to enforce. We admire them, reference them, and stop short of requiring them.
The same logic applies to digital twins. A model you cannot trust is worse than no model at all. Jurisdictions that tie digital ambition to data discipline do so out of pragmatism, not ideology.
Security sharpens the point. Infrastructure data is sensitive and strategic, not only to operators, but to adversaries. Systems that govern data well are harder to disrupt. Systems that treat data casually invite risk.
When infrastructure data is treated as infrastructure, everything changes. Projects become simpler. Schedules become believable. Budgets stop absorbing unknowns. Crews stop tripping over each other. Streets stay closed for days instead of months. Security improves because information is governed. Trust returns because outcomes become consistent.
We do not lack standards. We do not lack technology. We do not lack expertise.
What we lack is the willingness to stop pretending that voluntary coordination will suddenly work at national scale.
It will not.
We can keep building the way we always have and keep paying for it in delays, overruns, and frustration. Or we can do what others already have.
Decide that data matters. Decide that standards matter. Decide that public funding comes with expectations.
Not someday. Now.
Because infrastructure built on guesswork will always cost more than infrastructure built on truth, and the choices we make today will shape our cities for decades.
