AllenBrisson-Smith for The New York Times
The entire span of the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis.
Posted on 08/02/2007 8:25:01 PM PDT by neverdem
A steam pipe explodes near Grand Central Terminal, a levee fails and floods New Orleans, a bridge collapses in Minneapolis.
These disasters are an indication that this country is not investing enough in keeping its vital infrastructure in good repair, engineering experts warn.
“Governments do not want to pay for maintenance because it is not sexy,” said John Ochsendorf, a structural engineer and an associate professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He said the bulk of the nation’s highway system was built in the 1950s and 1960s and is ageing. Referring to the collapse in Minneapolis, he said “This type of event could become more common.”
“We have a major infrastructure problem in this country,” said Maureen L. McAvey, an executive vice president with the Urban Land Institute, which recently published a report on global infrastructure issues. “The civil engineers have estimated that we have a $1.7 trillion shortfall in this country alone”
But other factors come into play, as in 1982, when a bridge inspector looked at the Mianus River Bridge in Greenwich, Conn., and did not see the metal fatigue in a pin that would break nine months later, collapsing three lanes of Interstate 95 and killing three people.
In 1987, a New York Thruway bridge near Amsterdam, N.Y., also had a clean bill of health, but inspectors had never gone underwater into the Schoharie Creek to look at the bridge’s footings, where flood waters had scoured the concrete base. When the footings slipped, the bridge fell. Ten died.
“The American Society of Civil Engineers issues annual rankings of the state of the nation’s infrastructure and most of the grades are C and D,” said Michael J. O’Rourke, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
But he said it was likely the renovations the...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
AllenBrisson-Smith for The New York Times
The entire span of the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis.
The NYT has keen insight into the obvious.
Entitlements take all of our money, and we're unwilling to provide the government with more.
This reminds me of the cloassic Emergency Services/Paramedics scam run by every county in the country. "Without this tax increase, we'll have to drop the paramedic program and cut the Fire Dept in half...and police services too".
All the while, there's never any mention of the possibility of cutting the needle exchange program...or the free medical care for illegals program.
YEP, what YOU SAID!
So, we go to school for a billion years, become engineers … only to predict that things will wear out.
Here, here...we are continually sold the line that the government needs the money for valuable infrastructure and the lie is beginning to be exposed. The government budget goes up every year, even though we don’t need any more telephone poles, have already built most roads we need, etc...now we are inheriting the reality of a welfare state.
It is NOW all about a ONE TRILLION DOLLAR PORK BARREL HOG TROUGH!
LLS
Just know that this will be the fault of GWB!
Early thread, poster said that the "local" reporter asked the engineering "expert" they were interviewing......"if this administration had not squandered so much money in Iraq, we would have had more $$$ to keep our bridges safe, right?"
It has started, as we all knew it would.
There, I fixed it.
This reminds me of the cloassic Emergency Services/Paramedics scam run by every county in the country. "Without this tax increase, we'll have to drop the paramedic program and cut the Fire Dept in half...and police services too".
Please don't get me started on this. I lived it first hand.
In California, after Prop. 13, about half of all the basic functions of government were transformed into fee-based functions, and threats of eliminating the basic necessities of government were rampant.
An examination and comparison of all city and state budgets for 1969 and 1989 will verify the massive shifts is spending patterns.
At the state level, taxes magically were transformed into "fees", which the new Constitutional Amendment failed to make clear.
If the people knew the extent of the bureaucratic scam, there would be tons of lynchings....
Just saying.
Well too damn bad. As long as there are welfare momma’s, corporate lobbyists, and illegal aliens, there won’t be money for anything like upkeep on our roads and bridges.
Federal gasoline tax = 18.4 cents/gal
State tax = ~24 cents/gal (avg)
How much of that money do you think is actually going back into infrastructure?
Considering the record amounts of fuel being sold to a growing population that likes to drive eeeeeevil gas-guzzling SUVs, one might expect that highway maintenance and improvements wouldn’t be so badly underfunded.
“Finding money to maintain infrastructure has become increasingly difficult as public officials keep pledges not to raise taxes., said Robert Dunphy, a senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute. “We have an impending crisis with infrastructure, but it is easy to ignore until you have a catastrophe.”
So the “sophisticated” New York Times thinks that if more money is raised by increasing taxes, that money would be spent on infrastructure maintenance items such as bridges! How would that benefit politicians? Who ever heard of the ‘Harry Reid Memorial Paint Job?’ Politicians want monuments to themselves and the next billion dollars collected are going to be spent on crap intended only to impress voters. The best thing about the Times article is the quote from the MIT engineering professor that that “Governments do not want to pay for maintenance because it is not sexy.”
when every city, county, state and federal agency sees fit to be overly generous with their pay and benefits with their employees, including relatively huge pensions and medical payments, how can any money be left for parks, zoos, roads, bridges, etc....
throw in the fact that SS and social programs are taking more and more.....
THERE IS NO MONEY FOR ANYTHING EXCEPT LINING THE POCKETS OF CIVIL SERVANTS, right or wrong....
so let's stop our bitchin' because we know the problem of the bottomless pit of pensions and medical retirements.....
just look at pie charts of where our taxes go.....the problem is so evident....
It’s all about union money. They’ve been sitting on their ass for 50 years. Where were they when the friggin bridges were falling apart?
I'd be interested to know about that portion outside "the bulk" which ISN'T aging... Ripley's Believe It or Not material.
Looking solely at Federal highway taxes, the highway trust fund is projected to go into deficit in 2009. So, who is willing to pay more federal gas taxes? If you are unwilling to pay more gas taxes, would you be willing to pay Dingell's 50 cent per gallon carbon tax?
If you are not willing to pay more gas taxes/carbon taxes, are you willing to pay user fees/tolls? Or, higher taxes and user fees
It is not just roads, it is all modes of transportation infrastructure. Over the last 10-15 years, the US Congress has set up innovative methods of financing such as State Infrastructure Banks and Public Private Parnerships.
Bottom line, you are going to have to pay more. I predict that this bridge collapse will result in a broader discussion of the issue.
This country is way too interested in feel-good welfare programs to be bothered with actually building something. Unfortunately, 6 years of Republican control didn’t change any of this.
Of course, in the coming days, we will see the emergency funding requests from the Minnesota Department of Transportation prior to the bridge collapse detailing the dire condition of the bridge, and the need for immediate corrective action.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.