Posted on 06/27/2007 8:01:19 AM PDT by AngelesCrestHighway
For roughly a century, the United States has had the world's biggest economy. One of its strengths has been its infrastructure, from the rails and telegraph lines laid in the 19th century to the airports and fiber-optic networks of today. But as the United States struggles to stay ahead of China, is its aging infrastructure slowing it down? In almost every area - from waterworks to bridges and dams, highways to mass transit - many experts have answered "yes." A report card by the American Society of Civil Engineers, issued in 2005, gave the nation C's and D's in 14 of 15 categories, with an "incomplete" added for security. Some of these deficiencies have very real costs to economic growth. The poor condition of roads, the engineers estimated, costs $120 billion a year in repairs, operating costs and time wasted in traffic - that's equivalent to a full percentage point of the economy. "There's a tremendous need," said Larry Roth, a professional engineer who is deputy executive director of the engineers' group. "Not only are we not keeping pace with growth, but we're not keeping pace with the maintenance that's required. As a result, our infrastructure is simply crumbling." To eliminate its weaknesses, the United States would have to spend about $160 billion a year over five years, Roth added. That total of $800 billion is not so different from the $700 billion in estimated direct spending on the war in Iraq. Yet like investments in basic research and higher education, which may not pay off for decades, spending on infrastructure can be a tough sell for politicians. Their time horizon is usually the next election, not the next generation. And at the national level, infrastructure has hardly been an issue. "The American public is really aware of infrastructure," ...
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Well, whine about it long enough and it becomes fact.
Look at our roads, look at our electrical distribution systems. I used to routinely work in substations where the nameplate data had a manufacturing date of BEFORE 1920.
Over half the distribution transformers in service are 40 years or older (and they were designed for NO MORE than 50 years).
That was just the DOE’s portion of the cost.
To me this all sounds suspiciously like the “crumbling schools” from every Democrat stump speech for the last 20 years. This kind of talk is invariably followed by demands for more spending, tax increases, etc.
I watched Roy Beck's presentation again yesterday and noted that his chart only accounts for a maintenance of the status quo. But the amnesty bill currently before the Senate will increase current immigration rates by a significant factor, meaning that Beck's numbers are only conservative estimates.
Can we really afford to pay for bread and circus for a population of well over one billion recent, unassimilated, uneducated aliens from Third World countries?
While I can’t speak for other areas, the unused track around here doesn’t go anywhere useful.
Most of the unused track goes to empty, century-old factory buildings and past subdivisions that were once farms. The track next to the subdivisions was used to move grain to market — grain that is no longer being grown on what are now single family lots.
Some of the tracks were from the interurban commuter rail system, a line that was obsolete in the 1950’s and failed after a catastrophic crash that killed many people.
Beyond that, the old lines would have to be completely rebuilt to carry trains. The rails are old, the ties are rotted and the roadbed isn’t secure.
Rebuilding a rail system in the US to move people and cargo off the highways would require massive use of eminent domain, huge expenditures and restrictive zoning laws to prevent development in areas away from rail service.
We are asking our infrastructure to do more and more as our population grows...and maintenance is so non-sexy that it would not surprise me if the current state of affairs is not good.
Bingo!
America had it’s best years when it was just below 200 million. That’s what we can comfortably handle.
Traffic, strain on resources, etc. These problems would more or less take care of themselves if the people who aren’t supposed to be here, weren’t.
Living in America isn’t a divine right conferred on the world...
What makes sense is to build a true high-speed railroad from DC to Boston in the Northeast sector. We will be able to get a lot of people off the roads, and people will be able to arrive in NYC from DC in just three hours, which will raise our productivity in the United States and reduce our congested highways while alleviating the strain on our busiest airports.
Don’t they have a train up that way that you can just drive your car onto and then drive off once you reach your destination?
Great post. It’s not like the writer has any political agenda or anything.
I have been hearing this crumbling infrastructure crap for most of my life. I just don’t see it, and I have lived in several states in different parts of the country. Perhaps the rust belt has a problem with all that salt they use on their roads in the Winter, but down South, I don’t see it/
Should also post a link to the NERC findings...
The .gov doesn’t have a clue really, the DOE says there are no PMU’s in the USA.. uh what? I have 3 sitting on my desk right now... and there are several more (10’s of thousands) in the field... though PMU is not enabled.
Utilities are slow to adopt new technology, even though they have it already installed...
It’s the dams and aquaducts. NYC mainly. Old concrete and bound to give way. NYC is held together with spit and baling wire. Or duct tape, to be a little more up to date.
If dams are unsafe, they need to either fix them or do away with them. I wouldn’t want to be down stream when one goes.
Flood control projects by the Corps of Engineers. Where they used to flood the town every 50 years, ruining basements, now they will not flood at all but once every hundred years the whole town complete will be washed out to sea.
They certainly have. I remember news stories in the early 80s that said most of the small bridges in the US were built by the W.P.A. during the Depression.
The stories said that these bridges only had a life expectancy of 50 years, and by 1985 they would have all crumbled and collapsed.
Twenty two years later and still waiting....waiting....
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