Posted on 10/24/2018 12:14:34 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
If Elon Musk’s Boring Company succeeds, the fantasy of slipping into a pod and being whisked from Washington, D.C. to New York City in less than 30 minutes may become a reality.
As startling as that might be, such transformational projects are nothing new. Think of how Americans of a half-century ago felt once the national interstate highway system was complete and a cross-country road trip shortened from two weeks to five days. Infrastructure improvements in the U.S. – such as the interstate system, built in the 1950s and 1960s, the first transcontinental railway in the 1860s, and the Erie Canal, completed in 1825 – changed the lives of scores of millions of people while boosting the economic prospects of the country as a whole.
These days, there’s a general sense that we’ve fallen behind when it comes to completing necessary infrastructural projects – our infrastructure even became a political issue in the last election cycle. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimates that the U.S. will lose $7 trillion in business sales by 2025 due to an investment gap amounting to half of what we need to maintain and improve our national infrastructure. What steps do we need to take to prevent infrastructure-related monetary losses – and drive infrastructure-associated innovation on a national scale?
“We need someone with a vision like Eisenhower had for the interstate system, someone who also has the will and the leadership to be savvy enough to push people to spend the capital required for a major infrastructure project,” said Henry Petroski, author of “The Road Taken: The History and Future of America’s Infrastructure” and a professor of civil engineering and history at Duke University. “It takes someone passionate and dedicated to implement the technology that exists and other innovations on the horizon.”
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Hi, Tolerance Sucks Rocks,
Roads, bridges, and railroads. These are so overdue repair.
A big wall, or everything else will be for naught.
Substitute “high speed rail” with “Lunar space station at a Lagrange point that can lift materials cheaply off the moon”.
“Think of how Americans of a half-century ago “ ... OMG!-that’s me LOL!
My Dad was transferred from NN to San Diego and we travelled there by car before the Interstate. An unforgettanle trip! Really saw the country upclose.
...The Erie Canal won the Civil War- before it started.
Mark my words: the Flying Car will be the linchpin of the next transportation revolution.
Atmospheric pressure Th-232 based large neighborhood (100-500 kW) electric generating stations, with molten salt as the primary heat exchange medium. Probably 1950’s technology whose time has been a long time coming.
Trains. We need more trains. Nobody wants to fly. Flying is so outmoded.
If trains become the main method of travel the TSA will screw that up just like air travel.
“... “Lunar space station at a Lagrange point that can lift materials cheaply off the moon”.”
I’ve been reading about this more than thirty years.
Ought to have been done by now.
I am with you.
Not only that, those reactors can decrease the half life of radioactive waste by 10s of thousandands of years.
True that!
“We need someone with a vision like Eisenhower had for the interstate system...”
Think about where we would be today if the EPA had been around prior to interstate highways. Environmental impact studies would have eaten up more funding than the road itself and still be ongoing.
Corrupt boondoggles.
Amen. An engineering professor calling for trillions in spending. Imagine that bias.
Yes we do need speedy intercontinental travel, privately developed, sans taxpayer dollars. . Maybe she should start a company, unless she is too bust trying to get more taxpayer dollars into her personal account.
How much money went from our kids tables to tesla?
We’ve spent trillions the last fifteen years on infrastructure. Unfortunately the money was spent on targets for the muzzies and US armed forces to blow up in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Just replacement of crumbling water and sewer systems would be a great start to boosting American society. Public health is paramount if society is to thrive.
San Francisco is decaying since public health doesn’t apparently matter.
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