AMERICAN INFRASTRUCTURE EARNS A NEAR FAILING GRADE





…This 1928 bridge is near Pittsburg & it was designed to last 50 years, that was 89 years ago.  The lower bridges protect the cars from falling pieces of the old bridge.

 

 

 

The ASCE has estimated that to improve the US infrastructure to a  B- grade, we need to invest $4.59 trillion by 2025.

 

Well, the media is making a big deal about the fact that the American Society of Civil Engineers' (ASCE) has given the overall school grade for all US infrastructure a “D+”.  I guess most Americans either have poor memories or they weren’t paying attention when the ASCE gave American infrastructure that same grade back in 2013.  The only issue since then is that with the climate change issues and the severe storms that the country has seen since, I am surprised that they didn’t down grade to a “D-“ or an “F”.

 

Apparently, there has been some marginal efforts in making some improvements.  That’s the only way the rating is still at a deplorable “D+”.  For the greatest nation on the planet, that’s pretty embarrassing.  If you have done any traveling in Europe or Asia as I have, you then will know just how bad our American airports and transportation systems are today.

 

I’m sure this will help in President Trump’s vow to spend $1 Trillion in investments into the US infrastructure, even though his Republican Congress never seems to agree to spending one single dollar unless it has a guaranteed way to be paid for.

 

The point is that the nation has been going so long without performing the proper maintenance, one trillion dollars would just be a drop in the bucket for what is actually needed for bringing our infrastructure in: roads, bridges, airports, railroads, schools, dams, reservoirs, hospitals, flood control systems and electrical grid up to an acceptable level.

 

In fact, the ASCE has estimated that the United States needs to invest $4.59 trillion by 2025, just for bringing its infrastructure up to an adequate “B-“ grade

 

"To see real progress, we need to make long-term infrastructure investment a priority," said Greg DiLoreto, chair of the ASCE's: Committee on America's Infrastructure, which prepared the report.

 

What is so devastating is that the report goes even further as to what this lack of maintenance is costing each American family.  In its report card, the ASCE said today’s substandard infrastructure was costing each American family ~$3,400 in disposable income every year. It also noted that “after years of decline, traffic fatalities increased by 7% from 2014 to 2015, with 35,092 people dying on America’s roads.”

 

Yes, many of these deaths were due to drunk driving.  But it was stated that approximately 25-30% of the deaths were due to poorly maintained roads, bridges and out-dated traffic & rail signal systems.

 

Some small and less populated states have even run out of money for maintaining their paved roads and they have gone back to gravel roads in rural areas.

 

The ASCE's report is already fueling the growing debate over infrastructure spending in Washington and in an address to Congress last week Trump encouraged lawmakers to pass legislation that would produce $1 trillion in infrastructure investment and millions of new construction jobs.

 

But today’s American water systems are leaking trillions of gallons of drinking water and more than 2,000 American dams are at high risk of failure, the report said.  The Oroville Dam in Northern California is the first of the many other western dams that actually has started failing, but many others are also at risk.

 

President Trump, being a New York real estate developer, he knows the real score and he met last week with business leaders to discuss his infrastructure plans.

 

But as usual, Trump failed to provide any details.  He has talked about a tax credit to encourage private sector investment and the state's governors have sent Trump a list of 428 projects they would like funded under some kind of public works plan.

 

A Brookings Institute think-tank last month said spending on public works could make the economy more efficient and spur lagging productivity growth, and this would be a key factor in boosting all Americans' standard of living.  Citing Commerce Department data, Brookings said that due to Congresses strangle hold on the US purse strings, yearly government investment in public works had fallen by almost two-thirds in terms of its share of the economy from 1980 to 2015.

 

As to the Oroville dam failure, the ASCE specifically gave the nation’s dams a D- grade, and they said problems go well beyond the 49-year-old Oroville Dam’s failure.  They made the point that nearly 200,000 people were evacuated after Oroville's drainage channels were damaged by heavy rainfall.   They were very lucky that the problem was just with the dam’s drainage spillways, as the whole earth-filled dam is at risk.  "The average age of the 90,580 dams in the country is 56 years," and they were only designed for 50 years w/o serious maintenance, the report noted.  The report added that “the number of deficient high-hazard potential dams has also climbed to an estimated 2,170 or more.”  Basically they have stated that without the needed investment, we can expect more dams and bridges to fail within the next 10 years.

 

In the ASCE's A-to-F grading of 16 infrastructure categories, with A the top grade, seven areas showed progress but three had declined even further.

 

The highest grade - B - went to the US rail systems, that’s up from C+ in 2013. The report said significant spending, including $27.1 billion in 2015, was a major factor in the improvement.  But, when looking at other countries in Europe, Asia and Japan, some have had high-speed rail for decades, while the US has none.

 

The lowest grade was D- for transit, down from D four years ago. Chronically underfunded rail and bus systems face a $90 billion rebuilding backlog.  Once again, when comparing light rail and bus systems with other countries, the US systems are closer to third-world countries than other industrialized nations.

 

The US drinking water system also ranked a D, the same as 2013. Water main breaks wasted more than 2 trillion gallons of drinking water per year, and “legacy and emerging contaminants” need better monitoring. Pipes laid in the start or middle of the last century are pushing the limits of their expected 75- to 100-year lifespans.  And look what happened to those poor people in Flint, Michigan and their lead-poisoning.  The poisoning came from outdated, lead-lined pipes.

 

The lead in the water of Flint, Michigan, has attracted widespread notice, but a Reuters investigation last year found that the city was by no means alone.  Some cities have registered even higher levels of the poison than Flint.

 

This is what happens when the Representatives in Congress, that hold the nation’s purse strings say “I’ll just let the next guy that eventually takes my place in Congress to worry about those bridges and roads.”

 

As they say, “You get what you pay for, or you don't pay for”.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2017