2013 American Infrastructure Report Card

[Daelak]

The ACE released their annual infrastructure report card, and unless you have been completely oblivious for the past 30 years, you should know its somewhere between Karachi and abysmal.

We got a D+. A fucking D+ in the largest first world country, while China builds the longest high-speed inter-regional trains for business and commerce.

http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/

Consider this another wake up call in a long string of wake up calls since we decided not to give a shit about future commerce, mass transit, and our utility networks.

[Kasierith]

Infrastructure repairs are very expensive; abruptly bringing all of the infrastructure up to speed would be a monumental task. This is a project that would take decades, if not more. You also have to remember the source of that report card: who do you think it is that will be hired to do these repairs? I'm not saying that it isn't genuine, but very likely they're overstating the problem in order to maximize demand for engineers.

Although, I wouldn't exactly hold China up as the epitome of solid infrastructure.

[Reeve]

Well after visiting Sydney last week and seeing their trains, subway, buses, ferries, water taxis, trolleys, bridges, raised roadways, wide sidewalks, beautiful green spaces, and monorail, I definitely was feeling some infrastructure envy. I do wish we had better mass transit infrastructure in the US so that I could walk more places. It might even help our obesity epidemic a bit.

But I don't feel like what infrastructure that does exist in the US is doing particularly badly. Most highways are in good shape, and while I hear lots of complaints from civil engineers about bridges, I can only remember one ever falling in my lifetime.

[Daelak]

Infrastructure repairs are very expensive; abruptly bringing all of the infrastructure up to speed would be a monumental task. This is a project that would take decades, if not more. You also have to remember the source of that report card: who do you think it is that will be hired to do these repairs? I'm not saying that it isn't genuine, but very likely they're overstating the problem in order to maximize demand for engineers.

Although, I wouldn't exactly hold China up as the epitome of solid infrastructure.

And their ROI is even more greater than the total cost. This would bring millions upon millions of jobs and revitalization. The source of the report card is reputable, and they are engineers. They have been saying this for decades. I don't think they are overstating at all, I just think most Americans don't really know the extent and the scope of our infrastructure and the demand we put on it.

I wouldn't either, but countries like China, and Europe are making great strides in re-tooling and upgrading their infrastructure of the 21st century while we have partisan hacks in our government wasting our money on purity tests and making sure we become a 2nd tier nation through fucking vouchers.

[Endus]

Although, I wouldn't exactly hold China up as the epitome of solid infrastructure.

The US (and Canada, for that matter) are facing the other side of that issue, though. Which is better, to build solid infrastructure with a 20-year lifespan and use it for 50 years before replacement, or to build less-solid infrastructure but update it more regularly?

If North America had updated the infrastructure when it had been intended to be replaced, we wouldn't be seeing the current issues. Instead, the governments of those days just shunted it off for the next government to deal with, and it never got done.

[Daelak]

Well after visiting Sydney last week and seeing their trains, subway, buses, ferries, water taxis, trolleys, bridges, raised roadways, wide sidewalks, beautiful green spaces, and monorail, I definitely was feeling some infrastructure envy. I do wish we had better mass transit infrastructure in the US so that I could walk more places. It might even help our obesity epidemic a bit.

But I don't feel like what infrastructure that does exist in the US is doing particularly badly. Most highways are in good shape, and while I hear lots of complaints from civil engineers about bridges, I can only remember one ever falling in my lifetime.

And that's the thing, when you hear infrastructure most people think of a road or a bridge in their own community. The last major overhaul we had was in the fucking 50's, and I know the NYC underground system has pipes and utility wiring from the fucking 1800's. This is embarrassing, we need 10 trillion at-least to make sure we remain competitive in the 21st century. Drown out the conservatives and libertarians, and just start building this country once again, we have the labor-force, we have the skill set, we have the global reserve currency, and the world needs a project that will restart global demand. This is it.

[Masark]

I can only remember one ever falling in my lifetime.

How long is your lifetime? Going by wikipedia's list, I count 5 American bridge collapses, excluding those caused by disasters (earthquakes, flooding, etc.) and accidents (Ships hitting the bridge, bridge being blindly overloaded, fires, etc.).

[Reeve]

I was born in 1983. I count 24 total incidents, but I'm about to leave, so I haven't been able to look at the causes. I only remember one in my lifetime though, which was that Missouri river bridge collapse in 2007.

[breadisfunny]

I was born in 1983. I count 24 total incidents, but I'm about to leave, so I haven't been able to look at the causes. I only remember one in my lifetime though, which was that Missouri river bridge collapse in 2007.

didnt minnesota have a bridge collapse 2 years ago that killed quite a few people?

[DEATHETERNAL]

Decrease state welfare spending, increase state infrastructure spending. Problem solved.

Most highways are in good shape, and while I hear lots of complaints from civil engineers about bridges, I can only remember one ever falling in my lifetime.

As a civil engineer who works analyzing state bridges for the New Mexico DOT, I can tell you that our bridges are fine. They have essentially no chance of failure unless you run something far larger than is legal (a couple of the newer larger trucks that some of the older bridges weren’t designed to handle) across them at which point you are likely to only cause some damage and not catastrophic failure.

Sadly, within the civil engineering community there is a great deal of lobbying for infrastructure spending not because it is actually needed to the degree and in the area that the civil engineering community represents it as being needed, but simply to direct government funds toward projects beneficial to civil engineers as a whole. Like any other large organized group of people, the civil engineering community wants to direct additional government funds to itself whether there is a need for those funds or not. It isn't the way any professional organization should operate.

[Rukentuts]

didnt minnesota have a bridge collapse 2 years ago that killed quite a few people?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_M...ridge#Collapse

Not exactly our brightest hour.

[Reeve]

didnt minnesota have a bridge collapse 2 years ago that killed quite a few people?

I should have said the Mississippi River, and that's the one I was referring to, in 2007.

[Naxere]

I should have said the Mississippi River, and that's the one I was referring to, in 2007.

Yeah that was scary. I drove over that bridge 1 hour before it collapsed.

[Rukentuts]

Yeah that was scary. I drove over that bridge 1 hour before it collapsed.

I bike under where it fell (trail on the west bank).

[stumpy]

Decrease state welfare spending, increase state infrastructure spending. Problem solved.

Increase infrastructure spending, get people working on said infrastructure, need for welfare spending drops off dramatically.

[Naxere]

Increase infrastructure spending, get people working on said infrastructure, need for welfare spending drops off dramatically.

Agreed. Cut back on some of our foreign aid and start spending it domestically as well.

[DEATHETERNAL]

Increase infrastructure spending, get people working on said infrastructure, need for welfare spending drops off dramatically.

Then the effect should be the same if you do them both at once through state legislation (except more immediate), and it would be something that you could likely get conservatives to back.

[Catta]

But I don't feel like what infrastructure that does exist in the US is doing particularly badly. Most highways are in good shape, and while I hear lots of complaints from civil engineers about bridges, I can only remember one ever falling in my lifetime.

I don't remember hearing of bridges fail... o.O

[stumpy]

Then the effect should be the same if you do them both at once through state legislation (except more immediate), and it would be something that you could likely get conservatives to back.

Living in Wisconsin, I have relatively little faith in gerrymandered state governments to craft legislation targeted at actually solving problems. These are the people who, while crafting a "job-creating" mining bill, deemed it too onerous to actually require the mining company to create jobs in our state.

[Sam the Wiser]

What they say about bridges, inland waterways, roads, drinkable water and, public transportation is so true. The one inland waterway we have near my home is irritating beyond belief. Anytime that bridge has to be raised it takes more than 10 minutes and that not even the boat passing. As for bridges in general MA has some of oldest so I guess that's to be expected.