PEAK INFRASTRUCTURE

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America's Infrastructure Is Crumbling

Feb 17, 2020

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How Bad Is America's Infrastructure, Really?

By: Patrick J. Kiger

Updated: Jul 29, 2021



An aerial view of Manhattan during sunset with Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, on March 21, 2021. Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/civil/americas-infrastructure-news.htm

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Discovery Of Massive Bridge Crack Forces US Coast Guard To Close Portion Of Mississippi River


Tyler Durden's Photo

by Tyler Durden

Wednesday, May 12, 2021 - 02:07 PM

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/discovery-massive-bridge-crack-forces-us-coast-guard-close-portion-mississippi-river

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The Temporary Collapse Of Texas Is Foreshadowing The Total Collapse Of The United States

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At our current pace it'll take 80 years to repair all the structurally deficient bridges in the US, a report finds

By Michelle Lou and Brandon Griggs, CNN

Updated 9:08 AM ET, Wed April 3, 2019
Bridge collapses on Tennessee interstate, injuring one

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/02/us/deficient-bridge-report-2019-trnd/index.html?fbclid=IwAR2ukI3zc3Z3taCCW0U55j1buyasIA_mvMyHQ1A0oKXI8j5lTQM_KtUkOew

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Mississippi Gov. Bryant Orders More Than 100 Bridges Closed

Emergency declaration follows letter from Federal Highway

By Cameron McWhirter

Updated April 12, 2018 5:32 p.m. ET

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mississippi-gov-bryant-orders-more-than-100-bridges-closed-1523541600

The state of Mississippi’s bridges are in such bad shape that the governor has ordered at least 102 closed this week.

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican, issued an emergency declaration, authorizing the Mississippi Department of Transportation workers to shut down the bridges, with the help of state troopers, if necessary. The department began notifying counties Thursday to shut down the bridges within 24 hours or the state would step in, according to officials.

The dilapidated bridges “create extreme peril to the safety of persons and property,” the governor said in the order. If the bridges aren’t closed, the Federal Transportation Administration has threatened to withhold funding to the state, according to Melinda McGrath, MDOT’s executive director.

The move follows an April 5 letter to Mr. Bryant from Brandye Hendrickson, acting administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, which listed bridges that inspectors determined to be unsafe. The state must close unsafe bridges immediately or the administration “will be compelled to follow-up with consequential actions,” she wrote. Mississippi was the only state to receive such a letter recently, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation, which oversees the highway administration.

Mississippi’s bridge problems mirror the nation’s. As of the end of 2017, 54,560 out of 615,002 bridges nationwide were determined to be “structurally deficient” by the Federal Highway Administration, meaning the bridge needed significant repair. The American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated it would cost $123 billion to repair all the nation’s bridges. In March 2017, the society issued its “Infrastructure Report Card”—released every four years—and gave U.S. infrastructure an overall grade of “D+”—below standard.

President Donald Trump has said that fixing the nation’s infrastructure is a priority. But his top infrastructure adviser quit last week and his funding plan—involving $200 billion over 10 years—has little chance of getting through the Republican-controlled Congress before the midterm elections.

Mr. Bryant’s proclamation hits 16 of the state’s 82 counties but also said it would include “other parts of the state” if bridges there are found unsafe. As of April 10, about 540 bridges out of 10,783 in Mississippi were closed, according to Mississippi’s Office of State Aid Road Construction.

Many of the bridges are in rural, less populated areas where the tax base cannot easily handle the cost of repairing older, deteriorating spans, say county officials.

Gary Franks, county administrator of Itawamba County, a rural county of about 24,000 people that was named in the order, said funding is always a problem in his county in the northeast part of the state, but the deterioration of older bridges has started to overwhelm local governments in recent years.

“We just can’t generate a lot of income to build those bridges,” said Mr. Franks, who has been county administrator since 1989. “It’s a common problem.”

Leake County, in the middle of the state, has two bridges on the list that will cost at most about $525,000 total to repair, said Joe Andy Helton, a Democratic county supervisor.

But the county doesn’t have the money for the fixes and the closures cause chaos with people having to reroute miles out of their way to travel, he said.

Mr. Helton said he was frustrated by politicians being afraid to raise taxes—even to pay for basic services like roads and bridges.

“There’s only but one way to fix things on the local, state or federal level and that’s taxes,” he said.

Mr. Bryant’s proclamation comes as the state legislature wrestles with possible ways to fund road and bridge repair.

Marty Wiseman, executive director emeritus of Mississippi State University’s John C. Stennis Institute of Government and Community Development, said members of the GOP-dominated legislature have been reluctant to increase state gas taxes, as other southern states like Tennessee have done, to fund road and bridge repairs.

That reluctance is especially pronounced this year—an election year, he said.

Some legislators have suggested using a state lottery to fund roads, but no clear plan has formalized, he said. Many politicians are waiting to see what federal funding might come from Mr. Trump’s plan for a national infrastructure rebuilding program, Mr. Wiseman said. As a result, “the legislature does seem to be stuck in the mud on this issue,” he said.

Write to Cameron McWhirter at [e-mail]

Corrections & Amplifications
President Donald Trump’s infrastructure plan involves the government spending $200 billion over 10 years. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated $200 million over 10 years. (April 12)

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More than 50,000 American bridges are falling apart

by Conor Ferguson

Jan 29 2018, 7:29 pm ET

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/more-50-000-american-bridges-are-falling-apart-n842356

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'One big pothole’: will Trump fix America’s decaying infrastructure?



David Smith in Baltimore
@smithinamerica

Tue 30 Jan 2018 01.00 EST

https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/jan/30/us-crumbling-infrastructure-trump-state-of-union-address

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How Not to Screw Up Spending $1 Trillion on US Infrastructure

Aarian Marshall

01.30.17.


An aerial view of midday traffic on the intersecting ramps of Santa Monica Freeway and Harbor Freeway near downtown Los Angeles.Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images

Welcome to 2017, where it seems like the one thing elected leaders can maybe, perhaps, possibly agree on is that America’s infrastructure is busted. That, and that the only way to spruce things up is by flinging a trillion dollars at the country’s roads, waterways, and broadband networks.

President Trump’s team wants to do it by triggering private spending with $137 billion in tax credits; Senate Democrats have floated a plan based on direct investments. Whatever the answer, finding the money is but half the problem.

Because man, oh man, is there a lot to do. From our tragically polluted pipes to packed airports, American infrastructure is, as the saying goes, a failing pile of garbage.

The real question, then, is how to spend that (still very theoretical) avalanche of bipartisan cash. “Decision makers need to know exactly where to wisely invest those dollars so that we don’t piss away $1 trillion on solving problems that don’t exist or in areas that won’t get you the biggest return,” says Michael Pack, who researches intelligent traffic systems at the University of Maryland.

In the interest of keeping this discussion manageable, we’ll set aside the cracked levees, overflowing landfills, broadband-free regions for now, and focus on crumbling bridges, potholed roads, and choking traffic. You know, the ground transportation stuff.

Here’s where to start, and where to go from there.

Patchwork

Step one: Repair. States must ditch the habit of spending more on building and widening new roads—things that, reminder, don’t necessarily help with traffic—than on fixing the ones they’ve already got. Between 2009 and 2011, according to Smart Growth America, states shelled out $20.4 billion on new stretches of asphalt and just $16.5 billion to maintain the other 99 percent of the system. You can see why: Cutting a ribbon on a new stretch of interstate makes for a way better press release than filling another pothole. But lord, is it dumb.

Meanwhile, many of America’s mass transit systems are a tire fire (or track fire). Transit ridership is growing faster than the US population (thanks, millennials). A crap ton of rolling stock is past its intended lifespan and needs replacing: half of heavy rail cars, a third of commuter rail cars, and a fifth of transit buses.

That shoddy, rusty infrastructure exacerbates overcrowding and delays, and it can also prove dangerous: A 2015 electrical malfunction on a stretch of Washington, DC, Metro track killed one and sent 70 to the hospital. Transit needs money for tinkering.

Wiring It Up

OK, but the country still definitely needs new things. And if it’s going to build them, it should consider the ways in which transportation is changing. “Any road or transit that you redo—even if you’re upgrading it—you ought to be using that opportunity to embed technologies,” says Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a DC think tank.

That means sensors and cameras to identify and ultimately mitigate traffic congestion. Wires and cables to transmit data, onboard computers to track rail cars, smart traffic lights to sense and give priority to pedestrians and cyclists. Freshly-painted road stripes and signs to assist autonomous vehicles in figuring out where they are and how to maneuver. Electronic toll collection and maybe even infrastructure built to communicate with self-driving cars. Then there are the consumer-facing software and apps, ones that crunch the data and help people understand the fastest, healthiest, cheapest, most sustainable ways to get to where they want to go.

“For a little bit of money, you could make this infrastructure intelligent,” says Atkinson, and though he means “a little bit” in big-money infrastructure terms, he’s not kidding. The US Government Accountability Office estimates rigging up the whole country with real-time traffic management system—to fight traffic, cut down travel times, reduce emissions, limit crashes, let officials coordinate during emergencies, and help agencies identify pain points and plan for the future—would cost just $1.2 billion. And it would save Americans $30.2 billion in economic, safety, and environmental costs in less than ten years. Wire ‘er up.

Smarter Money

OK, back to the getting money thing for a moment. $1 trillion sounds great, but it ain’t enough, not if the country wants to keeping fixing roads ten years down the line. According a US Department of Transportation report, just maintaining current highways and bridges through 2030 will cost a cool $65.3 billion—per year. That’s being conservative.

The good news is that the government doesn’t have to keep paying for our roads and bridges. “In the case of transportation, it’s pretty easy to not just charge the federal taxpayer, but the actual user,” says Genevieve Giuliano, a transportation policy researcher with the University of Southern California. The federal gas tax, which funds our federal transportation infrastructure, hasn’t been raised, or even adjusted for inflation, since 1993.

Now, as vehicles become more fuel efficient and quit gas altogether, someone’s going to figure out how to pass the costs of wear and tear on to the people who are actually creating it. “Until someone says, ‘We the users should be paying for this system and here is the way we’ll do it,’ it won’t change,” says Giuliano.

Economists have a few ideas: bill drivers by the number of miles they actually drive. (States like Oregon, California, and Colorado are taking this idea for an experimental spin.) Put in more toll roads. Or get heavy into congestion pricing, which adjusts fees based on how many people want to use the road at a given time. (Have you heard about this supply and demand thing?) These changes would be unpopular, and might get a few folks un-elected. But they’re smart, necessary adaptions to a changing world.

Power to the People

Of course, it’s difficult for federal actors to direct all this from high atop their swamp. They shouldn’t try. Some of the smartest infrastructure planning and spending should and will happen at the local level—a departure from the top-down, interstate-driven infrastructure of the last century.

“Each region has its own safety priorities,” says Wassim Selman, who heads up the North American infrastructure division of the engineering firm Arcadis. For Washington, DC, more protected bike lanes. For rural Montana, a safer way to make left turns on big highway interchanges. In suburban Michigan, a bus rapid transit system. Send the check, and let the people figure it out.

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Crumbling America1 Full Documentary