Our Crumbling Infrastructure — Patch & Pray

You can not pick up a newspaper without bumping into signs of the Empire's Decline. As I was perusing the editorial page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which is usually filled with political pontification by clueless Washington courtiers pundits who will leave this life precisely as ignorant as they were upon entering it, I ran into a commentary by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell called Rebuild our infrastructure. Here's the article's subtitle, which I have only slightly modified—

The U.S. is in danger of becoming a third-rate economic power

As it turns out, there is a coalition called Building America's Future spearheaded by Rendell, California's Governator and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. Rendell's commentary quoted the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Every year these worthy people put out a report card on the state of America's infrastructure. Here's the 2009 assessment—

2009 Grades

Aviation  D

Bridges  C

Dams  D

Drinking Water  D-

Energy  D+

Hazardous Waste  D

Inland Waterways  D-

Levees   D-

Public Parks and Recreation  C-

Rail  C-

Roads  D-

Schools  D

Solid Waste  C+

Transit  D

Wastewater  D-

America's Infrastructure GPA: D
Estimated 5 Year Investment Need: $2.2 Trillion

Governor Rendell harkens back to the glory days of the Republic and the early days of the Empire—

Presidents Jefferson, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Eisenhower understood the potential of investing in great projects like the Louisiana Purchase, the transcontinental railroad, rural electrification and the national highway system. Each public investment generated vast returns in safety and quality of life, as well helping to create thousands of jobs and economic growth.

It's time for that same sort of vision and leadership. Congress should establish a National Infrastructure Bank to invest in and save the foundation of our country and build for the next generation.

Should establish? What do think the chances are that America will come up with $2,200,000,000,000 (trillions) to revamp America's infrastructure in the next 5 years after decades of Imperial neglect? 10%? — certainly not! 1%? — getting closer. 0.1%? — that's just about right. There is such a large multitude of factors determining these odds that I won't endeavor to list them here.

I'll bet you're wondering what Patch & Pray means. Dr. Wayne Klotz, President of the ASCE, explains all in this short video.

And be sure not to drive over any bridges, you never know what might happen. And don't drink the water...

Comments

[Edward Boyle]

You could let the roads and airports just rot (gasoline/kerosene prices too expensive in future) and let energy investment all go into alternative energy and all the transport investment go into rail. In other words this would be the ideal opportunity to rebuild in a different direction. Say energy gets more and more expensive and funds are rare in a depression. So suburbia becomes inaccessible as nobody can buy gas and housing is abandoned as it is too far out and mortgages unpayable. So abandon whole parts of cities and tear them down. Less roads and sewers, schools and bridges, etc. needed. People can live more centrally with larger, more compact facilities and tighter more urban density. It seems that the lack of money and oil and political inability to agree on anything or do anything is a blessing in diguise. A massive restructuring of the entire country in the sense of peak oil transition is going to happen almost automatically as things fall apart and people gather more centrally and use larger facilites more intensively cannibalizing older facilities/neighbourhoods for repairs. There is no need to simply repair things you don't need. Shrink healthily. Small is beautiful.