5 ms·

American Infrastructure Report Card (2013)

38 points by perseusprime11 10y ago

tomlock 10y ago
After I looked at this page I immediately wondered who funded it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Society_of_Civil_Engineers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Society_of_Civil_Engi... An interesting read! My main, and likely cynical take away from this however is that this is funded by people likely to benefit from an increase in infrastructure spending. This isn't exactly an unbiased view.
- existencebox 10y ago
  While I normally welcome that train of thought, in this case I'm inclined to ask if they aren't also the leading experts to comment on this sort of thing? It certainly brings the conflict of interest evident in e.g. cable regulation vs. industry members, but in this case at least, the organization involved seems to have more in common with e.g. the ACM/IEEE, and as such I give them a little more leeway and am more than willing to look for logical arguments. Sure, always be aware of bias, but in this case, I'm glad that it's a professional society of civil engineers telling us how dire the civil engineering situation is; frankly I hear it as a common complaint in CS that we often don't have our expertise on our domain heard by those in power :)
  - tomlock 10y ago
    I'm with you there! I'm glad this exists! But I think the ideal outcome across all the stakeholders would probably end up a compromise - because this is primarily about the Engineer's opinions, in my view.
  - pcardh0 10y ago
    Last week, my plumber told me how dire the situation was under the house. Even though he is an expert, I still got 2 other quotes.
- HarryHirsch 10y ago
  On the other hand, the interest of the ASCEE and the American people are congruent. Bridges in the US seem in a very poor shape, compared to the rest of the First World. When did a thing like the I-35 bridge collapse last happen on the Old Continent? And even in Portugal the electricity doesn't routinely fail for several hours after a thunderstorm because they managed to bury their wires over there.
  - tomlock 10y ago
    I agree, for the most part. But the increase in tax or government spending is something that I feel like the taxpayer would likely not fully support! I think everyone wants better infrastructure, but not only better infrastructure.
  - nowarninglabel 10y ago
    More often than you'd think, depends on how you judge the severity of these relative to the I-35 collapse, but on a human life scale there have certainly been many in the last couple decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures
- nerdy 10y ago
  Agreed, especially since important infrastructure categories like communications and financial/banking are absent. The categories which are listed closely follow the Millennium Challenge top 10, according to that Wikipedia page, they "had the greatest positive impact on life in the 20th century." But are achievements of the 20th century likely to be exclusively the same ones driving the 21st century? These categories are certainly still critical, but is it an exhaustive list? I don't think anybody denies infrastructure is important. Hillary Clinton's plan is to spend $275bn on infrastructure[1]. Donald Trump wants double that[2]. But if we're going to spend billions or trillions of dollars we might want to make sure it's thoughtfully allocated. 1. https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/fixing-americas-infrastructure/ https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/fixing-americas-infras... 2. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/us/politics/trump-clinton-infrastructure.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/us/politics/trump-clinton-...
- Spooky23 10y ago
  Unlike interest groups with mysterious names like "Amercians for Families and Fuzzy Kittens", it's pretty obvious what an engineering society is advocating and why. The facts are mostly in their favor. How many interstate overpass bridges are there? Most have 35 year lifespans, and most are older. In my area (Albany, NY) the State is just wrapping up a 6 year project to retrofit a major bridge that was a sister of the I-35 bridge in Minnesota that catastrophically failed a few years ago -- before that event, it was known to be in rough shape and nothing was done. Also in my city, a century old storm sewer just collapsed last week, swallowing an entire street, taking out a primary water main and gas main in the process. This sort of infrastructure is decaying all over the place, and even when not failing catastrophically, it causes other issues. For example, current standards are to separate storm sewers from sanitary (i.e. Poop) sewers. Most older areas end up overflowing storm drains into both systems, overwhelming treatment plants and dumping untreated waste. Increased sprawl and pavement mean more storm water -- so local rivers and harbors are fouled all over the country.
- Anechoic 10y ago
  This isn't exactly an unbiased view. True, but one thing to consider is that engineers and construction workers can make a lot more money performing emergency repairs (replacing a bridge that has just collapsed or fixing a broken water main) compared with a run-of-the-mill rehab or new project.
ams6110 10y ago
We already did that. Remember "shovel ready jobs?" To bad it was all a scam.
- madengr 10y ago
  Reminds me of a bridge I saw under construction over an interstate in IL. No road leading to it. Or the billions in telecom tax breaks for higher speed Internet infrastructure.
- pcardh0 10y ago
  Hope and Change, ahh, good times. Now we are Stronger Together.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
cs702 10y ago
The state of US infrastructure, compared to most other advanced countries, is embarrassing (my opinion). At the same time, markets are offering to lend gobs of money to the US federal government for 30 years at 2.2%/year.[1] Why not take advantage of these low rates to borrow and invest in public infrastructure like sustainable energy generation, modern high-speed transportation, and ultra-fast (100GB) internet connectivity? Put a team of top technology entrepreneurs in charge of awarding all contracts to sidestep corruption and idiocy. Why not? [1] https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/i...
- michael_fine 10y ago
  Honest question -- I always see people argue the need for ultra-fast internet, but I'm not sure what the economic benefit of increasing speeds beyond their current rate of improvement, which in most parts of the country seems reasonably sufficient for the vast majority of work, especially given the bottlenecks are quite often in the home. Would it really provide a comparable increase in GDP/utility to say, improving transport and saving people 30min/day in their commute?
  - sliverstorm 10y ago
    Geeks love their internet, so it's always on the list. Only half jest. I understand the idea is, if we build massive pipes, life changing uses of the internet will be invented that cannot even be conceived in today's bandwidth-strangled world.
    - michael_fine 10y ago
      Hmm, have those predictions of life changing uses been borne out in places like South Korea, with actual superfast internet? (Not sarcasm, genuinely wondering)
      - bcello 10y ago
        I work with 3D imagery data, our customers need to upload gigabytes of data and models. Mining customers in certain regions of the US basically have 56k connections. America's infrastructure makes it impossible to do high tech, high bandwidth work. Maybe people only design and build low bandwidth applications because that's all our weak infrastructure can handle. If we had better infrastructure, we would take advantage of it, I guarantee you.
nixie 10y ago
*its
dmourati 10y ago
Can someone please change it's to its in the title?
- dang 10y ago
  Yup.
11thEarlOfMar 10y ago
I'd characterize the state of Bay Area roads as decrepit. It's angering that the extra wear on my suspension is costing me money, and it's really embarrassing when I think about all the folks who come in from say, Japan or Germany. They have to really wonder what we are thinking. I suppose it's taken a long time for the state to refill its coffers after the financial crisis, but that was what, 8 years ago now? Can we get on with it?
- karma_vaccum123 10y ago
  They were even worse before the Recovery Act funded some projects....but yes, mostly terrible
- aianus 10y ago
  I think the root issue is that most people would rather drive a Tesla on 'decrepit' roads than pay 50% marginal tax rates and $2/L for gas to drive a Honda on the Autobahn. Give or take.
USANEEDSHELP 10y ago
What we will see in the USA, in the next few years, is that states & the cities within them will begin to sell off their infrastructure to private companies, both local and international. We're going to see more tolls on roads that never had them. More parking meters on roads that never required them.
drawkbox 10y ago
4 trillion to start to fix our country's infrastructure but we spent $6 trillion in Iraq [1][2] that resulted in ISIS. We used to help rebuild economies like in Germany/Japan with economic plans implemented after WWII where everyone mutually benefits. Many other things could have been done to better economics, economics wins all wars. Maybe that is the long goal but it is almost two decades in and is in worse condition. Building up infrastructure leads to better economics on those improved platforms. How about upgradeable GB internet across the country? How about an electric car upgradable highway charging system? How about paying down some debt not making more of it after each war since WWII? We sure know how to invest... [1] http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/18/business/la-fi-mo-iraq-war-cost-20130318 http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/18/business/la-fi-mo-ir... [2] http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-iraq-war-cost-2-trillion-2013-3 http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-iraq-war-cost-2-trill...
- tn13 10y ago
  Fiscal consolidation seems like an orphaned child in USA. The left does not believe in it and the right does not care anymore.
  - perseusprime11 10y ago
    If we could pass a public stimulus to help banks become too big to fail, why can't we get together and pass something similar to help our Infrastructure too strong to fail?
    - tn13 10y ago
      I think as a rule of thumb government money will always flow in the direction where self interests of politicians and government servants are better served. Building a road is a time tested government program. It is mature, there is lots of competition and opportunity for publicity or kickbacks is limited. The profit margins of the road construction companies are pretty thin too. I dont think politicians benefit by building a road or bridge. Today they benefit by having outrageous programs like high speed train that will not see light of the day for decades to come (or probably never) or transmitting American programs into Cuba (which the cubans cant hear because the signal is blocked). The only way is to put a hard constitutional limit on the government spending as a % of GDP. The government is then forced to take measure to increase GDP if they want to subsidize education of Chinese prostitutes or spend $$$ on study effects of LSD on monkeys.
pcardh0 10y ago
Good thing that we are importing a lot of poor people, we should have no problem finding an extra 4 trillion.

After I looked at this page I immediately wondered who funded it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Society_of_Civil_Engineers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Society_of_Civil_Engi... An interesting read! My main, and likely cynical take away from this however is that this is funded by people likely to benefit from an increase in infrastructure spending. This isn't exactly an unbiased view.

existencebox 10y ago
While I normally welcome that train of thought, in this case I'm inclined to ask if they aren't also the leading experts to comment on this sort of thing? It certainly brings the conflict of interest evident in e.g. cable regulation vs. industry members, but in this case at least, the organization involved seems to have more in common with e.g. the ACM/IEEE, and as such I give them a little more leeway and am more than willing to look for logical arguments. Sure, always be aware of bias, but in this case, I'm glad that it's a professional society of civil engineers telling us how dire the civil engineering situation is; frankly I hear it as a common complaint in CS that we often don't have our expertise on our domain heard by those in power :)
- tomlock 10y ago
  I'm with you there! I'm glad this exists! But I think the ideal outcome across all the stakeholders would probably end up a compromise - because this is primarily about the Engineer's opinions, in my view.
- pcardh0 10y ago
  Last week, my plumber told me how dire the situation was under the house. Even though he is an expert, I still got 2 other quotes.
HarryHirsch 10y ago
On the other hand, the interest of the ASCEE and the American people are congruent. Bridges in the US seem in a very poor shape, compared to the rest of the First World. When did a thing like the I-35 bridge collapse last happen on the Old Continent? And even in Portugal the electricity doesn't routinely fail for several hours after a thunderstorm because they managed to bury their wires over there.
- tomlock 10y ago
  I agree, for the most part. But the increase in tax or government spending is something that I feel like the taxpayer would likely not fully support! I think everyone wants better infrastructure, but not only better infrastructure.
- nowarninglabel 10y ago
  More often than you'd think, depends on how you judge the severity of these relative to the I-35 collapse, but on a human life scale there have certainly been many in the last couple decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures
nerdy 10y ago
Agreed, especially since important infrastructure categories like communications and financial/banking are absent. The categories which are listed closely follow the Millennium Challenge top 10, according to that Wikipedia page, they "had the greatest positive impact on life in the 20th century." But are achievements of the 20th century likely to be exclusively the same ones driving the 21st century? These categories are certainly still critical, but is it an exhaustive list? I don't think anybody denies infrastructure is important. Hillary Clinton's plan is to spend $275bn on infrastructure[1]. Donald Trump wants double that[2]. But if we're going to spend billions or trillions of dollars we might want to make sure it's thoughtfully allocated. 1. https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/fixing-americas-infrastructure/ https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/fixing-americas-infras... 2. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/us/politics/trump-clinton-infrastructure.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/us/politics/trump-clinton-...
Spooky23 10y ago
Unlike interest groups with mysterious names like "Amercians for Families and Fuzzy Kittens", it's pretty obvious what an engineering society is advocating and why. The facts are mostly in their favor. How many interstate overpass bridges are there? Most have 35 year lifespans, and most are older. In my area (Albany, NY) the State is just wrapping up a 6 year project to retrofit a major bridge that was a sister of the I-35 bridge in Minnesota that catastrophically failed a few years ago -- before that event, it was known to be in rough shape and nothing was done. Also in my city, a century old storm sewer just collapsed last week, swallowing an entire street, taking out a primary water main and gas main in the process. This sort of infrastructure is decaying all over the place, and even when not failing catastrophically, it causes other issues. For example, current standards are to separate storm sewers from sanitary (i.e. Poop) sewers. Most older areas end up overflowing storm drains into both systems, overwhelming treatment plants and dumping untreated waste. Increased sprawl and pavement mean more storm water -- so local rivers and harbors are fouled all over the country.
Anechoic 10y ago
This isn't exactly an unbiased view. True, but one thing to consider is that engineers and construction workers can make a lot more money performing emergency repairs (replacing a bridge that has just collapsed or fixing a broken water main) compared with a run-of-the-mill rehab or new project.

ams6110 10y ago

We already did that. Remember "shovel ready jobs?" To bad it was all a scam.

madengr 10y ago
Reminds me of a bridge I saw under construction over an interstate in IL. No road leading to it. Or the billions in telecom tax breaks for higher speed Internet infrastructure.
pcardh0 10y ago
Hope and Change, ahh, good times. Now we are Stronger Together.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

cs702 10y ago

The state of US infrastructure, compared to most other advanced countries, is embarrassing (my opinion). At the same time, markets are offering to lend gobs of money to the US federal government for 30 years at 2.2%/year.[1] Why not take advantage of these low rates to borrow and invest in public infrastructure like sustainable energy generation, modern high-speed transportation, and ultra-fast (100GB) internet connectivity? Put a team of top technology entrepreneurs in charge of awarding all contracts to sidestep corruption and idiocy. Why not? [1] https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/i...

michael_fine 10y ago
Honest question -- I always see people argue the need for ultra-fast internet, but I'm not sure what the economic benefit of increasing speeds beyond their current rate of improvement, which in most parts of the country seems reasonably sufficient for the vast majority of work, especially given the bottlenecks are quite often in the home. Would it really provide a comparable increase in GDP/utility to say, improving transport and saving people 30min/day in their commute?
- sliverstorm 10y ago
  Geeks love their internet, so it's always on the list. Only half jest. I understand the idea is, if we build massive pipes, life changing uses of the internet will be invented that cannot even be conceived in today's bandwidth-strangled world.
  - michael_fine 10y ago
    Hmm, have those predictions of life changing uses been borne out in places like South Korea, with actual superfast internet? (Not sarcasm, genuinely wondering)
    - bcello 10y ago
      I work with 3D imagery data, our customers need to upload gigabytes of data and models. Mining customers in certain regions of the US basically have 56k connections. America's infrastructure makes it impossible to do high tech, high bandwidth work. Maybe people only design and build low bandwidth applications because that's all our weak infrastructure can handle. If we had better infrastructure, we would take advantage of it, I guarantee you.

nixie 10y ago

*its

dmourati 10y ago

Can someone please change it's to its in the title?

dang 10y ago
Yup.

11thEarlOfMar 10y ago

I'd characterize the state of Bay Area roads as decrepit. It's angering that the extra wear on my suspension is costing me money, and it's really embarrassing when I think about all the folks who come in from say, Japan or Germany. They have to really wonder what we are thinking. I suppose it's taken a long time for the state to refill its coffers after the financial crisis, but that was what, 8 years ago now? Can we get on with it?

karma_vaccum123 10y ago
They were even worse before the Recovery Act funded some projects....but yes, mostly terrible
aianus 10y ago
I think the root issue is that most people would rather drive a Tesla on 'decrepit' roads than pay 50% marginal tax rates and $2/L for gas to drive a Honda on the Autobahn. Give or take.

USANEEDSHELP 10y ago

What we will see in the USA, in the next few years, is that states & the cities within them will begin to sell off their infrastructure to private companies, both local and international. We're going to see more tolls on roads that never had them. More parking meters on roads that never required them.

drawkbox 10y ago

4 trillion to start to fix our country's infrastructure but we spent $6 trillion in Iraq [1][2] that resulted in ISIS. We used to help rebuild economies like in Germany/Japan with economic plans implemented after WWII where everyone mutually benefits. Many other things could have been done to better economics, economics wins all wars. Maybe that is the long goal but it is almost two decades in and is in worse condition. Building up infrastructure leads to better economics on those improved platforms. How about upgradeable GB internet across the country? How about an electric car upgradable highway charging system? How about paying down some debt not making more of it after each war since WWII? We sure know how to invest... [1] http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/18/business/la-fi-mo-iraq-war-cost-20130318 http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/18/business/la-fi-mo-ir... [2] http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-iraq-war-cost-2-trillion-2013-3 http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-iraq-war-cost-2-trill...

tn13 10y ago
Fiscal consolidation seems like an orphaned child in USA. The left does not believe in it and the right does not care anymore.
- perseusprime11 10y ago
  If we could pass a public stimulus to help banks become too big to fail, why can't we get together and pass something similar to help our Infrastructure too strong to fail?
  - tn13 10y ago
    I think as a rule of thumb government money will always flow in the direction where self interests of politicians and government servants are better served. Building a road is a time tested government program. It is mature, there is lots of competition and opportunity for publicity or kickbacks is limited. The profit margins of the road construction companies are pretty thin too. I dont think politicians benefit by building a road or bridge. Today they benefit by having outrageous programs like high speed train that will not see light of the day for decades to come (or probably never) or transmitting American programs into Cuba (which the cubans cant hear because the signal is blocked). The only way is to put a hard constitutional limit on the government spending as a % of GDP. The government is then forced to take measure to increase GDP if they want to subsidize education of Chinese prostitutes or spend $$$ on study effects of LSD on monkeys.

pcardh0 10y ago

Good thing that we are importing a lot of poor people, we should have no problem finding an extra 4 trillion.