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I think you're missing a key point here: this bridge is maintained by PennDOT. That's not federal, that's state. PennDOT's own report, according the article, sh
by andrew_ 5y ago
I think you're missing a key point here: this bridge is maintained by PennDOT. That's not federal, that's state. PennDOT's own report, according the article, showed that the bridge was in poor condition. It's a failure on PennDOT, a local bureaucracy, not the entirety of the "richest country in the world."
In the U.S., different pieces of infrastructure is delegated to different authorities. It's up to those authorities to maintain those pieces. They choose how to spend and where to spend. Now, the argument could be made that funding is an issue, and in some states it is. Hence the latest bill to fund more infrastructure repair. But it's not such an issue in many places in the country. Anecdotally, growing up in a Northern state, we would always complain about how much better the roads in our neighboring state to the South were. And they actually were, because the folks who ran Ohio's DOT straight up managed it better.
I now live in the South, and I'm very pleased with how the State and Counties here manage and maintain roads, bridges, and rail line crossings.
- chrisan 5y agoSpeaking of anecdotes, I grew up in Pittsburgh, later lived in Ohio, then Michigan. Ohio roads were pothole city and I always thought Michigan roads were good. I now live in North Carolina and the roads around here are pretty crap. Shoulders either non-existent or crumbling off from rain erosion. Not many pot holes however since we don't see much freeze/thaw compared to Ohio.
- shadowgovt 5y agoThe failure of the richest country is a lack of methods to capture that wealth and funnel it to where it's needed. Google has offices in Pittsburgh. Want to take a guess at what percentage of Google's tax money went to maintaining a bridge its employees drive on every day? ETA: the problem in Pittsburgh in particular is compounded by the nature of the major employers in the city. Often, taxes for things like bridges in town would be paid by real estate taxes. But four of the largest employers in Pittsburgh are UPMC, Highmark / Allegheny Health Network, University of Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon University. As non-profit institutions, they don't pay taxes on the real estate they use. It is not certain that a city the size of Pittsburgh with so much real estate out of the taxability space is a sustainable model in any sense.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoThe roads are better maintained in New York to the north. Same weather conditions. Pennsylvania has a special sort of infrastructure neglect.
- MisterSandman 5y agoI don't see how that negates my point, a failure of a State Government is still a failure of the US. India works in a similar way, but when we here news about bad infrastructure or sanitation, nobody blames the State of Maharashtra - we blame the country. The US doesn't just mean the Federal Government, it means every local and federal authority that runs the country.