President Obama's plan for fixing America's intrastrucure has drawn praise from the American Society of Civil Engineers. ASCE's Exective Director Patrick J. Natale stated: "Our nation’s economy can’t survive without the stable foundation infrastructure provides. It allows goods to move across the country, water to flow from our taps and energy to be accessed with the flip of a switch. But, for decades, we have allowed that foundation to crumble."
Natale called for a dedicated source of funding and an increase in federal leadership on infrastructure and urged Congress to work with the Obama Administration on this critical national issue.
A civil engineering expert says that $50 billion is a good start but not enough to reverse the deterioration of our roads, bridges, water and sewer systems.
"All of the various components of our infrastructure are in serious need of attention and should be given priority, even in times of fiscal belt-tightening," says Henry Petroski, a Professor of Civil Engineering at Duke University.
"President Obama's call for spending $50 billion on America's transportation infrastructure is good news, but the amount is far from the $2.2 trillion that the American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated it would cost to bring the nation's total infrastructure up from the poor grade of D that it received in 2009 to a level that would enable the country to remain strong and prosperous."
"It is not only our roads, railways and airports that are in serious need of repair and renewal. As recent events have demonstrated, the aging water and gas lines buried beneath our streets can break without notice and give rise to flooding, fire, destruction and death. All of the various components of our infrastructure are in serious need of attention and should be given priority, even in times of fiscal belt-tightening. What we do not maintain today will surely cost much more to repair in the future."
Dr. Petroski recently elaborated on the U.S. infrastructure crisis in The Chronicle Review:
The present state of the American infrastructure—roads, bridges, water supply, and the like—has been given an overall grade of D by the American Society of Civil Engineers, which regularly issues infrastructure report cards. The engineers' estimate of how much it will cost to raise the grade from poor to acceptable is $2.2-trillion over a five-year period. Such a vast amount of money is unlikely to be available over the next decade.
When the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known as the stimulus bill, was passed in 2009, the word "infrastructure" was frequently invoked. Since then, prominent signs have gone up proclaiming that paving and other highway projects owe their very existence to stimulus money. However, less than $100-billion of the $787-billion total has in fact gone toward infrastructure construction projects.
In the meantime, our infrastructure continues to age and deteriorate. In many of our older cities, some of the cast-iron pipes that bring water to homes and businesses are a century old. Earlier this year a burst water main in the Boston area resulted in an eight-million-gallon-per-hour leak and led the governor to declare a state of emergency. Affected residents were warned to boil their water before drinking it.
As surely as water runs downhill, so will our infrastructure over the coming decade. Putting off preventive maintenance and replacing obsolete equipment are tempting ways to find cuts in a deficit-ridden municipal budget. New York City took that path during its fiscal crisis of the 1970s, and large and small cities across the country can be expected to do so in the coming years. Even if such action helps local economies recover by the year 2020, the infrastructure will be in such a sorry state that it will be near impossible for it to earn a passing grade.
Potholes know no politics; they will continue to develop as surely as rain turns to ice in winter. Bridges will corrode and collapse. Pipes will crack and burst. The physical foundations of our civilization will crumble under the weight of our complaints about it and our neglect of it. It will happen so fast that it will be impossible to keep up with its repair.
Infrastructure is a fancy contemporary term for what used to be known as public works. The change in terminology may have helped distract the voting public from seeing it as their collective obligation and a civic responsibility. But no matter what it is called, we will continue to depend upon our infrastructure for our safety and quality of life. If we do not recognize the urgency of maintaining it, we can expect the deterioration of our infrastructure to be a defining idea of what it means to be a citizen in a declining civilization.
http://chronicle.com/article/Declining-Infrastructure-D/124137/
Petroski is an expert on the history of engineering and technology, and the author of several books, including "The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems" (2010); "Success through Failure: The Paradox of Design" (2006); and "Pushing the Limits: New Adventures in Engineering (2005).
