1.6 Trillion dollar cost for a 5 year infastructure rebuilding plan. That’s insane.
“The infrastructure that supports our economy and quality of life is crumbling and we have failed to invest in the improvements needed to keep pace with our growing population, let alone our increasing demands,” ASCE President Tom Jackson told a news briefing, adding that America risked falling behind other nations.
The engineering group went further, assessing 12 types of infrastructure and finding the condition of roads, transit, energy, drinking water, waste water, dams and navigable waterway infrastructure had worsened over the last two years.
Some great countries and people can think of numbers like $1.3 trillion while others do the naked bhangra over perfromance of a stock market with the capitalization of $100 million. Go figure!
ASCE is the Association of Civil Engineers and I would say that number is more likely then not an overestimation as most of those are based on fixing everything to the very best levels. Hence it may include spending on roads to fix every single road while some roads actually need to be taken out cause they are no longer used. Or it may include rebuilding some high rise buildings while a much smaller scale renovation would be just as effective in the short term.
Though in the next five years the US needs to start spending on infrastructure, it is a highly governmental driven work and its unlikely to see any spending near those amounts unless bridges start falling and buildings collapase cause of poor infrastructure.
Most of these projects which were built after WWII are generally for a 50 yr lifetime hence we are seeing these numbers come up at this time. However its fairly easy to update/renovate them without extensive spending such as suggested by ASCE.
Perhaps you should compare those numbers as a percentage of the economonies and also consider the fact that is a high end overstated number (sort of certain countries asking for aid). The actual number that shows up will never be that large and will not happen in the next five years.
PS: I am somewhat amazed that you like to compare countries. I am sure its quite obvious which is bigger but perhaps you feel the need to show off?
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*Originally posted by Matsui: *
Perhaps you read all the comments on this thread rather than trying to determine my motivation. It's about perspective..
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Or perhaps I missed the thread or persons reply that you were pointing out? Do enlighten please.
Its not an overestimation. I specialize in bridges. If the rehab of the bridge looks more and more improbable, I know the client( The DOT) is going to want an estimated design life of the structure in it’s current condition. I will develop cost estimates for different alternatives but I think I will make the recomendation that any slight cost savings will not be worth the unforseen risk involved in rehab.If the economics even hint that replacement may be cost effective,then give it serious consideration. On a certain type of work, one set of problems (corroded steel, spalled concrete) often just leads to another (maybe bad connections, frozen expansion joints, etc). Rehab is an option, but if the say bridge is not up to the safety specs, then it needs to be brought up to standard. With better materials and design methodologies, replacemnt is a better option in many cases. If you visit any major city in the Northeast corridor, you will notice the congestion and decaying roads and bridges. In NYC they have steel nets on the bottom of the overpass to catch falling chunks of concrete from falling on the expressway below. Construction is not cheap.
PDS - I would still call it an overestimation especially when it is given by the president of a society in whose interest it is to make such a figure. As it is, its an estimate and if I know anything about engineers, with our nature of been risk averseness and safety factors, we are more likely to overestimate then under.
For the type of projects you are talking about (say the GWB in NY), rehab is the only option not only because the bridge is huge and anything of a similar nature would be extremely expensive but also because of all the environmental issues associated with these large scale projects. Also, simple car pooling and a better public transportation network if done effectively could easly remove a large amount of the pressures on these infrastructures. Its somewhat like people talking about how we are running out of freshwater. Yes we are but most of it the water is used in agriculture and few cheap and simple conversation schemes would cut this consumption levels by over 30-50% in most case. Its just a matter of figuring out what our trade off points are.
The typical approach towards infrastructure improvement reminds me of an old Budhist joke.
There was this ancient Budhist temple high on a cliff and people used to visit it in hopes of getting spiritual uplift. It was quite a tourist spot actually. The only way to get up there was on a bucket. They had a pretty big bucket, which they will lower to the ground below. The people will get on it and the monks will pull up the bucket.
So, a few tourists wanting to visit this ancient and great monastry got to the spot. The bucket was lowered. A guide monk was inside. When they all got into the bucket, the guide gave a jerk on the rope and the people up in the temple started to pull it up. One tourist noted that the rope which was attached to the bucket was quite old and seemed to be peeling off from various places. He asked the guide monk... "hey, how often do you guys replace the rope?"
The guide monk, smiled serenly and replied... "oh, we replace it, anytime it breaks!"
So well, I hope to wait for something to break before fixing it, is probably not the best approach... especially when we are talking about bridges etc. :)
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*Originally posted by hmcq: *
For the type of projects you are talking about (say the GWB in NY), rehab is the only option not only because the bridge is huge and anything of a similar nature would be extremely expensive but also because of all the environmental issues associated with these large scale projects. Also, simple car pooling and a better public transportation network if done effectively could easly remove a large amount of the pressures on these infrastructures. Its somewhat like people talking about how we are running out of freshwater. Yes we are but most of it the water is used in agriculture and few cheap and simple conversation schemes would cut this consumption levels by over 30-50% in most case. Its just a matter of figuring out what our trade off points are.
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The GWB is a poor example. Major crossings only warrant rehab. I was talking about the typical structure. The overpass, the "puddle jumper" that most people drive over and did not know a bridge was there. I personally was a part of the rehab project of the Triborough Bridge in NYC. The cost was around 1 billion dollars, for deck replacement, etc,etc. Major structures such as those, need painting to protect the steel, which is extremely expensive due to environmental conerns and the presence of lead paint. Anyway, of course car pooling would help, but the United States is a car culture. In large cities people do commute, but not enough to alleviate congestion. That is an ideal solution, but not the only one. Unless you pass some legislation to force people to commute(which will never happen), this is as good as it is going to get. When I was speaking of replacing the struture, it is often due to the structure condition, which safety concerns are also factored into the replacement option. Larger bridges are not always being built with more lanes, b/c that is a quick fix and not a long term solution. Anyway, most of the figures pretain to upgrading the exisiting and possibly replacing the exisiting bridge. Since many groups lobby for federal dollars, it is important we get as much as we can.
Hey, so my groaning about traffic infrastructure problems is based in reality.
Its apparent that investment is needed, and I hope its not just re-habbing existing roads, bridges but building new ones as well. fly-overs over railway tracks rather than lengthly wait times. etc etc
If they do an excercise in looking at the traffic flows and volumes and build solutions for todays traffic levels and patterns we will be ebtter off rather than just fixing up what is already there.
hmcq, and that bring me to the point about toll bridges and toll roads. Its shameful to see the funds gained from those being diverted to other stuff while the tollroads are ind ire need of expansion, repair and better planning.
Fraudia the problem is that when the federal goverment hands over these roads to the states, they do not tie the tolls to the repair work directly. It just goes in to the states treasury. With such a setting do you blame politicians using that money for more "high value" publicity rather then just fixing roads which will always have to be done.
Yes I still blame them, just because the fed govt is not standing there with a stick in the hand does not mean that the states should be irresponsible. it is almost as bad as the child support payment system now.
there are other infrastructure related misappropriations too, i.e. if the budget for the year is not spent they will not get that amount next year and thus the onsalught of non critical work every damn year which seems to need repair every damn year.
