Our Failing Infrastructure

Political Blog Daily Kos has a great posting today about the worst roads in America and what it means for our future prosperity and travel.

The posting sites traffic and road condition data from numerous sources including ASCE (I couldn’t resist the shameless self-promotion) and publishes the results of a recent Freakonomics Blog  survey of drivers about the worst roads across the country.

From Daily Kos: The economic stimulus bill passed earlier this year dedicated $48 billion to transportation infrastructure. However, the Department of Transportation was saying 4 years ago they needed $500 billion over 6 years to deal with congestion & fix everything that’s weathered, broken, or in need of replacement. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) 2009 Report Card on America’s infrastructure estimated a need for about another trillion in funding over 5 years to substantially improve bridge & road conditions.

Click here to read the rest of the post and see if the road you drive everyday made it into the Hall of Shame

Then again, you might not.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has emerged as one of the leaders in the fight to increase the pot of money available to build and maintain the nation’s highways, bridges and transit systems.  This is surprising because the right-leaning business group is usually the sort of group to oppose a tax increase.  However, in supporting a gas tax increase – something that hasn’t happened at the federal level since the late 1980s – the Chamber is recognizing that not funding these improvements ends up costing us more in other ways:  wasted time, wasted fuel, damage to vehicles, etc.  The Texas Transportation Institute and others have put numbers on these “hidden taxes” and they turn out to be quite substantial, and more importantly to businesses, far less predictable than a traditional tax.  At a time when everyone needs to squeeze a bit more out of their dollars, this predictability factor becomes very important.  And much of the “revenue” from these “hidden taxes” evaporates, in the form of pollution, rather than being funneled back into maintaining and improving the system as a traditional fuel tax would be. 

The Transportation Construction Coalition (of which ASCE is an active member), one of the more “usual suspects” in the fight for improving the nation’s transportation infrastructure is leading the charge against a lengthy delay in reauthorization of federal transportation legislation with a new ad campaign directed towards decision-makers in Washington, D.C.

View the latest TCC ad

If you haven’t already, let your lawmakers know that delaying the transportation authorization will not help improve the nation’s poor infrastructure conditions.  Visit ASCE’s “Click & Connect” with Congress advocacy website to draft your personalized message to your lawmakers.

As we reported yesterday, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) introduced the Water Protection and Reinvestment Act (H.R. 3202) and ASCE was on hand to endorse the legislation and provide commentary on the condition of the nation’s water infrastructure. H.R. 3202 would set up a fund to provide $10 billion annually for the nation’s drinking and wastewater systems. To learn more, visit Rep. Blumenauer’s website.

Be sure to visit ASCE’s Click and Connect with Congress Advocacy Website  to send a message to your representative urging him or her to co-sponsor this important legislation.

Here are some pictures from today’s press conference announcing the introduction of the Water Protection and Reinvestment Act.

Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI) (L) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) announce the Water Protection and Reinvestment Act

Dale Jacobson, P.E., BCEE, F.ASCE expresses ASCE's support

More photos from this afternoon’s hearing later…

Everyone seems to be pinching pennies or clipping coupons these days. Why not add throwing money down the drain to the list?

No, not wasting money, I mean investing in our water infrastructure. Other than when they back up or break, most of us don’t give much thought to the pipes in our community that bring us potable drinking water or take away and clean our wastewater. But believe me, the pipes are there, and they’re working overtime to meet the demands we put on them everyday.

While it may seem like things are OK since we get our water out of the tap same as always, the water infrastructure system is not currently equipped to handle growing capacity. Pipes that were laid in the early part of the 20^th century in many cities are at the end or past their design lives. Additionally, these older systems must be upgraded to meet new regulations for environmental quality. ASCE’s 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure graded the nation’s drinking and wastewater systems at a D- and estimated that it would cost $255 billion over five years to bring systems up to a good condition.

That steep price tag, like with most infrastructure, has stymied governments at every level. Currently, the federal government invests only about $4 billion a year in water per year and many cities and towns don’t have the resources to keep systems from decaying further.

To begin tackling the funding challenge, ASCE will be standing along others in the water infrastructure industry and a bipartisan group of legislators tomorrow to announce the introduction of the Water Protection and Reinvestment Act. Sponsored by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, this bill would create a $10 billion annual fund to begin crucial repairs and improvements to the nation’s drinking and wastewater systems.

Following the announcement, ASCE Report Card Advisory Council Member Dale Jacobson, P.E., BCEE, F.ASCE will testify before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in support of the legislation.

You may watch the hearing tomorrow (7/15/09) afternoon live online at 2 PM EST on the T&I Committee’s website.

For additional information on a Clean Water Trust Fund, read this recent GAO Report.

And remember, the next time you think you are just throwing money down the drain, it probably needs it.  

*** Once the water trust fund bill is introduced, check back here for a link to send your representative an instant email asking them to support the bill.***

The National Journal’s Transportation Expert’s Blog features commentary on current issues in transportation policy. As one of the regular contributors a.k.a. one of the experts, on the blog, ASCE’s Executive Director Patrick J. Natale, P.E. has been discussing ways to improve the nation’s transportation infrastructure with other leaders in the industry. The blog is free to the public and offers in-depth analysis on all aspects of the federal transportation system.

This past week’s discussion focused on a new proposal from Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) to create a national transportation plan that improves both infrastructure quality and meets certain environmental goals. The blog’s editors asked if one of the key tenets of the legislation – reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) – was a good place to start.

Here’s Pat’s answer:

As with most things in life, there’s a little bit of good, a little bit of bad and a whole lot of maybe in this plan. Certainly, we need to have specific performance goals for our infrastructure, and from those goals we need to develop comprehensive, long-term plans. When it comes to transportation, I would argue that increased safety, eased mobility and improved conditions should be the focal points. While the bill does set some specific goals that could produce laudable results, including ones for emissions reduction, such specifics for the infrastructure provisions—VMT reduction, transit use, congestion relief, etc.—are lacking. That’s a pretty important omission, given that the infrastructure-related targets are the tools we need to reach the environmental goals. A truly comprehensive plan is more complicated than just looking at it through a lens of emissions reductions. Environmental restoration should absolutely be one factor taken into account, but so should offering options for travel other than just highways. If we aren’t putting any money into…

Visit the blog site to read the rest…

Also in the news this week…

Chairman of ASCE’s Report Card Advisory Council Andrew Herrmann, P.E., F.ASCE has a great article in Aspire magazine about the 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure.