Our Failing Infrastructure

The question this week on the National Journal’s Transporation Experts Blog asks if states should be allowed to toll exisitng interstates. ASCE’s Executive Director Pat Natale says yes, but cautions that tolls won’t fix all our transportation woes.

While it won’t be the ‘silver bullet’, we absolutely should consider tolling, even on existing interstate highways, as one of the tools in the solutions toolbox. Over the next five years, funding needs will outpace spending on roads and bridges by nearly $550 billion. With a problem of that magnitude, we can’t afford to take any revenue options off the table when we talk about solutions. And, if we are to have any long-term success, users are going to have to learn to associate an appropriate cost with the benefits they reap.

What we need is a bundle of options targeted at specific goals, such as system preservation, congestion relief and environmental quality. Included in that bundle will have to be things like increasing the use of PPPs, raising the federal gas tax and utilizing infrastructure banks.

Go to the Blog to read the rest of Natale’s and the other Experts’ responses.

My friend/co-worker lives pretty close to one of the bridges linking Virginia and the District of Columbia and has found that riding her bike to our office is a great way to add some exercise into her busy schedule. While it’s not that great on these hot August days, she’s found that in the fall and late spring, biking to work is a cost-effective and scenic alternative to riding the Metro.

From jaunted.com

SmartBike DC allows residents to pay a small yearly fee for access to bikes all over the city. The program, first in it’s kind in the U.S., is designed to help people go short distances that might be a bit far to walk without having to use their cars. As we strive to build more “livable” communities, we need more programs that show people they can move around easily without cars.

Despite this effort, we’ve still got a long way to go before everyone hops on their old 10-speed on the way to work. Over 800 people are killed every year in accidents involving motor vehicles and bikes - and thousands more are injured. Not having ridden a bike myself since I was about 12, and even then not being that proficient, it is a bit daunting for me to get out on the road with traffic wizzing by. That’s why transportation planners need to integrate bike facilities into roadway plans.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials recommends that all roads, except interstates, should be designed under the assumption that they will be used by cyclists. That means wider lanes or even dedicated bike lanes. Also, bike paths through parkland need regular maintenance to funnel bike traffic off the already clogged streets.

Will biking solve all our transportation infrastructure problems and is it the right choice for everyone? Of course not, but every little bit helps. So if you have the opportunity and the interest, why not get a car off the road or a rider off the train and grab a bike?

You may have heard news reports of unruly Town Hall Meetings with legislators across the country, in most cases centered on the issue of healthcare reform.  Many civil engineers (and other citizens) may be thinking, “I don’t want to get involved in that mess!”

Town Hall Meetings are the very essence of democracy.  They present a chance for citizens to confront those elected to represent them in government directly.  The hope is that all involved will treat others with respect, but news reports have shown that this is not always the case.  While it is tempting to lament the loss of decorum and respect, we should also reflect on the thought that people still care enough to make the effort to get their voices heard.  Despite negative campaigning and lackluster approval ratings, we have not totally given up on the democratic process.

In short, citizens and lawmakers should not shy away from these opportunities for engagement! 

ASCE’s Report Card for America’s Infrastructure is designed in a way so as to make the most challenging and complex problems facing the nation’s infrastructure, understandable by the average person. Summer town hall meetings are the perfect opportunity to share that message.  And who knows, people might list that much more if you’re the one person there not talking about health care!

A few tips to help you get something out of your next Town Hall Meeting:

• Arrive early to get a seat and possibly meet with an elected official’s staff on hand for the event, or maybe even the elected official himself/herself.
• Always treat elected officials and staff with respect for their position and the office, even if you don’t agree with the opinions and actions of the individual that currently holds office.
  Don’t be afraid to bring up a subject not listed on the agenda.
• Even if you’re not comfortable speaking in front of the group, you can still interact with elected officials and staff before and after the program.
• Keep your remarks brief, whether addressing the assembled group or in one-on-one interactions before and after.  If the topic demands more than a few minutes of discussion, ask to set up a meeting in the lawmaker’s district office at a later date.
• Download briefing information from the ASCE Government Relations webpage and the Report Card Advocacy Site  to learn background on the issues to share with your lawmakers and their staff.
• Provide feedback to ASCE through the grassroots activity form.

Remember, there are other ways to interact with your lawmakers besides potentially contentious Town Hall Meetings:  write a message using the Report Card Advocacy site or request a one-on-one visit with your lawmaker in his or her district office.

A water main installed in the 1870s- yes the horse and buggy 1870s- ruptured this morning in New York City, causing major flooding and transportation disruptions. The NY Times City Blog paints a pretty grim picture:

A 12-inch cast-iron water main installed in 1870 broke in Lower Manhattan early Friday morning, flooding about a dozen buildings, forcing the evacuation of several structures, and sending water gushing over the area at least three blocks around the site … The water was up to four feet deep in some buildings at the height of the flood, around 5 a.m. Service on the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 subway lines was interrupted for a while, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is continuing to warn of delays in service along those lines, as well as on the M20, M22 and X25 bus routes.

While I hate to say “I told you so” after a disaster, this rupture brings home the need to do two crucial things recommended by the 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure:

1.      (specific) Invest in modernizing the nation’s water infrastructure

2.      (general) Plan, design, and operate resilient critical infrastructure systems to withstand and recover from disruptions.

It might not be much consolation to the people up in NYC today dealing with damages to homes and business or who are unable to travel, but there are some tools we can use to keep problems like this from happening again.

Firstly, we need to support legislation that increases revenues for water infrastructure. The federal government’s share of water infrastructure investments has dropped dramatically over the last few decades and local governments are left shouldering a financial burden too big to handle. A new proposal in Congress, the Water Protection and Reinvestment Act raises revenues from a variety of sources to fund a Trust Fund for drinking and wastewater infrastructure. An easy thing for you to do is visit ASCE Report Card Action Center and send an email to your legislators instantly asking them to support the bill.

Second, the delays to vehicle, bus, and rail travel in a busy downtown area this break is causing illustrate how interconnected our infrastructure systems are. A new publication form ASCE Guiding Principles for Critical Infrastructure gives engineers and policymakers a framework for not only protecting infrastructure in a disaster, but making sure all systems (transportation, water, emergency services) work together to keep people safe and get things back on track.  

Most of these problems won’t be fixed over night – NYC itself probably has hundreds of miles of century-old pipes – but we need to start somewhere. Infrastructure failures are often tragedies with both human and economic costs, but they also show us where we need to be doing better. Thankfully it looks like no one got hurt this time, but let’s not sit around and wait for another break to happen we need more money to build a safer, smarter system.  

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.

Last week, the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved a new six year authorization of federal surface transportation programs. This is a crucial first step in the process to enact a new transportation authorization before the current law, SAFETEA-LU, expires on September 30, 2009.  This new bill is very important to civil engineers, but we at ASCE know that sometimes it’s difficult to keep up with all the changes on Capitol Hill.

We have the answer…

Introducing ASCE’s new 2009 Surface Transportation Authorization Action Page! The ASCE Government Relations team will be monitoring the progress of the legislation (not to mention, working hard with Congress to make sure it reflects the priorities of civil engineers) and posting regular updates on the new page. Not only will we be reporting on the news, we’ll offer analysis on how it affects our members. If you have questions, comments, or even inside information, please post it here on this blog and we will try to answer your questions or update the site to reflect them.

The Action Page will have all the information you need to keep on top of developments on the Hill, but in order to keep it updated we need… well…Action! Take this opportunity to visit ASCE’s Click and Connect with Congress Advocacy Website and send your legislators a message saying you support swift action on the surface transportation authorization.