Sustainable and Sound Infrastructure Now.
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 08. 3.07
As Congress approves 55 billion dollars in corn subsidies and pays 12 billion dollars a month for the Iraq war, the infrastructure in America continues to crumble: Bridges in Minneapolis, steam pipes in Manhattan, highway collapses in Montreal and of course levee breaches in New Orleans.
The New York Times says "Transportation officials know many of the nation’s 600,000 bridges are in need of repair or replacement. About one in eight has been deemed "structurally deficient," a term that typically means a component of the bridge's structure has been rated poor or worse, but does not necessarily warn of imminent collapse. Most deficient bridges, which included the span of Interstate 35W over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, remain open to traffic."
Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG does the math and notes "13.6 percent of U.S. bridges – i.e. more than 81,000 bridges – are "functionally obsolete." He continues: "the Federal Highway Administration's annual budget appears to be hovering around $35-40 billion a year....and annual government subsidies for Amtrak come in at slightly more than $1 billion. That's $1 billion every year to help commuter train lines run."
Steam pipe explosion in New York
The Times notes:
These disasters are an indication that this country is not investing enough in keeping its vital infrastructure in good repair, engineering experts warn.
“Governments do not want to pay for maintenance because it is not sexy,” said John Ochsendorf, a structural engineer and an associate professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Montreal Bridge collapse
No doubt now there will be a big emergency investment: in highways. No doubt Amtrak, commuter lines, and alternatives to the automobile will be ignored. Geoff says "Perhaps the best way to be "pro-American" these days is to lobby for modern, safe, and trustworthy infrastructure – and the economic efficiencies to which that domestic investment would lead."
We say make it green and sustainable as well. ::Bldgblog
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Something tells me there's little the US government can do about the highways in Montreal :-)
LA: just trying to point out that the problem is not limited to the USA. Canada is crumbling too.
I'd like to see new development at least think about saving room for high speed rail or something. Maybe between lanes of traffic?
Raise the gas tax, and put toll booths on those suckers. How we do it in NJ.
Just goes to show, shipping cubic dollars to Iraq or other countries leaves us vulnerable to everything, including our own lifestyle.
Get out of Iraq and put that 456 billion dollars into US infrastructure & social issues!
There is a small silver lining in the Minneapolis tragedy. On the local news, right before this happened, they had a story stating that plans for the new light rail branch had hit a bump in the road because the prospective path down University Ave contained a bridge they weren't sure was strong enough to hold the system. Well guess what, the bridge that collapsed intersects University Ave before that, so hopefully they can rebuild the new bridge and reroute the light rail over it instead
On another note, I was wondering how you guys would figure out a way to make a post about about this event and sure enough you did! (kind of a stretch though.)
just wondering if you folks are aware that montreal is not actually in america...
whats the greatest threat to american security?
answer: the bush administration
just had to put that in there :)
all well and good, but last time I checked, Montreal was still in Canada...:)
As a Canadian, though not a Quebecer, I would encourage all Americans to urge their congressmen to increase funding for Canadian infrastructure to prevent similar tragedies like the Montreal bridge collapse.
The levee breaches had little to do with lack of maintenance funding, and much more to do with lack of political will to confiscate thousands of homes necessary to build proper levees.
That being said, infrastructure financing is critical--we need to fix what we have before we go about building more roads, bridges, and highways.