Posted on 09/21/2012 11:53:24 PM PDT by LucyT
You can tell a lot about a nation by the condition of the infrastructure. So what does our infrastructure say about us? It says that we are in a very advanced state of decay. At this point, much of America is being held together with spit, duct tape and prayers.
Our roads are crumbling and thousands of our bridges look like they could collapse at any moment. Our power grid is ancient and over a trillion gallons of untreated sewage is leaking from our aging sewer systems each year. Our airports and our seaports are clogged with far more traffic than they were ever designed to carry.
Approximately a third of all of the dam failures that have taken place in the United States since 1874 have happened during the past decade. Our national parks and recreation areas have been terribly neglected and our railroads are a bad joke. "...drinking water systems all over the country are badly outdated.
While the Obama administration is spending more than half a million dollars to figure out why chimpanzees throw poop, our national infrastructure is literally falling apart all around us.
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(Excerpt) Read more at theeconomiccollapseblog.com ...
You can’t count on Obama to take responsibility for his failed economic policy but you can count on him to crack a joke about it....and his minions to ignore the colossal failure.
Selling the *sizzle* not the *steak.*
Toll roads? No way. We're still fighting that crap in Texas. It never goes away, tolls always increase, and all too many politicians are too willing to sell public infrastructure to transnational corporations. It ends up as double taxation. Triple taxation if fuel taxes that are meant for the repair and upkeep of roads are maintained.
No doubt there are projects that need to be done. It's called "maintenance" and is a never ending responsibility. Last August I found the Indiana Turnpike to be in disrepair relative to the Ohio Turnpike, which raised questions whether the private lessor was the way to go. In contrast, this year it has all been repaved. The stretch through Gary was a mess last year. Now it is all done and rides fine.
Living in NE Ohio, where "frost heave" is our unoffical motto and the orange barrel the state flower, projects are at normal levels, ie, something always being repaired or maintained. No bridge collapses, no dam failures, when a water main breaks we fix it, so it goes. It's called "life goes on."
Some may call it a rant but you are right.
When the stupid no child hungry act of 2010 takes 104 pages to not say a word about what children are to eat at school but places all the decisions in the hands of the USDA administrators and then there are an additional 9 pages of summary crap that still say nothing about child nutrition ... what? We are rotting from inside.
Those are valid points, but there are different cases to be made when you’re talking about a new facility vs. putting a toll on an existing one. Think of an example here in the New York City area with one of the bridges between New York and New Jersey that is more than 80 years old, functionally obsolete, and badly in need of a full replacement. The bi-state agency that owns and operates it does not have the money to do the project, so they’ve basically presented the public with two options: (1) continue to operate it until it becomes structurally unsafe, or (2) cut a deal with private investors to have them come in and build a new bridge over the course of 2-3 years and then collect the toll revenue for 40 years before handing it back over to the bi-state agency.
Around here it's intersection curb cut-outs and bike paths. They ruined some perfectly good streets that had two lanes in each direction and choked traffic flow while bike lanes go unused. And a lot of them are uphill streets where no one but an Olympic athlete is going to ride uphill.
They put curb cut-outs at intersections that have no foot traffic, or where there are no sidewalks leading to them. How does a wheelchair get there? And, no curb cut-outs at intersections adjacent to schools where mothers hassle getting baby strollers off the curb. Nothing the government does makes sense.
I remember that well. I used to drive to Mass at least 5 times a year. We were lucky. Then we had to drive over a pontoon bridge for at least another year...
If you stay out of the Northeast, the extent of the problem diminishes. The problem is concentrated in Yankee land subject to delusional liberal failure. There are pockets else where but the concentration is north and east of Pennsylvania.
Lead paint remediation is far more important than the condition of bridges.
The I-95 corridor that runs along the CT shore has to be one of the most dangerous highways in the country. We avoid it like the plague, if we can,regardless of the poor infrastructure along the route.
I see that as a major problem then. You have an agency that has infrastructure that it cannot maintain - Why? Do they not receive fuel taxes from motorists for the repair and upkeep of that piece of infrastructure? Have they diverted it into other projects? Is that bi-state agency corrupt?
If a new bridge is built and paid for with tolls, will it fall into the same state with the bi-state agency at the helm in 40 years?
Frankly, I'm seeing a different issue, i.e. decaying infrastructure vs. that which has been minimally maintained so funds could be diverted into a pet project.
Under normal circumstances this agency -- the Port Authority of NY & NJ -- has no problem maintaining its infrastructure. Two things have come into play in this particular case:
1. They also owned the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan, so they've been on the hook for billions of dollars to redevelop the site since 2001.
2. With the widening of the Panama Canal scheduled for completion in 2016, this agency now has a need for another bridge to undergo a major overhaul even though it is structurally sound and still works just fine. This second bridge has now become a higher priority because it is simply too low to allow the next generation of container ships to pass underneath it.
As a quasi-public agency, the Port Authority of NY & NJ receives no fuel tax revenue and no Federal money except in very limited circumstances (mainly for dredging projects that are subject to oversight by the U.S. Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers). This actually works in their favor because they can streamline a project construction process and get things done much faster than traditional public agencies. In fact, they often provide their own funding for major regional transportation projects even on roads and transit lines that they don't own, if they have a vested interest in the project's successful completion (a major rehabilitation project on a highway that accesses one of their airport or port facilities, for example).
OK. Thanx for setting me straight. I didn’t realize the finer intricacies of that group.
My conclusion is: *yawn*
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