America has scored consistently poor grades dating back to 1998
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U.S. infrastructure has received an average grade of D+, meaning “poor and at risk” due to chronic underinvestment, according to the 2017 report card released earlier this month by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
“Our nation’s infrastructure is aging, underperforming, and in need of sustained care and action,” the ASCE said.
The U.S. has received a subpar grade in each of the last six reports, stretching back to 1998. Each sector is graded on eight criteria, including capacity, condition and funding.
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Rails was the only sector to earn a B due to $27 billion in improvements by the freight railroads. Ports, bridges and solid waste each received a C+. The remaining dozen categories — aviation, dams, drinking water, energy, hazardous waste, inland waterways, levees, public parks, roads, schools, transit and wastewater — were in the D range.
The U.S. has been paying just half of its infrastructure bill for some time, the report said, and now has a $2 trillion 10-year investment gap. The engineers called for investment of an additional $206 billion a year to prevent a cascading impact on the economy, employment and personal incomes.
Among the report’s findings:
• It is expected that 24 of the top 30 major airports may soon experience “Thanksgiving peak traffic volume” on at least one day every single week.
• A little more than 9% of the nation’s bridges were rated structurally deficient.
• There are nearly 15,500 dams listed as “high-hazard potential.”
• Six billion gallons of treated water is lost every day in water-main breaks.
D+!
Bravo USA!
All the haters would give USA a F!
It is gold star time!
So what’s China’s grade? Or any of the other backwater shitholes? How come I’ve never heard about Europe?
Cant spend it actual investments, gotta spent on niggers, rapefugees, bribes, abortions and weapons to give to the “good” moose-limbs…
For fucks sake…
Democrats love spending on diversity improvements!
Fixing our infrastructure without breaking the bank
By Michael Sargent – – Monday, May 15, 2017
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Crumbling roads, decrepit bridges, obsolete airports. Politicians often paint a hyperbolic picture of America in disrepair. It helps drum up support for a politically appealing twofer offer: to fix the nation’s aging infrastructure and put Americans back to work.
It sounds good. But history shows that big-spending federal construction programs typically produce lackluster results for both infrastructure quality and job creation.
That didn’t stop candidate Donald Trump from pledging to embark on a massive “program of national rebuilding,” one that would sink $1 trillion into repairing and expanding the nation’s infrastructure. But details about the plan have been slow in coming. About all we know is that most of the $1 trillion would come from private investment; direct federal spending would total about $200 billion.
The focus on private infrastructure investment is indeed laudable, but the plan would be even better if it provided for the full $1 trillion investment without any additional federal spending. It can be done. And with the nation nearly $20 trillion in debt, it can’t afford an infrastructure approach that fails to prioritize both fiscal responsibility and the most effective investments.
Analysts at The Heritage Foundation have mapped out a policy approach that could steer over $1 trillion to U.S. infrastructure over the next 10 years without adding a penny to the debt. Though the agenda provides over a dozen specific recommendations, the administration and Congress can follow this blueprint for responsible investment by sticking to three overarching principles.
First, make the most of the infrastructure funds provided by the federal government. Federal mandates such as Davis-Bacon requirements for union-scale wages and project labor agreements drive up the cost of labor for federally funded infrastructure projects — by an average of 20 percent in the case of the former.
By removing these special interest labor requirements, as well as Buy America rules that drive up the cost of construction materials, policymakers can stretch current spending levels by more than $100 billion over the next decade.
Second, there are simply too many regulations that hamper both public and private infrastructure investment. Overly burdensome permitting and environmental review processes stifle projects for years — sometimes even decades.
Expediting these processes has bipartisan support and would free up the equivalent of hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure investment. Similarly, rolling back regulations that impede private companies from investing in energy infrastructure could create thousands of long-term jobs while producing abundant, safe energy.
By embarking on a strategic deregulatory process — including the repeal of industry-specific rules, like those that decrease broadband investment or increase the cost of dredging the nation’s ports — the administration and Congress can add more than $550 billion in direct infrastructure investment.
Finally, the federal government has long exceeded its proper and optimal role in funding and managing certain aspects of the nation’s infrastructure, to the detriment of many important assets. Instead of continuing this trend, Washington should realign federal investment to match truly national priorities and leave other investments to the private sector and states.
This would mean refocusing highway spending — which currently hemorrhages nearly 30 percent of funding to local concerns like streetcars and bike-sharing programs — on repairing the interstate system.
Important aviation assets such as airports and the air traffic control system have underperformed under restrictive federal micromanagement, and should be handled by the more efficacious private sector, as is done in many other countries.
Making good on federal promises on nuclear infrastructure, such as constructing Yucca Mountain, should likewise be prioritized. Refocusing the federal government’s mission on projects of true importance would steer hundreds of billions in investment where it’s needed most — and would allow for better management of vital infrastructure.
Although many of these proposals are not necessarily conventional in the way many politicians think about infrastructure investment, they are far superior to the failed tax-and-spend method. If President Trump wants to fix our infrastructure without breaking the bank, embracing these free market proposals is the way to do it.
For as long as I can remember every election cycle politicians have been promising to spend money on “infrastructure.” So how did we get here?
Oh yeah…Israel.
Zarathustra,
President and Congress always delivers on their promise.
They promised to spend money on “infrastructure”.
They have ALWAYS spent money on “infrastructure” in Israel.
Make Israel Great Again! is their plan!
TBP readers, check out ‘Oroville Dam Spillway’ if your want to see a classic infrastructure clusterfork.
Moonbeam Brown and his Cali libtards deferred maintenance for years on one of the largest dams is the USA, and are now shelling out over $500 billion with a B, all the while denying any malfeasance.
It’s one for the record books!
Made in COMMIfornia!
((Who)) runs that state?
Despite all of that, all of the major structures of the dam performed as designed. Only the emergency spillway failed, that that occurred far from the main structure. Kudos to the engineers who designed the Oroville Dam back in teh 60’s. Slide rules rulez!
Correction on the price tag, that’s $500 million with an M, but surely on it’s way to a billion with a B, before the dust settles.
The only part of the infrastructure with a good grade (railroads) is the one without government funding. I’m sure this is just coincidence.
Also, as a person who designs and builds this stuff for a living, the key to good infrastructure is making the people who use it, pay for it. In other words if you want a new road or bridge or sidewalk, pay for it yourself, don’t ask Uncle Sam. If you can’t afford it, you don’t need it.
harry p is right. Fund infrastructure (one of governments duties before funding the destructive money sucking imbeciles, not a Constitutional Duty).