Working for the County Commissioner in Ellis County Pct. 3, I’ve seen my share of bridge damage and road damage with all the rains we’ve had this summer.
(Yes that’s a five foot culvert that used to run under Whitten Rd – it buckled and snapped in half with all the rain water).
Granted our roads and bridges are nothing like the I-35 bridge outside Minneapolis, and granted, we haven’t had any fatalities on our damaged roadways — but as reported on Treehugger, “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.
There’s this really odd way of thinking (especially of some elected officials in Ellis County) that if we don’t maintain our infrastructure (i.e. facilities, roads, bridges, etc.) we can keep our tax rate low and get re-elected and pass the maintenance off to the people who come behind us.
What might have cost a lot less if things had been taken care of originally are now costing more to rebuild or completely replace.
Where’s the logic in that?
More from Treehugger:
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.”
Let’s wake up and take care of what we have now – or end up paying a much higher price later on.
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.”