How Bad Is America's Infrastructure?

providing broadband internet access to Americans who don't have it yet. President Joe Biden, who's been on the road making speeches to promote the plan, calls it critical to making sure that this is quote an American century in which the US continues to lead the world instead of slipping behind other nations. Republican lawmakers and others have balked at the proposals price tag, So today let's talk about infrastructure. Infrastructure is a catch all term for the various big things

that our civilization needs to function. Roads, bridges, tunnels, rail lines, dams, buildings, and systems that supply water and electricity, just to name a few. For the article, this episode is based on how Stuff Works spoke with Joseph Chauffeur, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and Associate dean of the Engineering School at Northwestern University. He also hosts the podcast to the Infrastructure Show. He explained, it's the built environment that

supports our lives. If you didn't have infrastructure, you'd be sitting in an open field praying for rain. When the term infrastructure first came into vogue in the late eighteen hundreds, it meant the foundation or substructure of a building, road, or railroad line. It wasn't until after World War Two, when European countries began building a vast array of air fields, barracks, railways, depots, and other projects for use by NATO forces, that the

term took on a broader meaning. According to the Global Competitiveness Report of twenty nineteen, a scorecard released by the World Economic Forum, the United States ranked thirteen out of a hundred forty one countries in overall infrastructure, but still scored perfect scores of a hundred in various measures including road connectivity, access to electricity, and the safety of its drinking water. Quality of roads got a five point five

out of seven, but shouldn't we rank better. The same report ranked the United States as the second most globally competitive country in the world, behind only Singapore. So why were wet and overall infrastructure? People have been complaining about infrastructure being in a sorry state for decades. Back in the early nineteen eighties, the book America in Ruins warned that spending on public works projects was decreasing and that the nation's public facilities were wearing out faster than they

were being replaced. One of its co authors, Pat Showed, warned Congress that one of every five US bridges was in need of either a major overhaul or total reconstruction, and that New York City was losing a hundred million gallons that's almost four hundred million liters of water daily because of aging water lines, and the report cards haven't

improved much since then. In the Brookings Institution warned that China was investing four to five times as much as the US in maintaining and improving its infrastructure, and the countries like Canada, Australia, South Korea, and those in the European Union were spending significantly more as well. And in one the American Society of Civil Engineers or a s CE gave the U S a C minus for the

state of infrastructure across the nation. It warned that of US roads and highways were in quote poor or mediocre condition, and that more than forty six thousand of the nation's bridges were in such lousy shape that it would take another fifty years just to complete all the currently needed repairs. The levees and stormwater systems that protect many communities from flooding, earned a D grade. Public transit systems earned a D minus, with nearly one in five transit vehicles and six percent

of tracks, tunnels, and other facilities in poor condition. The nation's drinking water systems lose enough water every day to fill more than nine thousand swimming pools, and that's even though twelve thousand miles that's nine kilometers of water pipes were being replaced each year. The electrical grids were in somewhat better shape but still dangerously vulnerable to bad weather. Was six and thirty eight transmission outages over one recent

four year period. How stuff Works also spoke via email with Anthony J. Lamana, an engineering professor and construction expert at Arizona State University. He said the A S c report card on infrastructure has been bad for years, so this is nothing new. We've seen it coming. There are multiple reasons why US infrastructure isn't in the shape that it should be. The first simply is roads, bridges, and other pieces of infrastructure are designed to have a useful lifespan,

and inevitably their parts start to wear out. Take, for example, the bridges that are part of the nation's interstate highway system, which began construction during the Eisenhower administration more than six decades ago. Lamana said, we're nearing the end of life for some of the bridges. In fact, we're beyond it in some cases. Another problem is that much of the nation's infrastructure is controlled by the public sector, and its

upkeep is supported by taxpayers. Much of the funding for maintaining highways and bridges, for example, comes from federal and state gasoline taxes, and increasing those taxes is politically risky for elected officials, even though today's fuel efficient cars get more aisles and put more wear and tear on the

roads per gallon of gas purchased. Additionally, there's a powerful disincentive for politicians who face reelection to spend money on maintenance and renovations of existing infrastructure as opposed to putting that money into shiny new projects that will impress their constituents. And what compounds the dilemma is that while roads and bridges are in plain view, other parts of the nation's infrastructure are largely invisible, and that is until they break down.

Chauffeur explained, I can't see the water and sewer lines, but I need them. That's one downside of the civil infrastructure system in the US. Things work so well and massive failures are so rare that people say, why should you tax me more? It works fine. The problem, of course, is that if spending for maintenance and renovations is deferred for too long, infrastructure assets start to show their age

or else can't keep up with increases in demand. That's one reason that there's often a contrast in the condition of publicly controlled infrastructure and privately owned assets such as the freight rail network, where owners understand that their profits are dependent upon regular maintenance. Chauffer said, we're not spending enough, we're not spending strategically, and we're not spending in a

focused kind of way. One solution advocated by the National League of Cities and others, is to put more infrastructure assets in the hands of public private partnerships a k a P three's. In these, a private sector company will take on the financing, construction, and long term maintenance of an infrastructure asset, with the costs spread out over the life of that asset and will be paid through user fees or taxes, while the government retains actual ownership of

the asset. Lamana has another idea for improving infrastructure. He said, without getting to political, it would be awesome if we had more engineers the government. As one, there are just eight engineers in the U s House of Representatives and one in the Senate, compared to a hundred and forty four House members and fifty senators who have law degrees. Today's episode is based on the article how bad is America's Infrastructure Really? On how stuff works dot Com written

by Patrick J. Kaiger. Brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot Com, and it is produced by Tyler Clang. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.