Over at Bloomberg there was a remarkably sound column on civil infrastructure. Here’s the response to those who complain about “our crumbling infrastructure”:
The nation would benefit from reordering its infrastructure priorities — away from new highways, for example, where we are already overbuilt and usage is falling for the first extended period on record. And we’d do well to take advantage of low interest rates and idle construction resources to knock out all of our future infrastructure needs.
But the idea that the U.S. has an infrastructure crisis? No. A broad, permanent increase in spending is unwarranted.
It’s in the middle of the pack. Between 2001 and 2011, annual public investment averaged 3.3 percent of gross domestic product, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The average OECD nation spent 3 percent of GDP over the same period.
A 2011 study by Marco Percoco, a professor at Bocconi University in Italy, shows that U.S. public investment has tracked the OECD average since at least 1970. Developed nations invest between 2 percent and 3.5 percent of GDP. The U.S. is about where it should be — close to peer nations such as Canada, Germany and Australia. Nations that spend substantially more tend to be in a phase of catch-up growth, such as South Korea and Poland
I wonder if any report is more misused than the annual report card on America’s infrastructure offered by the ASCE, the civil engineers’ professional organization.
Civil engineers design roads and bridges and produce plans for building them soundly and efficiently. They do not determine which roads and bridges are worth building or maintaining. Those are the things that are determined by the political process.
In a world of infinite resources we’d bring every road and bridge up to peak condition. We don’t live in that world. In the world we do live in we need to decide whether we want to build or refurbish bridges that serve a dozen people and for which there are ready alternatives or reduce the number of kids in each school classroom (just to give an example). When the people being served by a bridge don’t think it’s worth maintaining, I’m willing to bow to their judgement. The bridge will show up in the ASCE report card anyway.
I’ve never liked that report card, since it plays on the power that experts have in a democracy. No one wants unsafe bridges, and a layperson isn’t in a position to determine if a bridge they (or their kids school bus, for that matter) drives on every day is unsafe. The fears were stoked after the I-35W bridge fell in Minnesota in 2007.
Unfortunately, experts often tend to be represented by media consultants and lobbyists whose job it is to drum up business.
One solution might be greater transparency on infrastructure – such as a website that says whether a bridge is in good shape or deteriorated – as well as what that means (for example, a bridge that can’t serve heavy trucks driving past at 65 MPH might be very safe for passenger traffic at half that speed, and so should be used for such), as well as a national education on how (and how often) bridges are inspected for their safety.
I think it goes beyond whether civil engineers are advocating their immediate self-interest; the more roads we build the more the cost to maintain them in the future — it becomes sort of a self-reinforcing ponzi-scheme in which we try to heal a weak economy by building more roads to encourage growth. This is guild and family security for generations.
I personally think the methodology on roads is suspect, co-mingling poor with mediocre roads, and claiming billions of dollars in lost time from being stuck in traffic, which has multiple causes and the cure of making the roads more efficient could make worse.
Shaw, I think you’re right about the ‘ponzi-esque’ aspect. I also think we’re overbuilt in some areas (geographically and in terms of certain categories of infrastructure), partly because of the way federal funding works (where almost 100% of the construction jobs, and almost none of the money, come from within a powerful Congressman’s district).
Toll bridges used to be the rule, not the exception – and presumably, those used often enough were kept in good repair.
I can see you’ve never driven on the Chicago Skyway.
I think everyone here knows what I’ve done for a living. I’ve been seeing deals as a lender and a principal to deal with our “declining infrastructure” for 23 years. Never happens.
We have issues. They are less than you think. And the money, because its spent by govt, is pretty sloppy. There are areas of need, but not ginormous.
What does that tell you?
I am a retired civil engineer and a life member of the ASCE. Reports coming out of its headquarters are always suspect usually support the narrow self interests of its leadership. The leadership also signs off on any faddish nonsense that can be exloited to increase business. They also work against the interests of junior civil engineers and engineering students by promoting over production by engineering schools, immigration and restrictive licensing requirements.
That said, civil engineering practice is a challenging and rewarding professional, and most of what we benefits our society.