troubled bridges

[mckitterick]

The visual survey below shows the percentage of bridges per county that are "structurally deficient" as of 14 years ago. Red is a third or more of the bridges in that county. I wonder how many more are ready to collapse today?

Kinda scary to think that the bridges I cross regularly appear to be in the red, and that the Minneapolis bridge that failed this week was in a county that wasn't red.

Click the image to see the story.

Fixing all of our dangerous bridges would cost a lot of money, though, and that requires taxes. Unless we do something drastic like, say, abandon our adventures abroad for a year. Yes, according to a story I heard today, one year's expenses in Iraq could fix our failing infrastructure. Ponder that for a moment.

But there is no political will for projects like this, or for anything that requires more than four years to complete. Our stupid electoral cycles and the way politicians have to focus all their efforts on re-election prevents us from making long-term investments. Makes me sick. We'd be populating the Solar System by now if we could plan long-term... but just think about infrastructure failing out there, where failure=certain death. Do you think our current system would ensure ongoing maintenance? Doubtful. It's just not as glamorous as a war.

I suggest that we use the NeoCon tactic of fear-mongering to fix our infrastructure. Bridges can kill you! Underground steam pipes can kill you! Gas lines can kill you! Etc. Raise the fear level to red for things and people will gladly pay for it.

Oh, wait; we're not actually paying for the War on Terror™ right now, are we? Our grandchildren are. Back to having to fix the system after all.

Grrrr,
Chris

Comments

[ericreynolds.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and I saw an estimate today of $9 billion per year to fix all the bridges for the next 20 years. In five years we'd spend $45 billion. Hmmm, let's see, the Bush war has already cost $500 billion plus the priceless 100,000s of human lives (yes, Iraqis civilians are human beings, too).

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

They are? Sheesh, I thought they were just collateral damage.

[ericreynolds.livejournal.com]

Yeah, isn't it amazing how that has to be explained to all the us-and-them people?

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, ask the families of the fallen soldiers if they'd rather have had their kids building bridges or falling on IEDs; pretty sure I know the answer to that question.

Unfortunately it's easy to armchair-Commander-in-Chief the situation in Iraq, I saw an interview with Tony Blair. He is far from pure (as anyone in politics is, certainly) but he defends the decision to go to Iraq with more rationality, less petulance, and completely unapologetically. I still don't agree with either Bush or Blair on the decision to go to Iraq (or even the Sr. Bush, that first time), but I wish Bush Jr. had the balls to answer questions that way -- and that the US media would put pressure on his cabal to answer so.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I think the first Bush had better reasons, though his reasons for backing down before taking down Iraq should have informed his dolt of a son. I wish that Bush Jr. had just come out and been honest with everyone: We know why he attacked Iraq, and he should have told us - it's for the oil. Not just in the knee-jerk way, but because of a real domestic-security issue:

Saudi Arabia has most of the oil reserves, and it is approaching revolution. After revolution, they won't be very kind to us any more. Iraq has the second-largest oil reserves, and if we run the country, viola!

Except things aren't quite working out that way, so come revolution, we're screwed. So if Bush had been honest, he might have been more respectable even if his reason would have once more been for naught.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

I believe the reason that G. H. W. Bush invaded was "to restore the rightful monarchy of Kuwait," which should have been a Royal WTF moment for anyone with even a passing knowledge of American history. Since WHEN do we believe in monarchs, other than the butterfly?

And there's another thing; with ALL the f$cking noise about intellectual property, and defending it both at home and abroad, how can this not be conveyed into a stellar opportunity to research, patent, and promote alternate energy sources, and then wait for the capital to roll in from overseas? This lack of oil that is coming no matter what, this impending - no, current! - crisis about how we get stuff ALL the way across this massive nation of ours, not just food from the heartland to our stores, but how most of us get to work each day, it can be seen as an opportunity of the most massive and beneficial scale to LEAD the world in a push to adopt alternate energy sources.

Instead, it's turned into a political cat-ass-trophy that has not only burned through all international goodwill that was given to the USA post 9/11, but has diminished us in the eyes of every nation in the world. How can this be? How far does this rabbit-hole go?

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hear you. A few years ago, I lamented loudly and with great frustration that the money spent (to date at the time) could have been spent to instead build alternative-energy resources that - get this - could have

provided all the energy needs of the US

Yes, instead of creating hatred for the US across much of the world, we could instead have completely pulled out of the Middle East. Not just militarily, but financially, too. Those terrorists would have had neither reason to attack us (we're not occupying their lands) nor means to do so (we're not giving them money for oil and weapons to fight others we like less).

Don't get me started. I seriously hate the NeoCons. FOX "news" talks about Bush-haters? Well, there's a damned good reason for it. He and his cabal have done their damnedest to ruin our nation and the world around us, meanwhile throwing away money that could have saved us from being dependent on "our enemies."

SHEESH.

[kansas-dave.livejournal.com]

Pipes will burst and bridges will fail. No matter how much we spend to repair and replace infrastructure, parts will always be old and risky.

I worry more about laws passed in the heat of the moment to 'ensure that this will never happen again:' passed by politicians seeking to please an innumerate populace chasing a chimera of perfect safety.

Oh, and Bush isn't seeking reelection.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Oh, and Bush isn't seeking reelection

Yeah, which only makes it worse that he doesn't seem to care. He could do all kinds of good things on his way out as a lame duck, but instead he's obsessed with pleasing the NeoCons. Just proves he's got his priorities as messed up as he always has.

[kansas-dave.livejournal.com]

So then maybe those electoral cycles aren't so bad?

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Only if the politician actually does something good during the lame-duck period! It seems they just sit on their heinies for the last bit, most of them *g*

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

That's because they're in such dire need of protecting said heinies. How about that bill a few months ago, that they tried to pass saying, "oh, and after we're out of office, you STILL can't come after us for stuff we did, OK?"

...Right.

BTW, check this:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/08/building-better.html

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

That's cool. I look forward to seeing them starting to show up across the nation.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Well, it probably won't happen, unless they can be shown to be not only stronger, but cheaper to build and/or maintain. Government likes solutions that are in place, even when they're sub-optimal. I expect to see more same-old, same-old solutions for bridges.

Or maybe just old bridges, as-is. As you stated, the lame duck president is not exactly taking the opportunity to do anything other than Stay The Course.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Stay The Course?

More like Flay The Corpse.