Crumbling America Has a $2.2 Trillion Repair Bill

[unhappycamper]

Crumbling America Has a $2.2 Trillion Repair Bill
by Rupert Cornwell
Published on Sunday, October 17, 2010 by The Independent/UK

First, a tale of two rail tunnels. One of them is in Switzerland – the 35-mile Gotthard Base tunnel, the cutting of which was completed on Friday amid great national rejoicing, and which, when it opens for business in 2017, will be the longest of its kind in the world. It will have cost $10bn (£6.2bn), representing $1,300 of taxpayer's money for every citizen in the land of William Tell. But it will bestow huge benefits not only on Switzerland, but on north-south freight and passenger traffic for all Europe.

The other rail tunnel is (or rather was) in New Jersey, and would have linked the Garden State to Manhattan, vastly improving clogged access to New York City, with long-term economic benefits to match. The project, 20 years in the planning, would have cost around $9bn, or roughly $1,000 for each inhabitant of one of the richest states in the US.

Alas, it is not to be. A few days ago, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey announced his state was pulling out, in effect dooming the tunnel even though digging has started and $500m has already been spent. The cost was simply too high, he declared; in these cash-strapped times, New Jersey had better things to spend its money on. And so you start to understand the silent crisis that is undermining America: the creeping decay of its public infrastructure.

It's happening everywhere, from potholed interstate highways and grimy railways, to congested airports and a creaking air traffic control system that only adds to the increasingly third world experience of flying in the US. And hold your breath when you cross an American bridge: a 2005 study found that fully a quarter of them were structurally inadequate or obsolete.

Every now and then, the defects explode into the national consciousness – when breaches in scandalously neglected levees led to the flooding of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, or when the Interstate 35 bridge in Minneapolis collapsed one sunny rush hour afternoon in August 2007, sending 13 people to their deaths as their cars plunged into the Mississippi river.



unhappycamper comment: One must ask: 'Where did all the money go?'

Answer: To our corporate masters running Wall Street Casino and the Iraq and Afghanistan adventures.

[madokie]

1. This shortsightedness will be back to bite us in the arse

All of our infrastructure is in need of repairs and upgrades but its receiving very little of either

[mdmc]

2. r

[Obamanaut]

3. If the House would write some spending bills that involve repairing

some of the "Crumbling America" rather than write the ones that 'crumble up the rest of the world', imagine how much repair work here could already have been made with a whole lot of currently jobless people.

The House still writes spending bills and sends them to the Senate, doesn't it? And doesn't a Democrat in the House (controlled by Democrats for awhile now) control which bills get to the floor?

But they did fix that pesky problem of overly loud teevee commercials. Yay.

[GoCubsGo]

7. They have.

They just need to re-name them "Crumbling America." Good idea. I hope some of them read your post.

[MadHound]

4. Another reason why we need a trillion dollar WPA style jobs creation program

Our infrastructure is forty plus years out of date. It needs to be repaired and upgraded if we're going to stay competitive with the rest of the world. It is a great long term investment, but sadly, we have politicians who are thinking only in the short term, if they're thinking at all.

[Panaconda]

5. K&R for that n/t

[City Lights]

6. K&R. nt

[Historic NY]

8. I'm reminded everyday...the bridge up the street is failing...........

as contractors try to band-aide it by sealing the crumbling concrete. It was to have been replaced in 1995. The nearby little stone arch bridge dates to the 1880's and its motar is crumbling too.