America's Infastructure ASCE Report Card Shows Small Gains

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America's Infastructure ASCE Report Card Shows Small Gains

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March 19., 2013: NY Times: For the first time since they have been conducting their study, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has the grade on America's roads, bridges, water systems and energy networks improving to a D+!!
The ASCE report cites improvements in six areas: bridges, rail, wasterwater & drinking water.
From the report:
  • Once every four years, America’s civil engineers provide a comprehensive assessment of the nation’s major infrastructure categories in ASCE’s Report Card for America’s Infrastructure (Report Card). Using a simple A to F school report card format, the Report Card provides a comprehensive assessment of current infrastructure conditions and needs, both assigning grades and making recommendations for how to raise the grades. An Advisory Council of ASCE members assigns the grades according to the following eight criteria: capacity, condition, funding, future need, operation and maintenance, public safety, resilience, and innovation. Since 1998, the grades have been near failing, averaging only Ds, due to delayed maintenance and underinvestment across most categories.
    Now the 2013 Report Card grades are in, and America’s cumulative GPA for infrastructure rose slightly to a D+. The grades in 2013 ranged from a high of B- for solid waste to a low of D- for inland waterways and levees. Solid waste, drinking water, wastewater, roads, and bridges all saw incremental improvements, and rail jumped from a C- to a C+. No categories saw a decline in grade this year.
    The 2013 Report Card demonstrates that we can improve the current condition of our nation’s infrastructure — when investments are made and projects move forward, the grades rise. For example, greater private investment for efficiency and connectivity brought improvements in the rail category; renewed efforts in cities and states helped address some of the nation’s most vulnerable bridges; and, several categories benefited from short-term boosts in federal funding.
For more see the Full Report Card and Executive Summary:
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Re: America's Infastructure ASCE Report Card Shows Small Gai

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March 24, 2013: Interesting take by Brian McFadden on the D+ ASCE Report Card on America's Infrastructure in the Sunday Review section of the March 24, 2013 New York Times.
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Re: America's Infastructure ASCE Report Card Shows Small Gai

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March 3, 2014: A Disaster Brought Awareness but Little Action on Infrastructure
A recent NY Times article on our crumbling roadway infrastructure beings:
  • Like the weather, the need to repair America’s troubled bridges is something that everyone talks about, without doing a thing about it. Or at least they do not do nearly enough.
    President Obama is trying to change that equation. He has said so repeatedly in his State of the Union speeches and other messages, and he returned to that theme a few days ago. This time, Mr. Obama called for closing loophole in corporate and business tax codes to free up $302 billion that would be spent over four years to fix or replace aging bridges, roads, tunnels and rails — an infrastructure that he has described quite reasonably, if inelegantly, as “raggedy.”
The article includes the following facts:
  • Of 607,000 bridges in this country, more than 65,000 are deemed “structurally deficient” by experts.
  • In Pennsylvania, one bridge in four is so classified.
  • Some 20,000 bridges around the country are labeled “fracture critical,”; it means that the entire structure could collapse should a single critical component break.
  • At least 8,000 bridges fall into both of those categories.
  • The Federal Highway Trust Fund, the principal financing source for transportation projects, is practically kiting checks.
see the full article:
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