# When are we going to invest in infrastructure? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 10, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-are-we-going-to-invest-in-infrastructure/706852 "2014-12-10T15:38:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-are-we-going-to-invest-in-infrastructure/706852/21 "2014-12-11T01:14:41Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > You think they don’t? Only high value projects make it on the list in the first place, and of course the order depends on priority. But we run out of money long before we run out of high priority projects. And it not like the need for work is standing still. As our roads and bridges and dams wear out, new stuff goes on the list no matter how much people hate new taxes. Sorry, bridges are not going to hold off from collapsing just because Joe Shmo thinks his taxes are too high. That’s exactly my point. What I’m saying is that you can’t just compare the stuff that IS getting done to the stuff that SHOULD be getting done, and then saying we aren’t doing enough. Because there’s always more stuff that needs to get done. We’ll never run out of worthwhile construction projects. In other words, the percentage of the work we should be doing that we are doing is always going to be zero, because we should be doing an infinite amount of work. Since that’s impossible, this measurement is useless. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-are-we-going-to-invest-in-infrastructure/706852/22 "2014-12-11T01:34:09Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > That’s exactly my point. What I’m saying is that you can’t just compare the stuff that IS getting done to the stuff that SHOULD be getting done, and then saying we aren’t doing enough. Because there’s always more stuff that needs to get done. We’ll never run out of worthwhile construction projects. > > In other words, the percentage of the work we should be doing that we are doing is always going to be zero, because we should be doing an infinite amount of work. Since that’s impossible, this measurement is useless. Not an infinite amount of work, since not all possible projects make it on the list. But if the list of projects most people think are worth doing keeps growing, we know we haven’t done enough. Not to mention that there are various measures of infrastructure quality - if they get worse we know we haven’t done enough. The list doesn’t get bigger because people make up stuff they want to see done, it gets bigger because stuff wears out. If we don’t fix stuff that is wearing out, I think we can all agree we’re losing ground. Then we have to deal with more traffic and load. Then we can get to “wouldn’t it be nice for the on-ramp to be longer than 100 feet” stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-are-we-going-to-invest-in-infrastructure/706852/23 "2014-12-11T01:38:46Z")
> [@XT](#): > > When the odds of Mrs. Smiths husband dying from a bridge collapse is equal to or greater than her husband falling off a ladder while changing a light bulb for the nag then it might be an issue. That’s where you are wrong - politically speaking that is. Falling off the ladder probably won’t make the news, or if it does on page 16 in two inches of column. Falling off a bridge will have screaming front page headlines and national coverage. If someone falls off a ladder the reaction will be either a tragedy the putz should have been more careful. Falling off a bridge is due to government incompetence, always fun to rail at. It is why air crashes get more coverage than car crashes - even if an equal number of people die. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-are-we-going-to-invest-in-infrastructure/706852/24 "2014-12-11T09:14:29Z")
Some mythbusting on the soon to be collapsing bridges here: [http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/the-madison-county-bridges-in-nowhere-the-perennial-myth-of-crumbling-infrastructure/](http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/the-madison-county-bridges-in-nowhere-the-perennial-myth-of-crumbling-infrastructure/) “Roughly one-third or 20,000 of these purportedly hazardous bridges are located in six rural states in America’s mid-section: Iowa, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota. The fact that these states account for only 5.9% of the nation’s population seems more than a little incongruous but that isn’t even half the puzzle. It seems that these thinly populated country provinces have a grand total of 118,000 bridges. That is, one bridge for every 160 citizens—men, women and children included.” "the overwhelming bulk of the 600,000 so-called “bridges” in America are so little used that the are more often crossed by dogs, cows, cats and tractors than they are by passenger motorists. They are essentially no different than local playgrounds and municipal parks. They have nothing to do with interstate commerce, GDP growth or national public infrastructure. “If they are structurally “deficient” as measured by engineering standards that is not exactly a mystery to the host village, township and county governments which choose not to upgrade them. So if Iowa is content to live with 5,000 bridges—one in five of its 25,000 bridges— that are deemed structurally deficient by DOT, why is this a national crisis? Self-evidently, the electorate and officialdom of Iowa do not consider these bridges to be a public safety hazard or something would have been done long ago.” ---
**Author:** ![Waterman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Waterman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waterman)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-are-we-going-to-invest-in-infrastructure/706852/25 "2014-12-11T10:09:30Z")
I don’t have a quick cite to throw into the argument at this time but the topic that everyone seems to be ignoring regarding infrastructure are the “out of sight - out of mind” items such as sewers, water mains and the treatment plants (water and wastewater) that serve them. As an example, there are water mains in Chicago that are well over 100-years old and, in fact, a drinking water pumping station that dates back to the 1870’s. This is a major problem that is ignored by localities that provide grossly insufficient funds to maintain underground conveyances. The only thing that most places respond to is when a water main breaks or sewage starts backing up in peoples houses. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-are-we-going-to-invest-in-infrastructure/706852/26 "2014-12-11T11:10:24Z")
We’ll do so on a significant scale at about the time infrastructure failures become so bad and so widespread the government has the choice between fixing them and society in general collapsing. At which point we probably won’t be able to keep up and the infrastructure of the nation _will_ fall apart in a general collapse, taking the economy down semi-permanently with it. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-are-we-going-to-invest-in-infrastructure/706852/27 "2014-12-11T15:31:54Z")
Well, that’s nonsense, obviously. Bridges that are properly maintained collapse too. > [@](#): > > [An initial investigation shows the 1,111 foot-long bridge collapsed when a tractor-trailer hauling an oversized load hit one of the bridge’s overhead tresses, known as the “superstructure,” Hersman said. > > “Obviously, this is a bridge that has lived a very long life,” she told reporters. > > While the bridge built in 1955 is showing “its age,” it appears to have been structurally sound. > > As part of the investigation, the NTSB will review the state’s maintenance and inspection records as well as any damage reports and repairs made to the bridge, Hersman said]([http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/24/us/washington-bridge-collapse/](http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/24/us/washington-bridge-collapse/)). Incidentally, this was the only major bridge collapse I could find for 2013. No one was killed, and three injured. And simply throwing money around because the construction industry needs it is what leads to bridges to nowhere, or the example of Japan. > [@](#): > > Japan spent too much on increasingly wasteful roads and bridges, and not enough in areas like education and social services, which studies show deliver more bang for the buck than infrastructure spending. > > “It is not enough just to hire workers to dig holes and then fill them in again,” said Toshihiro Ihori, an economics professor at the University of Tokyo. “One lesson from Japan is that public works get the best results when they create something useful for the future.” > > In total, Japan spent $6.3 trillion on construction-related public investment between 1991 and September of last year, according to the Cabinet Office. The spending peaked in 1995 and remained high until the early 2000s, when it was cut amid growing concerns about ballooning budget deficits. More recently, the governing Liberal Democratic Party has increased spending again to revive the economy and the party’s own flagging popularity. > > In the end, say economists, it was not public works but an expensive cleanup of the debt-ridden banking system, combined with growing exports to China and the United States, that brought a close to Japan’s Lost Decade. This has led many to conclude that spending did little more than sink Japan deeply into debt, leaving an enormous tax burden for future generations. [Cite](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/world/asia/06japan.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0). Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-are-we-going-to-invest-in-infrastructure/706852/28 "2014-12-11T16:55:57Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > “If they are structurally “deficient” as measured by engineering standards that is not exactly a mystery to the host village, township and county governments which choose not to upgrade them. So if Iowa is content to live with 5,000 bridges—one in five of its 25,000 bridges— that are deemed structurally deficient by DOT, why is this a national crisis? Self-evidently, the electorate and officialdom of Iowa do not consider these bridges to be a public safety hazard or something would have been done long ago.” So? That no one wants to upgrade lightly used bridges in no way means that it is also pointless to do earthquake retrofits for bridges over the San Francisco Bay. Which aren’t used by dogs. If they collapse, the loss of life would be bad enough, but the millions lost due to traffic disruptions for years afterward would be the real problem. Well maintained cars break. Poorly maintained cars might go for a hundred thousand miles with few problems. That’s not a reason to say that oil changes are useless. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-are-we-going-to-invest-in-infrastructure/706852/29 "2014-12-11T17:55:46Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > [http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/the-madison-county-bridges-in-nowhere-the-perennial-myth-of-crumbling-infrastructure/](http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/the-madison-county-bridges-in-nowhere-the-perennial-myth-of-crumbling-infrastructure/) I will admire Mr. Stockman for his — as ex-Reagan chief economist — amusing entitling including _Contra_ for his blog. Very **Fuck-You**. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-are-we-going-to-invest-in-infrastructure/706852/30 "2014-12-11T18:00:30Z")
> [@Waterman](#): > > I don’t have a quick cite to throw into the argument at this time but the topic that everyone seems to be ignoring regarding infrastructure are the “out of sight - out of mind” items such as sewers, water mains and the treatment plants (water and wastewater) that serve them. > > As an example, there are water mains in Chicago that are well over 100-years old and, in fact, a drinking water pumping station that dates back to the 1870’s. This is a major problem that is ignored by localities that provide grossly insufficient funds to maintain underground conveyances. The only thing that most places respond to is when a water main breaks or sewage starts backing up in peoples houses. You’ve been waiting for this thread ever since you picked out your username, haven’t you? 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Waterman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Waterman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waterman)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-are-we-going-to-invest-in-infrastructure/706852/31 "2014-12-11T21:34:59Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > You’ve been waiting for this thread ever since you picked out your username, haven’t you? 🆒 Good timing indeed, but having spent 40+ years working in water and wastewater and seeing the neglect in maintaining the infrastructure of these systems is just amazing. And yet, most everyone on this thread still keeps talking about roads and bridges. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-are-we-going-to-invest-in-infrastructure/706852/32 "2014-12-11T22:12:56Z")
> [@Waterman](#): > > Good timing indeed, but having spent 40+ years working in water and wastewater and seeing the neglect in maintaining the infrastructure of these systems is just amazing. > > And yet, most everyone on this thread still keeps talking about roads and bridges. :smack: If it makes you feel better, for the last year or so people in California have been talking about water more than bridges. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-are-we-going-to-invest-in-infrastructure/706852.md?page=1)