The Hoover Dam, completed c. 1935, a year ahead of schedule at a cost of $49 Million ($900 Million, today), along with President Eisenhower’s Interstate highway system, was American infrastructure at its best. Those two projects allowed for a city to be built in the dessert (Las Vegas) and for unrivaled interstate transport of goods coast to coast, and beyond. Add to that hundreds of bridges, tunnels, and other highways supporting a country which, with its abundant natural resources, built itself into one of the most powerful economies in the history of the world.
Without the infrastructure, it never would have happened. Look at Africa – abundant resources but no infrastructure leaves it poor in today’s rich world (corruption doesn’t help, either). Today, American infrastructure is crumbling right under our noses. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives the current state of America’s infrastructure a grade of D+ and estimates it would take $3.6 Trillion by 2020 to make it right (http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/). That amount is 20% of our annual GDP, total, or 5% of GDP per year. The annual defense budget is 3.5% of GDP. In general, this important issue is being ignored – why?
First, many people don’t believe it or simply are not aware enough of it. We drive where we want, over highways and bridges that seem to work ok, we drink clean water, we flush away our wastes, we buy what we want in nearby well-stocked stores, we fly to our vacations, we take public transit when it’s convenient (or necessary for many, although 45% of households have no access), we love our parks, we educate our kids, and we turn on the lights every night – all of which depends on infrastructure. Notwithstanding annoying traffic and airport snarls along with a few brownouts, everything seems to work, so what’s with the doomsday song? Look a little closer. One in nine bridges is structurally deficient; we’ve already seen a few collapse. Schools are getting so poorly funded that Chicago teachers and Boston students have recently taken to the streets. The Federal Highway Administration says it needs $170 Billion/year for capital investment just to keep up (i.e., maintenance is another issue), but there’s not enough money. The gas tax (levied on a per gallon basis) was once sufficient to pay for this, but now is not because cars go twice as far on a gallon than they used to (how’s that for unintended consequences?). Moreover, beyond being a simple rush hour annoyance, 42% of urban highways remain congested at a cost of $100 Billion/year in terms of wasted gas and time. With 33 Million more air passengers in 2011 compared to 2000, airports are at their limit, threatening safety and costing over $20 Billion/year in wasted time and fuel. Our 100 year old water supply infrastructure is nearing the end of its useful life, as shown by the 250,000 water main breaks every year. Our infrastructure is limping and held together with band aids.
Second, people don’t want to pay to fix it. We all want good schools but we think our property taxes are already too high. We want good schools but tolerate near-poverty-level teacher salaries. We want good roads, but the price of gas is already too high (notwithstanding the current, temporary reprieve) so no way do we want higher gas taxes. We want safe water and flush toilets, and have evolved to believe these public services are rights. Over a billion people in the world spend more than 4 hours a day getting water while we just turn on the tap and wash our driveways with drinking water. We are living beyond our means – either due to government inefficiency or to our own luxurious expectations. One word might best apply – Rome.
Third, politicians have no stomach to vote for invisible things with timelines beyond their terms. They want something to show you now for your taxes! Building a new bridge today is better for votes than fixing an old one tomorrow. The Brooklyn Bridge took 13 years to build and its designer didn’t even live to see it completed while many of the New York legislators that approved it had left office by the time it was completed. As with many infrastructure projects at the time, the vision of and the need for the bridge transcended individual time scales. Today, politicians prefer to kick the infrastructure can down the road for the next generation to deal with along with social security, the debt, and climate change.
This last point, the lack of political will, may well be the crux. America has lost its vision and willingness to create a future. We believe we are already there. Gone are the days when we knuckled down and built. Even during the Depression we put a CCC to work building infrastructure rather than just sit around. Now, we wait for a crisis to deal with almost everything. Infrastructure just may become a crisis; will we be able to deal if it does? Perhaps, but wouldn’t visionary leadership and political guts today be better to avoid those bumps in the road tomorrow?