Where Your Tax Dollars Aren't Going
Eugene Robinson says our country is falling apart, and we need an extreme makeover in concrete and steel right now:
At first I thought it was just here, in the nation’s capital and environs, where the infrastructure had deteriorated to what sometimes seem like Third World standards. In some cases, make that below Third World standards. In most of the developing countries I’ve visited, for example, they manage to keep the power on during a garden-variety thunderstorm. But here, in the most powerful city in the world – a city of humid summers, where thunderstorms are to be expected all summer long – all it takes are a few flashes of lightning, and inevitably at least a few thousand households are left in the dark.The highways around here are so clogged that there’s no longer a predictable rush hour, just random times when the Beltway is at a standstill and other random times when the traffic is merely oppressive. You could take the subway, but whatever station you use, the escalator will probably be broken. Our engineers can design a cruise missile that will turn a 90-degree corner, knock on the target’s door and say “Candygram!” to bluff its way inside, but we can’t quite master the intricacies of the escalator.
You can just walk, but be advised that occasionally something beneath a heavily trafficked sidewalk will short out and explode, turning innocent manhole covers into Frisbees of Death.
Flying manhole covers aren’t something that most Americans have to worry about, fortunately. But the general situation – nothing seems to work very well anymore, everything seems to be breaking down – ought to concern us all. The good people of New York, for example, should be inclined to pay attention after a 50-foot retaining wall collapsed a couple of months ago, burying part of a busy highway.
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, which occasionally issues a report card on the nation’s infrastructure, our physical plant is in such need of repair that it rates no more than a “D.” Since the last report card in 2001, there has been modest improvement in the condition of our airports and our school buildings, the group reported in March. Everything else has remained the same or gone downhill.
Roads are rapidly deteriorating. Mass transit has to accommodate more riders while making do with less money for maintenance. The power grid is outdated and vulnerable – not just to local thunderstorms but also to widespread blackouts. More than 27 percent of the 590,750 bridges in the country are “structurally deficient or functionally obsolete,” and for bridges in urban areas that figure rises to one in three. The number of “unsafe” dams has risen by 33 percent since 1998.
I guess, just like with 9/11, we're going to wait until disaster strikes to do something about it.
Back in August of 2003, I was eight months pregnant when the power went out across the Eastern Seaboard. It was around 4pm and I was at work when it happened. After hearing the number of cities affected, there were rumors of a terrorist attack. I remember the walk down the stairwell and then up another to the parking structure, the drive out to the freeway, listening to AM radio, wondering what really happened. Everyone was very polite and orderly I might point out. My husband had been out of town on business and was scheduled to arrive home that afternoon. Luckily his company jet was able to land at a small airport in the area and he made it home later that night. It was eerie.
Claire at August 9, 2005 6:18 AM
Well, the Evening News just reported that Mr. Bush just signed a $286 billion bill for highway & infrastructure repairs. There's a start. Just remember that individuals pay for everything.
Radwaste at August 10, 2005 5:34 PM
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