It is almost a general knowledge that the United States’ infrastructure system is showing its cracks literally. Most of the roads, highways, and rails are old and nearing their design life and functioning below par.
Because of this government advocates are calling for more spending and investment on infrastructure.
The former President Obama in his presidential speech appealed for $40 billion infrastructure investment to repair bridges and roads and for a federal infrastructure bank. He asked for an additional $4 billion to send on infrastructure.
Current President Trump also mentioned his plan to address the infrastructure deficit of the US during his first state of the union speech.
With the US being in a trillion dollars public debt, government advocates must find a compelling reason to convince the American taxpayers that investment in infrastructure is the right direction despite risks on job safety and employment.
To support this is the D+ rating of aging and unsafe bridges, ports, and roads by the American Society of Civil Engineers assessment of US infrastructure.
On the other hand, there are advocates who are saying that the US infrastructure is as good as Europe’s and the fact is that America is spending more on infrastructure than Europe.
If this is true, then why does the US infrastructure report card by ASCE gets the D+ rating? What is wrong then and who is to be blamed?
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers in their Failure Act Studies, they estimated a $1.7 trillion dollars to improve US infrastructure plus $160 billion a year to restore it to first world infrastructure up to 2020.
Civil engineers argued that even though the US does not have these figures yet, borrowing for this wise investment could certainly be an option as they project that these $3 trillion dollars in infrastructure investment will raise the GDP by $3.1 trillion – a 3 to 1 return and would create 3.5 million jobs. This sounds very optimistic.
The OECD statistics finds that the US spent 3.3 per cent of its GDP from 2006 to 2011 on infrastructure compared to 3.1 per cent of the European Union’s spending. So the US, after all, is spending more on its infrastructure.
So if indeed the US spends more on infrastructure and yet have a miserable infrastructure rating, where did the bucks go? How do authorities prepare the infrastructure program of works?
Institutionalizing infrastructure asset management planning in local and national government authorities would provide a comprehensive picture of the country’s infrastructure undertaking.
While subjecting the current civil works situation to the infrastructure management process is quite a big task, the benefits outweigh the cost.
Following an infrastructure management plan, working on the renewal and maintenance of America’s aging infrastructure would mean all aspect of resources are better managed.
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