Rotten Roads Ahead: U.S. Infrastructure Is Falling Apart

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

The U.S. transportation system is in danger of falling apart, and will take down the economy with it, Bill Shuster, chairman of the House of Representatives Transportation Committee, said today while Reuters was keeping notes:

“If we don’t deal with this issue at some point, as I said, we will reach a tipping point and the transportation system may not recover and we will fall behind the rest of the world.”

According to Shuster, the U.S. transportation system has already “gone from being one of the top three, four (or) five systems in the world to now we’re 23 or 24, so we need to act.”

A recent study from the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated the United States needs to spend $2.75 trillion to maintain and improve its infrastructure by 2020.

The ASCE gave America’s roads a D-

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Volt 230 Volt 230 on Feb 14, 2013

    Road and gas taxes should be used for what they were meant to be, not to pay for medicaid or food stamps.

  • Don Mynack Don Mynack on Feb 14, 2013

    These same business groups have been pushing for this tax increase since at least 2008. They seem to not understand the law of unintended consequences - raising taxes on consumption, after a certain point, depresses demand for a product even more, leading to less revenue, not more. They are just as likely to increase revenue by lowering the tax, as they are by increasing it. If infrastructure, on a federal level (which is what this article refers to), requires more spending, then I recommend eliminating these, to start with: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/taxcenter.shtml I'd also look at this more holistically; we have an entire arm of the gov't, and favorite of the current administration, encouraging lower fuel consumption, if fact, blatantly doing so via the tax code. We are told this has benefits to society, but we are not told of the costs (the old cost/benefit analysis, always ignored by enviros). Look at our gov't propaganda here: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/why.shtml I would favor increased spending on infrastructure by severely reducing the role of the EPA in policy decisions on these matters. The EPA should primarily concern itself with regulating industrial pollution, and nothing else.

  • R H R H on Feb 14, 2013

    I think the issue some people having with paying increased taxes is that they've been burned in the past. How many Taxes needed for X have been used for unrelated purposes? I know here our "temporary tollway, soon freeway!" system had the slogan "free in 73!". Our tolls for this "soon-to-be-free" system just recently doubled IIRC in 2012. The original goal was to only toll drivers until the bonds were paid off. However the tollway keeps re-issuing bonds so they never legally have to convert to becoming a freeway. On top of that we have gas taxes as well.... http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/iteam&id=8327185

  • Thornmark Thornmark on Feb 15, 2013

    If there were serious about infrastructure they would repeal Davis-Bacon, which drives costs way up. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/02/repealing-the-davis-bacon-act-would-save-taxpayers-$10-9-billion And how about the "Big Dig", cost many many X forecast and, at $22 billion, more than 3 Panama Canals. Oh, and it's falling apart. Thank you Tip O'Neill for overriding Reagan's veto: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig

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