What Does It All Mean? Minneapolis Bridge Collapse
I just looked outside at my car. It needs three things to operate: 1. Fuel 2. Roads 3. Me. No fuel? It doesn't go. No roads? It doesn't go very far or very long. And what about me? Where do I want to go?
How do we preserve our physical mobility? I want to travel when I need to and use the least resources while making the least negative environmental impact. When I go I need to be able to get the fuel. Our country spends hundreds of billions to assure it is available to us. Plenty of tax breaks for the oil companies. Plenty military might, etc. No fuel and we are an economically hurting and hungry nation. When we get used to something at relatively low - perhaps subsidized - prices, we tend to take it for granted and, yes, we waste it.
What will we run out of first? Roads? Fuel? Time? In Minneapolis recently it was, sadly and suddenly, time and roads. In our most congested cities, it is usually time. And if something happens in the US petroleum industry, it will be fuel or your wallet. To use the new, very impressive technology we read about every day on ABG, I think we have to stretch our resources of petrofuel and roads as long as we can. It takes time to replace 200 million vehicles with PHEVs, EVs, biofuels, fuel cells. And even when we replace all those vehicles, we will still need roads.
Will we spend hundreds of billions to protect our fuel supply, more hundreds of billions to purchase new, hi-tech vehicles, but then short change ourselves by not maintaining our roads?
What do you think we should do?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Travis Rassat 11:18AM (8/15/2007)
Great topic, Art. Personally, I think the first step needs to involve prioritization on the part of our government. I think the key word is "efficiency."
We all know our government is not known for being efficient. What might have once been 80% efficient might now only be 78% efficient, but that 2% really adds up with a government-sized budget. In essence, we're bleeding from all over. Controlling that bleeding and improving our efficiency is key to making the most of what we have.
In the U.S., we've become a society fascinated with throwing big, round dollar amounts at something, but do we consider how efficiently we are using those dollars? If a city builds a new football stadium for $500 million, are they really getting a $500 million stadium, or is it a $400 million stadium with $100 million in padding? Are we spending the money efficiently or are we just really impressed with a nice, round half billion dollar figure? Is anybody checking to make sure the budget for something is realistic? We are a culture that nickels and dimes ourselves to death (and further into debt).
Efficient thinking is why I like environmental thinking - it's a way to get the most out of the resources we have available to us. Unfortunately, we've become a luxury culture of "wants" rather than an efficient culture of "needs." We've learned to think that we can't live without things that were considered luxury items many years ago.
Anyway, the point I'm hoping to make is that if the government were to concentrate on being more efficient with spending, could we do a better job of taking care of what we have? Too often, we are overspending for the upfront costs and trying to compensate that by cutting maintenance costs. That's not gonna work in the long run...
On another note, I personally think we spend too much money on trying to control things happening outside of our borders rather than taking care of what is inside them. Obviously, all that is very complicated and I am certainly no expert on the world economy and international affairs. In my layman's opinion, the Department of Defense should be about defense, not offense. I'll leave it at that.
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motosaurus 5:37PM (8/15/2007)
A few points:
The coverage in the newspapers and NPR of the technical problem has been abysmal, as usual for all technical issues. More surprising is the lack of coverage on the political side - who voted against infrastructure; who took revenues out of road taxes and used them for non-transportation and general fund.
The interstates were originally built as "defense highways" - a quaint concept even at the time, but it got the neanderthals on board in Congress. Even with pollution and sprawl, most would agree they were essential.
Last, the weight of trucks and the numbers of vehicles are both far above design loads on our highways. They should be taxed accordingly, and maintenance should be increased to keep up.
motosaurus
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Mulad 2:35PM (8/15/2007)
I don't know if government really is as inefficient as some believe. There have been studies saying that the government actually does really well at limiting overhead of healthcare programs, an order of magnitude better than the private sector. But, whether that's been proven by more than one study I can't say (there's always some study out there somewhere which supports your own opinion...)
There's also a problem that budget issues are never put into very good context. Reporters like to glom onto big numbers, but never say what the overspending or surplus is on a percentage basis. Say you have a government that's $100 million overbudget. Just by looking at that number, you don't know if it's over by 100% or just 0.1%. People tend to scream just as loudly either way, even though one is awful and the other is statistically insignificant.
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Bob from ALAMN 2:43PM (8/15/2007)
As I type this, I am only a few miles from the wreakage of the 35W bridge. There are still very likey bodies yet to be found. To understand how we Minnesotans have looked at this issue, see the August posts in this community website, which also reported the news of the collapse as it happened and the (sometimes) heated debate on transportation infrastructure that followed:
http://www.MNspeak.com
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rgseidl 3:02PM (8/15/2007)
The problem is that Congress funds major roads and bridges as pork barrel projects and then walks away from them, leaving states to take of the politically thankless task of maintenance. At some point, though, infrastructure needs to be replaced at great expense, rather than just inspected and patched up.
Getting Congress to pony up for that would require bureaucrats in the states to ring the alarm bells early and loudly. Squeaky wheel gets the WD-40 etc. However, drivers might well be reluctant to use any bridge that was clearly advertised as in urgent need of replacement. Congress would pretty quickly claim it was being blackmailed. Ergo, state politicians minimize their exposure to all things infrastructure by tinkering with it until disaster strikes and Congress pretty much has to act.
In Europe, national governments have traditionally both built and maintained the transport infrastrucutre. Where appropriate, they co-ordinated with their neighbors. The EU, whose budget equals roughly 1% of GNP, spends approx. half of that on infrastructure projects, mostly but not exclusively in the poorest member states. After a number of bridges to nowhere, there is now much better oversight of all phases of related projects, including mandatory formal tenders and quality control by EU officials. Europe does not have an equivalent of the US Army Corps of Engineers, nor can its legislators insert earmarks into bills.
If a project involving EU money is mismanaged, some or all of the funds have to be returned to the EU and, there is additional scrutiny on future projects in that country. Usually, the only indication ordinary citizens have that a given project is co-funded by the EU is the EU flag on the billboard describing it at the construction site. This is because the EU Commission is a bureaucracy rather than an elected government.
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Travis Rassat 3:31PM (8/15/2007)
Those are great points, Mulad. Like you say, putting things into the perspective of percentage vs. raw numbers is definitely more effective information. It's unfortunate that media or organizational biases make it hard to get good information. Like you said, there's always some study out there that will support your opinion...
My next question then, is "what can we consider 'statistically insignificant'?" Obviously, it's probably impossible to define what statistically insignificant is in this case, but I think it's that gray area in which the waste lies. I develop business intelligence software, and that's the kind of stuff that intrigues me and my company's customers. I'm sure there are many government departments that use this type of statistical analysis, but that's where I wonder how effective it can be, or more importantly, how effectively it is interpreted.
Anyway, I'm just kind of babbling - thanks for your thoughts, Mulad.
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Don 4:16PM (8/15/2007)
What can we do, Art? Write our Congressmen about infrastructure maintenance? Other than that I think I'll just pray the bridge I'm going over doesn't collapse.
I'm not sure I see your point.
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kballs 11:23PM (8/15/2007)
Choices:
1. stop whining and pay a few cents gas tax increase
2. stop whining and pay a little more for license tabs
3. pay road and bridge tolls everywhere you go
This stuff isn't free and it's naive to demand more roads and road widening and rebuilt bridges without paying for it... common phrases I hear: "Use the money they already have from all the taxes I pay", "Let the government borrow money and never pay it back, who cares about inflation"... the taxes we already pay barely cover basic maintenance, let alone full replacement.
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