Nations infrastructure

How much do you think about the state of the roads and bridges you ride on?

No idea what could be done to avoid a tragedy, but it's on my mental radar.

No idea what could be done to avoid a tragedy.........

How much do you think about the state of the roads and bridges you ride on?.

I don't

Similar to Shawn's answer but on two wheels! Now hold on folks, this is about to launch into the P zone in three...two...

BTW bet ^ that didn't end well.

Pat

I used to work in an office full of bridge engineers. They were none too confident of older steel structure bridges.

I maintained a budget calculation application for NAVAIR (Naval Aviation) a few years ago. Users would spend months entering and prioritizing all the projects they wanted money for the next year. At budget time the app would iterate every project, in every program by priority, adding money as it went (until the money ran out) i.e. it would fund all the priority ones, start over for priority twos, and so on. There were flags for must fund and accept partial.

A naive way to fund infrastructure would be to increase the priority it receives. Unfortunately there is little to no funding now which means more money would be needed. In today's world that means increasing debt. There is a good argument that repairing roads and bridges would be paid back by increased economic activity, but I'd make a wild ass guess the ROI on that would be greater than 50 years.

There is an even greater complexity in the balancing the needs, prioritizing and funding, of urban vs rural projects. I've seen major highway intersections replaced in SoCal in less than five years, but I'd bet there is 20-30 years of work needed in rural America. How would you maintain urban interest in funding rural projects for that long?

I can't help but think that the economic prosperity we have experienced in the last 60 years is closely tied to the interstate highway system, not to mention the lesser state routes and rural roads. It has had a profound effect on everything in our culture and economy.

To neglect it and continue to kick the can down the road seems short sighted while the negative impacts of a deteriorating system will only accelerate. Bridge failures don't even surprise us anymore. The costs of neglect affect us all in very visible tangible ways, while we are good at spending money to blow things up we don't seem to be able to find money to build things.

I hope that wasn't construed as political, it isn't intended to be.

The interstate highway system is a unique case. I believe it was initially conceived and perhaps funded as part of our Emergency Response System. It has indeed become a logistics panacea.

Today's world is more inwardly focused. We concern ourselves more with what our country should do for us than the opposite. That may be the reason our infrastructure is in decay.

 

 

To neglect it and continue to kick the can down the road seems short sighted while the negative impacts of a deteriorating system will only accelerate.

 

That methodology is what put my home state, Illinois, at the bottom of all 50 states when it comes to our finances. A story I see repeating itself over and over again across our nation.

At some point, the piper has to be paid.

At some point, the piper has to be paid.

Does it? Illinois, and others, are in currently in dire straights, but they are not going away. Things will change over time. Enough people will accept any change as the new normal and go on.

Our state constitution guarantees state pension payments. The previous administration went to the Illinois Supreme Court and tried to find a legal way to circumvent the constitution. The Supreme Court said that the language of the constitution was, clear and could not be worked around. States can not file for bankruptcy protection like cities can.

The state's argument was that the financial crisis was so great that the "Police Powers" of the state over rode the constitutional language. The Supreme Court unanimously rejected that argument saying that the pension payments came before any other financial obligation of the state. The state then tried to argue that the pension agreements could be changed if the recipients were given something of value in exchange. No go on that try either. So the pension payments continue to take up more and more of the state's budget. The rating companies continue to downgrade our bonds to junk status. So we have to pay more to borrow money.

Two choices: 1. Raise taxes (which has been done) 2. Reduce other spending. But the fiddle playing continues in our state capital.

To say the outlook is bleak is an understatement.

That's nuts, but a great picture. I wouldn't do it not even on a GS.

That bridge collapse in Minnesota is a nightmare come true. The plus is that on a bike, you're less likely to agitate a weak bridges structure as you cross. The minus is that the 18 wheeler behind you will, and you're not in an airbag equipped cage.

I cross some bridges that are fairly high up in elevation. One I never enjoy crossing except for the view is the Castleton upon Hudson bridge about 30 miles south of Albany, NY on I think route 87. It's a very long bridge elevated very high up, and if that thing collapses, there will be no survivors.

Being that this site doesn't allow political discussion (a good thing), I will only say read up on it. Find out where your tax dollars go, and write your representatives.

Good luck! :-)

How much do you think about the state of the roads and bridges you ride on?

 

No idea what could be done to avoid a tragedy, but it's on my mental radar.

I worry about it all the time.

We recently had a nice hefty gas tax increase in MI which was sold (again) as fixing our crap roads. My daily commute from Detroit to Lansing via I96 is an absolute joke.

And most of the bridges and overpasses have large missing chunks of concrete, with bare, rusting, re-bar exposed.

I guess we'll need to get someone killed via falling concrete.....as a catalyst to raise taxes again to fix the roads.

What gets the most? The discussion only involves repairs, when someone should be looking at "why are we constantly repairing over and over and over?"

My wife's friend used to handle construction proposals for the state and new advanced materials were routinely rejected. There's a large construction lobby, long rumored to be lining the pockets of certain state MDOT administrator's.

Us mere subjects pay for it, one way or another.....

done with rant.

RPG

Is it fair to say we are not spending our money wisely?

 

I cross some bridges that are fairly high up in elevation. One I never enjoy crossing except for the view is the Castleton upon Hudson bridge about 30 miles south of Albany, NY on I think route 87. It's a very long bridge elevated very high up, and if that thing collapses, there will be no survivors.

In the long run none of us survive, but also in the grand scheme of things most of us have not seen the view from that bridge - and I think it's the best view of the Hudson.

...but then I hope none of us die in a bridge collapse. I guess I'm just saying, in a sort of answer to your original question, I don't worry about it while I'm riding/driving, but I do sort of wonder when or if we're going to get things on track. Maybe just wait for the flying cars?

We have seen the enemy and it is us. Like so many things from garbage collection, the roads, to what ever; Americans want their services in full and complain like hell when it isn't delivered, but scream even louder and vote the rascals out when it is time to pony up and pay for it. Pure madness with no end in sight.

Is it fair to say we are not spending our money wisely?

Yes

We have seen the enemy and it is us. Like so many things from garbage collection, the roads, to what ever; Americans want their services in full and complain like hell when it isn't delivered, but scream even louder and vote the rascals out when it is time to pony up and pay for it. Pure madness with no end in sight.

I think there are two camps here. The ones that want, and the ones that don't want to pay. Regardless, the weakness I see in the system is the candidate promising the most from the public coffers wins.

A childhood friend of mine who still lives in Detroit is complaining on Facebook about potholes so large you can plant trees in them. Wow. This is a problem in every city with snow plows, but I'm sure they're particularly bad in Detroit.

Soon it'll be riding season again, be on the lookout for these ride killers!

Loosen a few laws and something like this becomes the realistic answer

We recently had a nice hefty gas tax increase in MI which was sold (again) as fixing our crap roads. My daily commute from Detroit to Lansing via I96 is an absolute joke.

 

And most of the bridges and overpasses have large missing chunks of concrete, with bare, rusting, re-bar exposed.

I drive from Ann Arbor to Lansing a couple of times a month. The Spencer Road bridge near Brighton comes to mind: lots of concrete missing and bare re-bar. Every time I go under that thing I wonder if I'm going to be the one to get a chunk of concrete through my windshield.

Apart from that bridge, I don't tend to worry too much, I guess. My worst experience was in 1999, just a week after buying my R1100RT. I was on I-275 north, transitioning to I-696 east. At that time the roads were in abysmal shape; I was busy dodging the worst of them, until finally there was one that was completely unavoidable, and I went straight through it. It damn near pitched me off of the bike. Insurance paid to replace both bent rims and tires, but I didn't notice the other damage until much later:

-the rear shock preloader had a bolt to mount it to the frame tube; the bolt head left a permanent impression in the rear swingarm.

-the front swingarm deformed in the area around the ball joint, right above the wheel. I wouldn't have noticed it, except over the next few years the black paint on that front swingarm began peeling from that area.

I've seen my share of potholes and rough roads since then, but never anything that bad, at least not around here. Maybe someday we'll see more bridge collapses like that one in Minneapolis 11 years ago; if we get a few of those events over a short time span, then you'll probably see a lot more support for increased infrastructure spending.