PDA

View Full Version : 21 Facts About America's Decaying Infrastructure That Will Blow Your Mind



Ponce
21st September 2012, 10:40 AM
I disagree with #15 because we will be so broke that very few ships form the outside will be coming to the US.

Go to link for complete article........ http://www.blacklistednews.com/21_Facts_About_America%27s_Decaying_Infrastructure _That_Will_Blow_Your_Mind/21611/0/38/38/Y/M.html
==================================================


#1 The American Society of Civil Engineers has given America's crumbling infrastructure an overall grade of D.

#2 There are simply not enough roads in the United States today. Each year, traffic jams cost the commuters of America 4.2 billion hours and about 2.8 million gallons of gasoline.

#3 It is being projected that Americans will spend an average of 160 hours stuck in traffic annually by the year 2035.

#4 Approximately one-third of all roads in the United States are in substandard condition.

#5 Close to a third of all highway fatalities are due "to substandard road conditions, obsolete road designs, or roadside hazards."

#6 One out of every four bridges in America either carries more traffic than originally intended or is in need of repair.

#7 Repairing all of the bridges in the United States that need repair would take approximately 140 billion dollars.

#8 According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, our decaying transportation system costs the U.S. economy about 78 billion dollars annually in lost time and fuel.

#9 All over America, asphalt roads are being ground up and are being replaced with gravel roads because they are cheaper to maintain. The state of South Dakota has transformed over 100 miles of asphalt roads into gravel roads, and 38 out of the 83 counties in the state of Michigan have transformed at least some of their asphalt roads into gravel roads.

#10 There are 4,095 dams in the United States that are at risk of failure. That number has risen by more than 100 percent since 1999.

#11 Of all the dam failures that have happened in the United States since 1874, a third of them have happened during the past decade.

#12 Close to half of all U.S. households do not have access to bus or rail transit.

#13 Our aging sewer systems spill more than a trillion gallons of untreated sewage every single year. The cost of cleaning up that sewage each year is estimated to be greater than 50 billion dollars.

#14 It is estimated that rolling blackouts and inefficiencies in the U.S. electrical grid cost the U.S. economy approximately 80 billion dollars a year.

#15 It is being projected that by the year 2020 every single major container port in the United States will be handling at least double the volume that it was originally designed to handle.

#16 All across the United States, conditions at many of our state parks, recreation areas and historic sites are deplorable at best. Some states have backlogs of repair projects that are now over a billion dollars long....

More than a dozen states estimate that their backlogs are at least $100 million. Massachusetts and New York's are at least $1 billion. Hawaii officials called park conditions "deplorable" in a December report asking for $50 million per year for five years to tackle a $240 million backlog that covers parks, trails and harbors.

#17 Today, the U.S. spends about 2.4 percent of GDP on infrastructure. Meanwhile, China spends about 9 percent of GDP on infrastructure.

#18 In the United States today, approximately 16 percent of our construction workers are unemployed.

#19 China has plans to build 55,000 miles of highways by the year 2020. If all of those roads were put end to end, it would be longer than the total length of the entire U.S. interstate system.

#20 The World Economic Forum ranks U.S. infrastructure 23rd in the world, and we fall a little bit farther behind the rest of the developed world every single day.

#21 It has been projected that it would take 2.2 trillion dollars over the next 5 years just to repair our existing infrastructure. That does not even include a single penny for badly needed new infrastructure.

midnight rambler
21st September 2012, 11:10 AM
#21 It has been projected that it would take 2.2 trillion dollars over the next 5 years just to repair our existing infrastructure. That does not even include a single penny for badly needed new infrastructure.

Giving trillions to the banksters is far more important, so that's what happens.

undgrd
21st September 2012, 11:49 AM
Our defense budget is more than the next 25 countries combined. All of the projects and expenses listed above would be completely funded with 1 years worth of defense budget.

madfranks
21st September 2012, 11:56 AM
Too many of those examples fail to account for economics at all. They fail to mention that the reason for all the decay is economic mismanagement, thanks to our socialized, government managed road system. For example:


#2 There are simply not enough roads in the United States today

The correct statement should be, "there are not enough roads to satisfy demand at current prices". The current price of using the road is $0. Yes you pay for fuel and a vehicle but you can use the roads as much as you want, anytime you want. Because the price to use the roads is hidden and given away "free", why is anyone surprised that the roads are constantly overused and worn out?


#12 Close to half of all U.S. households do not have access to bus or rail transit.

Again, at what price? Why should rural communities far away from cities have bus or rail transit? These things aren't free, and the failure to appropriately discern the cost versus the benefit of these services is the prime reason they are failing.


#21 It has been projected that it would take 2.2 trillion dollars over the next 5 years just to repair our existing infrastructure. That does not even include a single penny for badly needed new infrastructure.

This is because the government holds a monopoly on infrastructure and private companies cannot build their own roads to provide this "badly needed" service to customers who would be willing to pay for it.

A while back I read the book, "The Privatization of Roads and Highways" by Walter Block, and while at first it seems a silly notion to have private enterprise manage and build the nation's roads, if that were reality this list above wouldn't exist.

Ponce
21st September 2012, 12:53 PM
We are paying for the maintenance of the road, and new roads, when ever we buy gas........that's what the gas tax is all about.............but.........the money is going instead for war and to the state of Israel (same thing).

Serpo
21st September 2012, 02:38 PM
We are paying for the maintenance of the road, and new roads, when ever we buy gas........that's what the gas tax is all about.............but.........the money is going instead for war and to the state of Israel (same thing).


And the reason they dont want fuel efficient cars ........less tax through fuel............

Ponce
21st September 2012, 02:42 PM
Well Serpo, as you know they soon will fix that by making a new tax by mile traveled.......with me around we would be traveling on dirst roads because I only use around 2,500 miles a year altogether.