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21 Facts About America’s Decaying Infrastructure
You can tell a lot about a nation by the condition of the infrastructure. So what does our infrastructure say about us? It says that we are in a very advanced state of decay. At this point, much of America is being held together with spit, duct tape and prayers. Our roads are crumbling and thousands of our bridges look like they could collapse at any moment. Our power grid is ancient and over a trillion gallons of untreated sewage is leaking from our aging sewer systems each year. Our airports and our seaports are clogged with far more traffic than they were ever designed to carry. Approximately a third of all of the dam failures that have taken place in the United States since 1874 have happened during the past decade. Our national parks and recreation areas have been terribly neglected and our railroads are a bad joke. Hurricane Katrina showed how vulnerable our levees are, and drinking water systems all over the country are badly outdated. Sadly, at a time when we could use significant new investment in infrastructure, our spending on infrastructure is actually way down. Back during the 50s and the 60s, the U.S. was spending between 3 and 4 percent of GDP on infrastructure. Today, that figure is down to about 2.4 percent. But of course we don’t have any extra money to spend on infrastructure because of our reckless spending and because of the massive amount of debt that we have accumulated. While the Obama administration is spending more than half a million dollars to figure out why chimpanzees throw poop, our national infrastructure is literally falling apart all around us. Once upon a time nobody else on the planet could match our infrastructure, and now we are in the process of becoming a joke to the rest of the world.
The following are 21 facts about America’s failing infrastructure that will blow your mind….
#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.
So where did we go wrong?
Well, one of the big problems is that we have become a very materialistic society that is obsessed with short-term thinking. Investing in infrastructure is something that has long-term benefits, but these days Americans tend to only be focused on what is happening right now and most politicians are only focused on the next election cycle.
Another major problem is that there is so much corruption and waste in our system these days. The government certainly spends more than enough money, but very little of that money is spent wisely. A lot of the money that could be going toward rebuilding our infrastructure is being poured down the toilet instead. For much more on this, please read my previous article entitled “16 Sickening Facts That Show How Members Of Congress And Federal Workers Are Living The High Life At Your Expense“.
Unfortunately, it is probably appropriate that our infrastructure is decaying because we are decaying in just about every other way that it is possible for a society to decay.
We are decaying economically, politically, mentally, emotionally, physically, morally and spiritually.
We are a complete and total mess. So why shouldn’t what is happening to our infrastructure on the outside match what is happening to us as a nation on the inside?
And sadly, we simply do not have the money that we need for infrastructure because of all the debt that we have piled up. The federal government, our state governments and our local governments are all struggling to stay afloat in an ocean of red ink, and unfortunately that means that spending on infrastructure is likely to be cut even more in the years ahead.
So get used to rotting, crumbling, decaying infrastructure. What you see out there right now is only just the beginning.
16 Comments on "21 Facts About America’s Decaying Infrastructure"
Ken Nohe on Sat, 22nd Sep 2012 1:14 pm
This is an overstatement. America’s infrastructure is not decaying… yet. It would take decades for a permanent state of disrepair to settle in. Roman bridges, roads and sewers are still in use today. The US is not as powerful as it was 20 years ago but it’s not on its knees yet. The fact that it is not spending its money wisely is just that, a footnote of history. The next stage will be “cone country”, where the UK has been for the last 40 years. Trains are late, roadworks last forever but you can still live more or less normally. Then comes former communist countries conditions: life becomes a struggle. Then the potholes are large enough that you need a 4×4 car on a daily basis. I sincerely do not think that road conditions should be on top of Americans priorities right now!
Kenz300 on Sat, 22nd Sep 2012 2:25 pm
The Republican party wants to take America back to the 1800’s.
Arthur on Sat, 22nd Sep 2012 5:10 pm
“#1 The American Society of Civil Engineers has given America’s crumbling infrastructure an overall grade of D.”
Fortunately The American Society of Civil Engineers has a perfect solution at hand, provided Washington comes up with adequate funding…
Solarity on Sat, 22nd Sep 2012 5:49 pm
Recently I read an article having similar laments about infrastructure. It was in a NY Times edition from about 1880! Their strongest complaint was about the sad state of the NY canal system! The lesson here: we don’t need to rebuild 20th century assets.
Back then when a government bond-issue was floated to build something, it got built. Today, government debt is used to finance ongoing expenses, uncapitalized costs, and pensions. Hence no capital asset (infrastructure) remains to show for it.
Norm on Sat, 22nd Sep 2012 5:57 pm
Republican party take us back to the 1800’s? Not far enough!! Watch Mitt Romney’s favorite movie ‘The Hunger Games’, a truly awful film. You will see that he would like to take us back to the era of human sacrifice (toss a virgin into the volcano) how far back is that? 4000 yrs? 8000 yrs? Cause when Mitt says he likes ‘The Hunger Games’ then human sacrifice is what he likes.
Here’s how far back Republicans want to go…. by endorsing such a movie, he also does not like ‘Right to life liferty and pursuit of happiness’ since the people in his favorite film did not have that right.
Something weird about this author whining about some govamint researcha studying chimpanzee poop (half a million) thats dumb to say its Obama’s fault. The programs of government welfare research have been around a long time the Obama admin doesn’t endorse each item in all those government grants…. from ‘National Institutes of Health’ etc etc.
I seen bridges from the 1950’s that are totally rusting away without paint… however its possible also have them targeted for replacement which is why they quit wasting money on cans of paint cause its near the end of its life.
DC on Sat, 22nd Sep 2012 7:00 pm
The entire infastructure the write would love to see repaired, and then expanded, suffers from a few basic problems, but he never addresses them
One, we dont build very well. Its true, our engineers are able to build large, but fragile and poorly constructed systems that require constant maintenance from the get go, or else rot starts to set in almost immediately. IoW, we really don’t know how build things anymore. We are not like the Romans, who argueably, were engineers in many many respects than we are today. I cant think of one single structure, outside the mega hydro-dams built by ‘modern’ engineers, that will be standing as long as many ancient works have to this point.
The infrastructure everyone wants to ‘save’ in the US is the wrong infrastructure. Car-based roads? They are the problem, not the solution to anything. Airports? Once fuel becomes too expensive and scare, forget huge sprawling mega-airports. Ports? Ports are fine, but computer controlled mega-ports for handling giga-tons of plastic salad shooters from China? As PO rolls on, globalization will result in much less world trade in plastic garbage, thus, rebuilding mega-container ports is also, futile. Bridges? Better start building bridges that can stand for a century or more with little or no maintenance, and are largely designed to handle, foot, animal, train and bike traffic, not 50000000 cars a day.
Keep throwing money at the wrong infrastructure means when the crunch comes, what is still is standing, will be mostly useless anyhow. I never see that issue addressed at all. Its always about, build more roads for cars, more parking spots, add more runways to airports, and so on.
Bill on Sat, 22nd Sep 2012 7:18 pm
Great article.
Some of the above comments reinforce your staement that the US is decaying politically, mentally and emotionally.
Bill on Sat, 22nd Sep 2012 7:18 pm
Great article.
Some of the above comments reinforce your staement that the US is decaying politically, mentally and emotionally.
Plantagenet on Sat, 22nd Sep 2012 11:35 pm
Obama promised to repair our infrastructure by spending almost trillion dollars of “stimulus” on shovel ready project. Then later obama admitted he lied and there weren’t any shovel ready projects. Take high speed trains—-not a mile of new track was laid in spite of obama’s promises.
Obama and the dems wasted a trillion dollars that should have been spent on infrastructure. We need CHANGE now………
BillT on Sun, 23rd Sep 2012 12:28 am
As I mentioned in my last post:
All who think it is the government’s fault fail to see behind the curtain. It is the world’s central bankers that are engineering the coup. The President has not been in control for a long time. At least since 1913. It does not matter which tool ‘wins’ in November, nothing will change except who sleeps in the White House. It also does not matter who is in the Congress, it matters who is the Central Bankers of the world. It’s not who writes the check, but who signs it, that matters and we are being directed to a world that the bankers want, Lords (them) and Serfs (US).
James on Sun, 23rd Sep 2012 12:51 am
All the responders above seem to forget three things. First, our highway systems are supported in large part from taxes on fuel. So, as the prices get higher and stay there, the more likely consumption will decline, thereby reducing the amount of taxes from fuel. Second, Rather than trying to rebuild and infra-structure that is based mostly on the use of oil to power cars, planes, and trucks. We should be looking at smaller investments in local communities connected by a good rail system that is rebuilt from the ground up. The rail system would also provide employment for many people. Those who run the trains, maintain the trains, provide support services to the trains, loaders for the cars, and people who run the stations, and other support jobs. All of this would be self supporting rather than rely on taxes.
Thirdly, we need to reassess our lives and realize that gone are the days where we are going to rely on the vast amounts of oil to live the lives that we currently live. We need to become more localized,provide training that local communities need, encourage a more agrarian type lifestyle that depends on the training I mentioned above. This lifestyle will provide employment, stability, and food for the community.
Beery on Sun, 23rd Sep 2012 2:42 am
Ken,
Trains were late in the UK in the 1880s at the height of the British Empire. If you think trains being late in England is a symptom of a decaying empire, you misunderstand the British character, which relies on a kind of self-imposed adversity.
Ken Nohe on Sun, 23rd Sep 2012 8:47 am
Beery, I do understand that the British character is different to the Japanese one and the Shinkansen “watch” is not the standard I use to evaluate BR. But I did tour the London Northern tube line 20 years ago, which was indeed built in the 1880s and was amazed by the lack of investment since. I am not talking about the circle line which I used (well, tried to use) for almost 4 years, the derelict Clapham junction, archaic Thames tunnels, and I won’t mention Heathrow… But yes, the British do take it with humor and the wrong kind of leaves on the track end up as a joke. Not the end of the world, indeed. But not top of the world either.
This said, I agree with DC and believe he has a point. Is rebuilding 19C or even 20C infrastructure, the right investment for the 21C? Very good question.
Arthur on Sun, 23rd Sep 2012 12:47 pm
I would advise against massive investment in 19th century technology like trains. We have a brandnew technology with extremely low energy footprint, namely the technology we are using now on ths forum to have this global discussion on energy. The new attitude should be to avoid moving people around in steel harnasses, like trains or cars, with a weight ten times the transported person, and instead send images around at a fraction of the energy cost. Unless of course the physical presence is required, in case of manual labour, medical care.. or love making 😉
In Europe the number of houses and cars sold has plummeted in recent years, but last week iphone5 sales began in Europe, and everybody wants to have one now. Watch youtube “ansturm auf das iphone 5 im centro Oberhausen” to see hundreds of Dutch travelling to Germany, sleeping on the pavement, to get one now for 700 euro (1000$) rather than wait a week and buy it in Holland next week. If you want to make a quick buck, buy a few iphones in Europe and sell it for 3000$ to nouveay riche Russians, where the phone will be out not before next year. This technology is the future, that’s why it is so popular.
The internet in its current shape consumes 1-2% of total global energy consumption. This can be reduced by another factor 10 by replacing desktops with tablets, which is the trend already and by using microprocessors of 100 milliwatt, that already exist. This makes this technology perfect sustainable. Invest in optic fiber, not (so much) in rails. Let the current infrastructure decay.
Pythor Sehn on Sun, 23rd Sep 2012 8:50 pm
Other countries are able to spend more on infrastructure, whatever the kind, because their budgets aren’t held hostage by the likes of Republicans here in America. There is both obstructionism from the right and a blind support of the military-industrial complex. They have to constantly invent new threats in order to justify the world’s most bloated military. I’m sure we’ll need more trillion dollar submarines to combat the next big threat, maybe three-headed Muslim space aliens from Mars that are building a base near the core of the Moon.
SOS on Sun, 23rd Sep 2012 9:44 pm
Large employers need mass transit infrastructure. These are the only companies/facilities that should be considered too beig to fail: those large enough to be a destination employer for the transit line. In fact, we should finance if not pay for development of manufacturing plants of all kinds.