Next president faces another crisis – in nation’s infrastructure

WASHINGTON – As if the next president won’t have enough on his plate – with the implosion of the financial markets, two foreign wars, persistent security threats and a host of other concerns – America’s infrastructure is collapsing.

Whether major highways or inland waterways or the electrical grid or a quarter of all bridges, the nation’s physical plant needs billions of dollars in repairs.


“We’ve been relying on a patch-and-pray approach, not a strategic, more thoughtful approach,” said Casey Dinges, senior managing director of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

John McCain and Barack Obama occasionally talk about infrastructure. But whatever the next president does on a range of issues, such as the economy, the environment or homeland security, he’ll have to take it into account.

“There are new realities,” said Robert Puentes, a fellow with the Metropolitan Policy Program at The Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan research group in Washington. “Energy realities. Climate realities. We need an updated infrastructure plan for this nation that meets the realities of today. We simply don’t have one.”

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