Failure to Act - 2016 Report
Infrastructure is the backbone of our economy and when it’s not maintained all Americans feel the effects, but what does that look like in dollars for my family, my business and the overall economy?
The American Society of Civil Engineers’ new economic study, Failure to Act: Closing the Infrastructure Investment Gap for America’s Economic Future will be released on May 10th and will highlight exactly how much America's infrastructure investment gap is impacting the U.S. economy and household income. The report quantifies how the failure to invest in our aging infrastructure impacts the economy, including:
- GDP
- jobs
- personal disposable income, and
- business sales.
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ASCE Infrastructure Report
I am not completely surprised by the magnitude and the impact of the deterioration of our nation’s infrastructure as there have been warnings over several years.
What I am more concerned with and not mentioned in the report is whether we are approaching a tipping point in which the infrastructure will fail at a rate greater than we are able to repair it. The repair rate would be reduced and compounded by the lack of infrastructure that has failed reducing the ability to make improvements. For example, if a dam fails and floods a region then the roads and bridges that would be being repaired would be damaged further and delayed.
Making economic assessments is fine but are there sufficient skilled workers and engineers that can be employed to re-build at the rate needed? Remember it took 50 years (say) to build the failing infrastructure and a good bit of it is much older than that. So if there were an average failure rate greater than the current repair and new construction work force could meet; then all the king’s workers and engineers couldn’t put Humpty-Dumpty together again. In this country Money is King and infrastructure is paid with money, but built by people!
I think this construction capacity question should be studied as it would probably get people’s attention – especially if we lack the capacity. It takes 4 years to train an engineer and another 4 years before s/he can be a trusted to perform as a significant “full strength” professional; similarly with skilled workers.
This infrastructure deterioration has a National Security impact. The interstate highway system was championed by Eisenhower after seeing and realizing the importance of the Autobahn system in Germany would be for the US. This also applies to hydro-electric dams for the refining of aluminum for airplanes.
I would appreciate a reply.
Thank you,
Frank S. Archibald
fsa1@psu.edu