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From the Publisher: The high cost of doing nothing |
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Written On: September/October 2007 |
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Written By: by Don C. Brunell, AWB President |
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Imagine building a million-dollar home only to let it fall to pieces for lack of maintenance. The paint peels, the roof leaks, and the furnace stops working. That wouldn’t make much sense, would it? After all, when you make a major investment, it makes sense to maintain it.
As a nation, we’re failing to maintain billions of dollars worth of investments in infrastructure—things like roads, sewers, water treatment facilities and power plants. Our parents and grandparents spent billions over the last century building these things. Today, we’re facing a huge price tag to patch them up.
The American Society of Civil Engineers pegs the total cost to improve our nation’s roads, bridges, dams, water systems and airports at a staggering $1.6 trillion. That’s a $5,333 repair bill for each of us. Repairing deficient bridges alone will cost $188 billion over 20 years. That doesn’t include the billions needed to add capacity such as building a new I-5 bridge across the Columbia River connecting Portland and Vancouver.
But the cost of doing nothing is even higher. On Aug. 1, the Interstate 35 bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minn., collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring 79 others. The bridge had been rated "structurally deficient" for years.
Funding sources like the federal gasoline tax, which built our nation’s interstate highways, are insufficient to cover costs today. Cars are more fuel-efficient and drivers, while paying more for gas, are buying less of it. In fact, the federal Highway Trust Fund is projected to run a deficit of nearly $4 billion in 2009.
Compounding the problem, highway construction costs are up by 50 percent since 1999, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. When Interstate 5 was built more than 50 years ago, we purchased rights-of-way from farmers. Today, both sides of the interstate in urbanized areas are lined with businesses and apartments. Expanding interstates now means purchasing rights-of way by the foot, not the acre.
When lawmakers look to new revenue sources, motorists balk. Paying a $6 toll to replace the State Route 520 floating bridge across Lake Washington angers commuters. Tolls, which haven’t been imposed on that bridge since 1979, would cover about one-quarter of the construction cost, estimated at between $3.9 billion and $4.4 billion.
Because the infrastructure system has worked well to date, Americans are spoiled. We flip a switch and the lights come on; we lift the faucet handle and water flows freely; we flush the toilet and the municipal water treatment system takes care of the rest. If something goes wrong, we simply call a repairman.
But what if our electric grid was overloaded to the point that we have rolling blackouts as a way of rationing electricity? What if, as in Portland, our sewer system became so inadequate a heavy rainstorm could send raw sewage spilling into the Columbia River?
These are not hypothetical scenarios. These things are happening today.
The slack is out of the infrastructure capacity and the system is starting to crumble. For example, the surplus electric capacity we started building in our region over a century ago is gone, a situation that is painfully apparent when we have a heat wave or cold snap. Compounding the problem is the fact that many old power plants will be going offline as they are decommissioned over the next decade.
While we argue over what electricity generating sources are politically and socially acceptable, countries like China and India are building power plants at an unprecedented rate.
Despite the slow boil drivers endure on clogged roads and highways, the high price of fixing the problem pushes solutions to the back burner. But when a bridge collapses or a major traffic accident kills dozens on a dangerous road, talk about sticker shock gives way to “get it done fast and at any cost.”
We know what the problems are, and we know that we must address them sooner or later. Do we really want to wait until disaster strikes?
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