What is wrong with Americas infrastructure?

All my life I have never really payed to much attention to the condition of Americas infrastructure. Now that I have done a little research on this serious matter, its about time that people in America are taking slow steps in American infrastructure. But more people need to step up to the plate and help out more. One T.V. series s starting to make a difference in American infrastructure improvement. The show is called Inspector America on the history channel. In the show they bring up a large machine that recycles old roads and re paves them. More cities around the country should try to purchase these machines to repave the roads. or at least have them available in a city rental service. Based on current statistics Americas infrastructure is at a grade of D. It should in my opinion be at a healthy C+ or maybe even a B-

I wish all the neighborhoods in this country would make themselves pedestrian and bike friendly. a lot of them are built conducive to only owning an almighty innevitable oil guzzling car. I live where there are alot of people out and about, in their motorized wheelchairs, and they can't get anywhere. All the sidewalks are a foot wide, broken, weeds through them, gravel everywhere, and f****** curbs......where it needs to ramp. Just a little lousy cement, no major construction with jackhammers, even. And you shoud see when winter comes! ALL THE SNOW is put on those sidewalks! So then there is NO where/way to walk (or roll). Those of us without cars, "Let us eat cake" I guess.

If its anything like what's happened in England over the years , the actual investment in our infrastructure is far too low because our money is either spent abroad or frittered by corruption.

Well the money has to be spent killing the family members of rulers who won't go along with the NWO. Thats more important. (To the Reptilians. ....)

reply to post by simone50m


Never going to happen, unless an EMP happens. My family is scattered across America. I happen to like to see them from time to time. Which means a road trip as I like to drive and introduce myself to my fellow Americans (Much to their dismay) but have made many good acquaintances this way.

The infrastructure is crumbling because the Fed keeps telling States that they must make the repairs while at the same time, constraining those States with statutes the do not allow the repairs in a expedient manner. All manner of laws stop the states from doing the right thing. EPA, OSHA etc.

America is too large of a country. Bikes and horses are not the answer in today’s world. If you think it is…you’re just selfish.

reply to post by paranormal78


I remember a mudslide that occurred on an interstate near where I lived. The mudslide was about 30 feet in length and covered the entire interstate. It took 2 days to clean up. Guess what it cost the tax payers for a few backhoes and a few dump trucks? $5 Million dollars. That's right 2 days work and $5 Million dollars. www.foxnews.com...

Now we wonder why we are going broke. Don't ask those that contract with our government, because they already know where the money is going. It is going to them. I remember when to replace a portion of a sidewalk cost like $50,000. This is plain highway robbery, occurring as legitimate business. It seems to me that we should hire smaller companies that can cut a better deal. Put some of those unemployed working on building sidewalks. Pay them a decent wage and hire an excellent foreman paid top wages. I would bet we could turn the country into a shining pearl in a matter of years and without excessive costs.

reply to post by paranormal78


the history channel had a special on, The de aying of Americas infrastructure. You can find ot online in THC archives. Think the roads are bad, so are the dams,levees,sewers,ECT,ECT,ECT. A.erica is not only in economic disaster our infrastrure is worse.

reply to post by paranormal78

At least you dont have worlds worst"for a western country" infrastructure and roads like Norway does.
Typical road here in Norway: www.youtube.com...

reply to post by ExPostFacto


Heck, I remember when replacing a chuck of broken concrete was the neighborly thing to do. Nowadays, you get fined; they tear up your concrete and replace it to non code standards and charge you again.

But I guess tunnels for lizards at hundreds of thousands of dollars is more important to our goverment.....sarc off

reply to post by paranormal78


Dear paranormal78,

There are two types of machine that you mentioned, one is called cold in place and the other hot in place. I don't watch television so I don't know which you saw. Hot in place is not allowed in every state because of laws regarding emissions. Also both machines have a place; but, it is much more complicated than I can quickly explain.

People within Transportation and Public Works have been trying for decades to get more money invested in repairing our infrastructure. Problem is that politicians prefer to create more infrastructure and delay maintenance, it looks a lot better to cut the ribbon at the opening of a new bridge than to repair the ones we have. There are many things that we can do to improve the roads and decrease the cost, the aggregate (rock) industry has fought asphalt recycling for 3 decades and unfortunately most engineers are not excited about maintaining the roads (we don't need their direct involvement to repave) as much as building more (that is their role). Because Engineers are responsible for most road programs, maintenance takes a back seat.

Don't know where you live but the truth is I could come to your area and cut your road costs by 40% without even trying and you know what, your area wouldn't do the things that would cut costs. The industry is a monopoly and is guilty of fixing prices (fed cases prove this). Believe I am just making this up or read the reports on how many companies control 3/4ths of all the aggregate (the answer is 4) and the number of independents is shrinking and no new aggregate mines being opened.

I spoke to the head of a state DOT (I will not name the state or the person) he is an engineer and was involved with their testing lab and he asked me about how you test recycled asphalt (by the way, I am not an engineer nor a material tester), I told him you tested the mix the same as any other mix, it was still just rock and oil. Most asphalt is not tested for maintenance in the United States. That is about as shameful as it gets. Well, let me say that the producers test it; but, the cities and counties don't, they rely on independent labs that are not really that independent, if they test at all and few test for air voids (just assume it is a test worthy of doing and that is why it was created).

Just so you know, I don't any wiki page to tell me my industry. You want to know why our infrastructure is in need or repair, read up on the Association of General Contractors. It is about money. I have had people in the industry try to tell me that you should never repave a road because you will get "reflective cracking" (a bogus term meaning that if there are problems below they will reflect up and crack the new pavement. However, the scientists and experts tell us that if we repave rather than reconstruct, we maintain the roads longer and at the most cost efficient manner. The money is in reconstruction.

This industry allowed itself to be pimped out by politicians. They have been promoting "rubberized asphalt" as lasting twice as long and being capable of being paved at half the thickness. It is an outright lie. What it does is double your cost for the asphalt. It recycles tires in the most costly way possible. Their claims of life span are lies and have been discredited. By the way, if anyone in the industry thinks they want to discuss this with me on this thread, get ready to have your head handed to you. At the same time the industry accepted rubberized asphalt, they fought true asphalt recycling. It is the most recycled product, however it is not made into new asphalt often. The machine you discussed does not make a finished product to mix design. If you think about it, asphalt mixes call for different types of rocks (for the sake of argument, 50% of 3/4 inch rock, 25% of 1/8th rock and the remainder sand - not a real mix, just numbers), if I use the machine you mentioned (hot or cold) it breaks up the asphalt thereby changing the size of the rocks and not meeting the required mix design. The road is therefore capped with an inch or two of new asphalt. Great technology; but, you cannot keep increasing the depth of the road or the crown (curve), eventually you have to bring it back down.

The real solution is quite simple. Firstly, the technology is out there and tested that allows for asphalt to be simply recycled at a 50% mix to "virgin" (new) rock. Anyone can do that and cut their costs and how much asphalt goes into your landfill. Second, stop making rubberized asphalt. Third, change the way you contract. Currently most places contract out paving, in order to do this 35% of the job cost is design and bid award. At well over a million a mile, that is a lot of money. They need to go to annual unit award contracts. Finally, they should TEST THEIR DARN MATERIALS, when they are produced and after they have been laid down. A 5% deviation from compaction can lose 70% of the value of the job. And no, you won't find that information on the internet.

I have been called everything other than a decent human being for saying these things in the past. Still it is the honest truth and I am a frickin expert at this stuff. If you want, read my profile and read where I posted on the FCC taking over public right of ways. Look at some of the idiot responses I got and then look at the things others found proving that I spoke the truth and did know what I was talking about in this area. Then consider the fact that we could cut the costs for maintaining the roads by 50% with little effort and pave twice as many roads a year and put people back to work in construction. People worry about the darn politicians; but, allow this garbage to go on. Sorry to hijack your post, I do think I was on point. Be well, I need to have a drink of wine.

Originally posted by simone50m
I wish all the neighborhoods in this country would make themselves pedestrian and bike friendly. a lot of them are built conducive to only owning an almighty inevitable oil guzzling car.

Sounds good to me. Here in Michigan we're losing 100 year old Oak trees for a ped path. Back behind my house where the pathway ends, there's 100 years of forest that are coming down, having some lights put in and paving. Yea green! In the meantime, $350 for busting the rear seals on my vehicle because of unrepaired roads. That was this week's. Last week it was the front stabilizer mounts breaking. Bike paths. Yeah. They can use those to deliver groceries to the stores.

www.annarbor.com...

The most vocal opponent of the project has been Nicole Bergen, who lives at 1*** West Textile Road. Bergen has five large oak trees in her front yard estimated at more than 100 years old. Those trees stand in the greenway’s path and would have come down under the original plans. Bergen said in August that she had met with township officials on several occasions but wasn’t satisfied with any of the alternative options discussed.

.

all I can say is the roads in Illinois especially where i live or total crap. I don't even know WHY people buy new cars...they are totally junked after a few years driving on these roads...and to cross a bridge here..well you just drive fast and hope for the best

Sidewalks are unwalkable, sewage gets backed up..electric flickers at least 4 times a month if not more..it really is horrible.

the main problem is funding of course. budgets have been cut over and over again, just as a lot of the IS is reaching the end of it's lifespan

even with the stimulus spending, we're way behind

I fear a disaster will have to happen to open eyes and the checkbook

It's shameful.
I graduated from high school in 1989. My youth was spent in the greatest country the world had ever known. And, then...for real, I get confused when I think about it. Granted I went off to college and then started a career so I was kind of busy and distracted, but we went from the country that won the cold war to this crazy mess we are in now in two decades. It's insane.
I understand that on the local level one mayor puts off a project that could be paid for by the next one. On the federal level that cold war win wasn't cheap. But c'mon! Things are so out of control and so much of the country is starting to look dirty and gritty.
Honestly, I really don't want to send a single cent of aid money to another country given that we are so far in debt and our infrastructure is such a mess. Maybe it makes a good people to give aid money but it strikes me as donating to the food pantry when our own cupboards are bare.
The next generation deserves more than we are giving them.

The Bridge Fund part of the bailout was the only part that made sense to me. Real people saw real change in their own communities as bridges that were long past their usefulness were replaced or repaired. It created funding for jobs in individual communities.

Let's spend all of our foreign aid on projects like the bridge fund at home. Unemployment will go down and the country will be in better shape in too many ways to even count.

Originally posted by watcher3339
It's shameful.
I graduated from high school in 1989. My youth was spent in the greatest country the world had ever known. And, then...for real, I get confused when I think about it. Granted I went off to college and then started a career so I was kind of busy and distracted, but we went from the country that won the cold war to this crazy mess we are in now in two decades. It's insane.
I understand that on the local level one mayor puts off a project that could be paid for by the next one. On the federal level that cold war win wasn't cheap. But c'mon! Things are so out of control and so much of the country is starting to look dirty and gritty.
Honestly, I really don't want to send a single cent of aid money to another country given that we are so far in debt and our infrastructure is such a mess. Maybe it makes a good people to give aid money but it strikes me as donating to the food pantry when our own cupboards are bare.
The next generation deserves more than we are giving them.

The Bridge Fund part of the bailout was the only part that made sense to me. Real people saw real change in their own communities as bridges that were long past their usefulness were replaced or repaired. It created funding for jobs in individual communities.

Let's spend all of our foreign aid on projects like the bridge fund at home. Unemployment will go down and the country will be in better shape in too many ways to even count.

Dear watcher3339,

The stimulus required organizations to be "shovel ready" in 90 days and because of that, fewer bridges were repaired than needed it and could have been. Fact is, more than not they built bridges that were not necessary based on traffic flow, pet projects that had been designed and nobody ever thought would get funded, busy work to give politicians something to crow about. Look at the projects that were done under the stimulus and you will find most were not the most needed, most was not spent on repairing infrastructure, instead they created new infrastructure and added to the backlog.

reply to post by AQuestion


I am sure that there was waste. It is still the government after all! But, at least in my neck of the woods, I saw bridges that have long needed repair finally get the kind of attention they require. If we took the bridge fund projects as a template, improved the template where we could (I didn't know about the 90 days and I think that is interesting) I think we would be on to something.

Originally posted by watcher3339
reply to post by AQuestion

 

I am sure that there was waste. It is still the government after all! But, at least in my neck of the woods, I saw bridges that have long needed repair finally get the kind of attention they require. If we took the bridge fund projects as a template, improved the template where we could (I didn't know about the 90 days and I think that is interesting) I think we would be on to something.

watcher3339,

It is not the government, waste means profit. All engage in it. Read up on Work Progress and other depression era programs and you will see the template. Got people employed and transformed this nation.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and opinions and I will be back to this thread with American infrastructure development as it improves. If you know anyone who is taking big steps to improving infrastructure let me know.

I can't speak about your power plants or water/sewage facilities but your roads sure suck big time! Some of your buggest cities are in such a state of decay that they may as well declare them finished and turn them back to farmland ie. Detroit. You have spent so much money on medicare and welfare for those who refuse to work, there is nothing left for the things the working class require. Certainly a sad state of affairs!

reply to post by corpusInitium
It may suck now but at least some people are taking steps to improving infrastructure in America. So how is your country doing if you aren't in America corpuslinitum?