More investment needed in aging infrastructure
That we haven’t invested more aggressively in our aging infrastructure during the last half-decade of economic malaise must be counted as a sorely missed opportunity.
With construction workers idled, contractors hungry for business and interest rates at rock bottom, it would have been to our advantage to get on with the task of repairing potholes, replacing bridges and laying the groundwork for future economic growth. All this, while giving the overall economy a desperately needed jolt. Instead, many of these tasks will undoubtedly be left to fester and will finally be dealt with when they can’t be ignored anymore – and that could well be when the economy will be more fleet-footed and costs will be higher.
The urgency of upgrading our infrastructure came to the forefront last week when Barry Schoch, the commonwealth’s transportation secretary, told the state Senate Transportation Committee that the number of bridges with weight restrictions slapped on them could skyrocket by 50 percent in the months ahead, with another 1,000 added to the list. This is the result of decreased funding, lower revenue from gas taxes due to more fuel-efficient vehicles, increased costs to maintain the state police and the Legislature’s inability to get a transportation bill to Gov. Tom Corbett’s desk before they decamped from the state capitol at the end of June.
Pennsylvania is relatively relaxed when it comes to putting weight restrictions on its bridges, and if the state hewed more to the national average, it would have 6,000 bridges with weight restrictions on them, rather than the 2,200 that have them currently. Schoch said the added number of weight-restricted bridges will lead to longer commutes, and to emergency vehicles and haulers having to seek alternate routes, burning up minutes and money.
“It’s time to act,” Schoch said. “If we don’t, the consequences keep getting worse.”
At the same time Schoch was trying to goad legislators into action, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey was attempting to drum up support for a transportation bill that he says will benefit Pennsylvanians, and he cited some sobering statistics to make his case – there are 5,543 bridges in the commonwealth that have been deemed structurally deficient by the Federal Highway Administration, with 200 of them in Washington County and 97 of them in Greene. Of all the counties in Pennsylvania, Washington and Greene are near the top of the tally in the percentage of structurally deficient bridges within their borders, with 31.9 percent and 31.3 percent, respectively (McKean County, east of Erie on the New York border, is the leader with 43.4 percent of bridges being given the structurally deficient designation).
And lest you think that Pennsylvania stands alone in the lower 48 in the state of its infrastructure, hold up – in the 2013 report card released by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the nation received an overall “D” grade, with roads getting a “D” and bridges a “C+.” While the engineers note that the amount of money put into roads on the state, local and federal levels has increased, “that level of investment is insufficient and still projected to result in a decline in conditions and performance in the long term.”
Politicians and business leaders frequently fret about America’s competitiveness in the world economy, but competitiveness is about more than test scores and tech start-ups – countries with solid and reliable infrastructures stand to attract commerce and grow more robustly than their counterparts with rutted roads and collapsing bridges. With that thought in mind, infrastructure funding should be at the top of the agenda in both Harrisburg and Washington, D.C.