 Ironworkers work on failed section of Bay Bridge. Photo: Lance Iversen/The Chronicle |
On Oct. 27, San Francisco Bay Area rush hour commuters had the scare of their lives as 5,000 pounds of metal broke off a section of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the busiest in the Bay Area, and crashed down on traffic. The metal pieces broke off a section that had been quickly repaired over Labor Day weekend.
The pieces that failed were parts of a major repair made in September after state inspectors discovered a crack in an important structural beam. Engineers were trying to figure out why the recent repairs—which were supposed to last until a new bridge opened in 2013—failed in less than two months. Civil engineers called the hastily done repairs a “band-aid“ that jeopardized public safety to get the bridge re-opened quickly.
Fortunately there were no fatalities when heavy chunks of metal plunged to the roadway, but the incident drew attention to the deteriorated condition of many bridges and much of the U.S. infrastructure, often with tragic consequences. Consider these other recent events:
- In August 2007, a heavily traveled interstate bridge in Minneapolis, Minn., crumbled, sending rush hour traffic into the Mississippi River. Thirteen people died.
- Two weeks before the Minnesota bridge tragedy, an 83-year-old steam pipe exploded onto the streets of Manhattan, showering the area with toxic debris and seriously injuring an ambulance driver.
- In August 2005, levees broke in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Almost 2,000 people perished in the wake of the hurricane.
Neglected infrastructure
As the U.S. government funds two expensive wars abroad and bails out bankers to the tune of trillions of dollars, bridges and buildings are falling down at home with often tragic results. In the United States, the loss of life and livelihood brought by such crises results in the usual spate of media attention and statements by politicians, who promise to do whatever it takes to ensure that such deaths never happen again. After a short time, however, the events fade away from the spotlight, leaving the problems unfixed or merely patched up.
After the Minnesota tragedy in 2007, the American Society of Civil Engineers came out with their finding that up to 13 percent of bridges in the United States share the same structural deficiency as the bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis. Ironically, it is Washington, D.C., our nation’s capital, that has the country’s least-safe bridges, with 63 percent of the district’s 245 bridges rated either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
Unfortunately, it is not just bridges and levees that are failing. Dams and waterways, landfills and solid waste recycling projects, schools and parks also need attention. Even our daily traffic gridlock is a symptom of a neglected infrastructure.
The levee and bridge collapses with their fatal consequences could have been predicted: In 2005, the ASCE released a report card on the country’s infrastructure. The cumulative grade is a dismal “D”, down from a “D+” in 2001.
In addition to condemning the conditions of the bridges and roads, another serious problem highlighted in the ASCE report is unsafe dams. The number is up 33 percent since 1998. At least 3,500 of these dams are among the country’s largest. Furthermore, the ASCE cannot be certain how many dams are unsafe, since many states cannot afford even cursory inspections.
Water is another problem. According to the report, nearly $1 trillion is needed for critical drinking water and wastewater projects over the next 20 years. Drinking water, sewage treatment and navigable waterways also are in need of maintenance, thus earning a D- on the ASCE report card.
The highest grade of C+ was for landfills and solid waste recycling. Meanwhile, the report found that power lines are overstressed, and schools, public parks and beaches are deteriorating.
Not much has changed in the four years since the ASCE report. Earlier this month, Reuters published the results of an annual survey of highway professionals in 50 state departments of transportation and the District of Columbia. The survey found a shockingly high number of substandard bridges in the United States. Fourteen percent of all interstate and state bridges are considered functionally obsolete and 6.8 percent are rated as structurally deficient. This does not bode well for workers who depend on driving or public transportation to get to work.
Stimulus funds not enough
Department of Transportation personnel surveyed for a Better Roads magazine story say that the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act—the much-lauded “stimulus package”—has enabled some maintenance of bridges that would otherwise not be possible, but it falls far short of addressing the whole problem. John Latta, editor-in-chief of Better Roads magazine, laments that a “disturbing number of bridges now need care, repair or replacement.”
While the White House says the stimulus plan represents the largest increase in investment in our nation’s mass transit systems, roads and bridges since the creation of the national highway system in the 1950s, some critics have said the package does not include enough infrastructure spending.
The $789 billion stimulus package, while being compared to the 1930s New Deal, is unlikely to transform transportation from its current sorry state. The final ARRA plan devotes more than $100 billion to public works projects, but that is only a fraction of the $2.2 trillion that the American Society of Civil Engineers says is needed to put the nation’s infrastructure into a state of good repair. Much of it is likely to be spent on smaller cosmetic needs such as repaving a road here or painting a bridge there, rather than on the bigger, more transformative projects.
The bill devotes about $50 billion to transportation projects, which is about what the federal government authorizes for transportation every year anyway. Since many local governments have curtailed their own construction programs to save money, the stimulus money may end up simply keeping public works spending at the previous inadequate levels.
In many cases, stimulus plan funds going to states are being used to fill severe budget gaps and not for repairing the infrastructure.
Take the case of Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center stated in a recent report that of the $17.7 billion in stimulus funds the state expects from the federal government, Massachusetts has already spent more than $4 billion; $3.6 billion of the total is going to fill the state’s budget gap, while less than 2.5 percent of the total, only $438 million, is going to highway and bridge projects. Over 20 percent of the stimulus funds are being used to fill budget gaps rather than constructing new bridges. It should also be mentioned that repairing the crumbling infrastructure would create millions of new jobs.
The real solution to a crumbling infrastructure
Maintaining infrastructure takes money—money that the capitalists claim not to have when it comes to things that people need.
While socialist Cuba is actually planning how it can improve the quality of life for people there, which includes building schools, housing and health care facilities that offer services free of charge, it is not even ensured that people in the United States will be able to get to work alive, or that the facility where they work is safe.
In Cuba, a decent job is a right. On the other hand, capitalism utilizes what Marx called “the reserve army of unemployed” to keep workers in line and force wages down. As the rapidly deteriorating infrastructure shows us every day in small ways, such as traffic jams, or in big ways, when bridges and levees collapse killing hundreds of people, there is plenty of work waiting out there to be done.
The U.S. infrastructure has been ignored for decades, through several wars and imperialist aggressions by both Democratic and Republican administrations alike. Even capitalist lackeys like Senate Majority Leader Henry Reid admit that U.S. domestic programs and infrastructure are being shortchanged because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
There is no excuse for the swelling ranks of unemployed workers when so much needs to be done. Under a socialist planned economy, millions would have good jobs completing important work on the infrastructure. It is capitalism that keeps our infrastructure in an unsafe and dangerous condition. And it is the efforts of the workers toward building a new society that will ultimately bring down capitalism.
