The downvoting of this comment is a sad reflection of techno-pessimist ignorance. I shall have the last laugh from my flying car as I munch a lab-grown burger.
Hmmm....outline.com doesn't work, nor does reading in private mode on fire fox. I'm almost more interested in how to read the article than what the article has to say.
Googleing the headline works! Here is a short url: shorturl.at/CLOQW, or you can google it if you don't trust me :P.
The Goshen Irrigation District of Wyoming (17 employees listed) had a water tunnel collapse and expects to be down for three weeks. This isn't a nationwide event.
>“It’s just been event after event after event,” said Dave Kaufman, who canceled the purchase of a new Ford F-150 truck to save money after much of his farmland outside Gering, Neb., went dry. “And you would think that the last shoe had dropped, but it hasn’t.”
That ... seems like a mild consequence, all things considered.
"trucks last longer" is an arbitrary measurement to this scenario. If it's broken down and you don't have the means to replace it or buy a new one, you can't operate your business
Yes, but that’s a separate question from how often you really need to buy an entirely new one, which is usually a very optional expense. Repairing will generally be much cheaper.
> Yes, but that’s a separate question from how often you really need to buy an entirely new one, which is usually a very optional expense. Repairing will generally be much cheaper.
I grew up on a farm, you're presuming a lot. Guess what goes into a new heavy duty pickup truck purchase?
Well lets look at the new fuel efficiency, project out 10+ years to figure out how much fuel that will save, figure out how much gas will cost in the next 10 years (fudge it mostly).
And the work that these things do tends to be hard on everything. There is a need for new pickup trucks, and its not because you want it, its because it will save money. Repairing' isn't cheaper when you have heavy use.
Our trucks lasted maybe 200 000 miles of wear and tear. At the end, they were getting to pretty expensive options, like replace the engine entirely or rebuild, both about the same cost. Oh and the frame was starting to rust, or crack etc...
Your day to day car usage in the city does not give you much insight into how heavy duty pickup trucks get used on farms and ranches.
This is pretty close to the poor problem of having to buy $20 dollar boots every year because you can't affort a $100 dollar pair that will last 10 years. If you get behind on replacing things, you end up paying more.
We have been under-funding maintenance for decades and problems, such as this example, will be on the rise given the additional stressors due to climate change.
It is a problem of political will. To quote Vonnegut, "Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance."
Isn't there a bit of a conflict of interest here, insofar as the members of the ASCE would be the ones to benefit from increased infrastructure spending?
Note that the article says "The tunnels and canals, though old, were maintained regularly".
Hundred year old infrastructure is not the most sturdy, obviously this structure was past the end of its design life (leading to its failure).
Maintaining a structure doesn't prevent the concrete from spalling (as the chemical bonds that bind the concrete age and degrade), nor does it necessarily pick up on failing earthen tunnels in hard to inspect areas.
Many bridges across the country are going on 100 years old, and have a ~50 year design life. Structurally they are deficient, often undersized for the modes of traffic using them, and structural failure (which is very possible) would likely kill people. US infrastructure needs heavy investment, rather than the neglect it has seen for decades.
They are also the most competent and qualified to make that determination. It's the same logic with any expert, your plumber says your pipes need to be replaced because xyz, you don't believe them, they say it's your decision, pipe bursts floods your basement and takes your hot water tank with it. You call the plumber and have them do even more work and they take substantially more of your money. If they were actually out to make money then they'd wait until the infrastructure is literally dust at which point they can name their price and you'd have to eat it.
That is the same argument made to debunk climate change science. As if people dependent on a theory being true would set aside their morals and say that theory is true.
Maybe I'm being too cynical, but the ASCE giving infrastructure a D+ feel a little self serving. It's a little like the American Plastic Council highlighting people getting food poisoning from using reusable shopping bags.
If you look at the Wikipedia List of Bridge Failures [1], since 2000, the US has had 28 bridge failures, over double the next highest entry on that list. Bridge failures are big enough events that, for developed countries, there's little chance of missing significant ones so we can treat the data as mostly reliable.
Per capita, there are some countries higher like Canada. but it's pretty clear that US bridges are unusually bad compared to most other developed countries.
> Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.
But we're not building either! Where are the US's fancy new high speed trains?
I realize that's not quite the same thing, but this isn't a case of existing infrastructure being neglected in favor of shiny new projects. We're just not putting basically any money into public infrastructure.
This article seems hyperbolic. I'm not sure how a bill of $18M translates into a monstrous tax bill. It's been a tough year for farmers but I'm not sure if this is any more than just a small blip in the reality for farmers.
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 75.6 ms ] threadGoogleing the headline works! Here is a short url: shorturl.at/CLOQW, or you can google it if you don't trust me :P.
Thanks!
That ... seems like a mild consequence, all things considered.
It's like saying "I guess my 2008 laptop will have to keep working for a few more years, there is no budget in the foreseeable future to upgrade"
I grew up on a farm, you're presuming a lot. Guess what goes into a new heavy duty pickup truck purchase?
Well lets look at the new fuel efficiency, project out 10+ years to figure out how much fuel that will save, figure out how much gas will cost in the next 10 years (fudge it mostly).
And the work that these things do tends to be hard on everything. There is a need for new pickup trucks, and its not because you want it, its because it will save money. Repairing' isn't cheaper when you have heavy use.
Our trucks lasted maybe 200 000 miles of wear and tear. At the end, they were getting to pretty expensive options, like replace the engine entirely or rebuild, both about the same cost. Oh and the frame was starting to rust, or crack etc...
Your day to day car usage in the city does not give you much insight into how heavy duty pickup trucks get used on farms and ranches.
This is pretty close to the poor problem of having to buy $20 dollar boots every year because you can't affort a $100 dollar pair that will last 10 years. If you get behind on replacing things, you end up paying more.
https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/
We have been under-funding maintenance for decades and problems, such as this example, will be on the rise given the additional stressors due to climate change.
It is a problem of political will. To quote Vonnegut, "Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance."
Note that the article says "The tunnels and canals, though old, were maintained regularly".
Maintaining a structure doesn't prevent the concrete from spalling (as the chemical bonds that bind the concrete age and degrade), nor does it necessarily pick up on failing earthen tunnels in hard to inspect areas.
Many bridges across the country are going on 100 years old, and have a ~50 year design life. Structurally they are deficient, often undersized for the modes of traffic using them, and structural failure (which is very possible) would likely kill people. US infrastructure needs heavy investment, rather than the neglect it has seen for decades.
Per capita, there are some countries higher like Canada. but it's pretty clear that US bridges are unusually bad compared to most other developed countries.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures#2000%E...
But we're not building either! Where are the US's fancy new high speed trains?
I realize that's not quite the same thing, but this isn't a case of existing infrastructure being neglected in favor of shiny new projects. We're just not putting basically any money into public infrastructure.