America's crumbling bridges and infrastructure
Re: “A superpower that can’t tie its shoes; Bridge collapse, Katrina, Iraq cases in point,” Aug. 12 Perspective article.
John McQuaid’s article raises many valid points, but ends by suggesting that “big” government has somehow failed and is incapable of providing and supporting the infrastructure required by a modern society. However, looking abroad provides a clear answer. To see effective flood control and emergency response measures that would have benefited New Orleans, one only need look to Holland. For superbly maintained road and bridge systems, Germany. Fast, efficient and modern public transport, France and Japan. All of those are run by governments that are, from a U.S. perspective, massive.
One can only assume that the difference is not in big, but American, government, and the way that funding and maintenance decisions are made. When the final decisions to fund infrastructure requirements are made voting issues, and placed in the hands of elected officials, the desire to cut costs by the means of reduced quality and longevity, as well as deferral of maintenance, will always trump the need for someone to say, “Our infrastructure is failing; this is what we need to do to fix it, this is how much it will cost, and this is how we will pay for it.”
The adage “You get what you pay for” could never have been more true when applied to the crumbling infrastructure of the U.S.
Mark Newnham, Centennial
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It has become quite fashionable in some circles in this nation to continually blame America, giving the United States full credit for all the world’s ills, internationally as well as here at home. I’m confident proponents of this persuasion were delighted with John McQuaid’s article. We are probably all familiar with personalities being likened to a “glass half full” or “half empty,” but hopefully have had but limited exposure to individuals whose personality can be described as an “empty glass.” Such individuals are typified by a predominately negative outlook, an inability or unwillingness to identify solutions to challenges they so ably name, use of broad, sweeping generalizations in oversimplifying complex issues, to name a few of their traits. McQuaid seems to exemplify these traits and has done an excellent job of fronting for the blame-America crowd. He provides loads of bombast and vitriol, but very little meaningful content, which I and hopefully you expect in any public policy discussion.
Larry Harrison, Lakewood
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Re: “Bridge engineering a constantly evolving science,” Aug. 12 Perspective article.
As a practicing engineer of 48 years, I want to compliment Colorado State University Professor Richard Gutkowski on his article, as it is necessary to calm the public on potential failure of bridges. The statistics of failure are low, as he noted. While we have learned a lot about materials, construction methods, and computer analysis of design, there is much to learn about foundations and constructability during the design process. As such, I would urge that constructability analyses be conducted during the design process and that more money be spent on foundation exploration, which seems to be considered as a low-information item yet can be a major source of the problem when forensics are performed.
Have faith, public. As Gutkowski notes, we have come a long way since the man on the moon, and we will probably continue even with the sort of criticism expressed in John McQuaid’s article. I expect my granddaughter will help when she graduates from high school next spring and becomes the fourth generation of my family as a civil engineer and the seventh person in the combined families to graduate from the Colorado School of Mines in about five years, with the possibility to go on for the post-graduate degrees that Professor Gutkowski needs.
John L. Tracy, Golden
Constitutional erosion
Re: “The dead document,” Aug. 12 Ed Quillen column.
Ed Quillen, as is usually the case, has gone to the gut of an American problem and brought it out for a full airing. The antics of our current government – some illegal and some just downright sleazy and underhanded – have taken away too many rights that are based directly on the Constitution, and left us with zero oversight or audit capability. It seems that no one, and certainly not the Congress or the courts, has any concern about this chipping away at some of our most basic reasons for being a successful and envied country.
If we don’t begin to assert some serious control over this government and turn around its lack of concern for individuals and for freedom, we are going to pay a huge price – the price of losing what it has taken so many more than 200 years to build.
Write your congressmembers and tell them how you feel about the issues that Quillen so eloquently brought out.
John Ruckman, Lakewood
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“Hear! Hear!” for Ed Quillen’s column. As is so often (and generally most importantly) the case, it is precisely under adversity or even peril that legal, intellectual and moral principles are tested and thereby strengthened. From Sealand to New Zealand, from St. Petersburg to St. Petersburg, by might, sleight or Divine right, political entities come and go, but how tragic it is that so many of our current generation of leaders and representatives have been so quick to jettison two centuries of constitutional rights at the first sign of danger.
Steven Chostler, Denver
Health care reform
Re: “Just bite the bullet on health care,” Aug. 12 Gail Schoettler column.
I have nothing against a universal health care system run by the state or the federal government. From Gail Schoettler’s experience in the U.K., I’m sure it will be wonderful. But I have just one small request: Make it voluntary. Let people subscribe or opt out as they wish. The system should be financed by subscribers who have the ability to pay. If the system is as efficient and high quality as Ms. Schoettler says, I’m sure very few people would opt out. But still, it’s only right that people should be given that option. What difference would it make to the subscribers if one person opted out? None at all; they are not harmed in the least. There is no moral justification for forcing people to pay for a service, no matter how beneficial it is.
Health care providers should likewise be able to choose whether to work entirely within the system, or opt out completely, or something in between.
If we just eliminate the coercion, I am totally in favor of the proposal.
Jana Paterson, Littleton
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Gail Schoettler’s column is so typical of liberals on so many issues these days: Declare the matter resolved in the liberals’ favor without any further debate or discussion of the facts. Schoettler proposes scrapping the present (and admittedly imperfect) health care system, though it does provide choice and a very high quality of health care for most Coloradans, and substituting a government program of rationing and gradually deteriorating service for all (except for the elites, of course). As the saying goes, “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it is free.”
As to her experience with the National Health Service in the U.K., I refer her to Theodore Dalrymple’s cover story in the Aug. 13 edition of National Review, “The Doctor Won’t See You Now: The Truth About Socialized Medicine.” Rather than relying on an anecdotal experience of the British health care system, I suggest she obtain an accurate analysis of the system from someone who has lived with and practiced medicine in a socialized environment for over 20 years. An honest reading of the piece would greatly diminish her enthusiasm for such a system for Colorado and before advising that we jump headlong into having the dead hand of government take control over such an important area of our lives.
Robert Holtschlag, Aurora
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If you want to understand why health care reform has never occurred, just read Gail Schoettler’s most recent commentary. There she is, in London, starts to become the Incredible Hulk and goes to a National Health Service emergency room – three times, no less. And voila, the care turns out to be free. Now, back across the pond, she concludes we all need a system like that.
Her suggestion that we “just do it” sounds like a Nike commercial. Just wave a fairy wand and sprinkle magic dust on all the children so they get health care. And then we can move on to the uninsured.
Health care has continually suffered the meddling of government run by people without the requisite skills to anticipate the unintended consequences of their ill-informed public policies. All it has done is cause hyper-inflation and cost-shifting that the rest of us have to pay for. Piling on more “off the top of your head” incremental solutions at the margin will only make things worse.
Francis M. Miller, Parker
Coal-bed methane
Re: “Gift or curse,” Aug. 12 news story.
Thank you for the informative coal-bed methane water article in last Sunday’s Post. Here in Raton, N.M., we are very worried about five proposed methane wells in Lake Dorothey State Wildlife Area in Colorado, dumping water into our Sugarite Canyon State Park, Raton’s domestic water supply. Your map on page 19A suggests that this water is not fit for human consumption and is fit only for livestock use. The construction of drilling roads in our virgin meadows will lead to silting up of our lakes, listed on the New Mexico Register of Historic Properties.
Nancy Robertson, Raton, N.M.
To the point
To have your comments printed in To the Point, please send letters of no more than 40 words to the address below. Writers are limited to one letter per month.
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With regard to CSAP and the proliferation of testing in our public schools, it is my greatest hope that we will still have one or two days left for teachers to actually teach.
Jim Sturgell, Centennial
The article last Sunday about the DPS Science Tracks program was interesting, and sounds like a good idea. The continuing silence about the attention boys evidently need in reading and writing, as the girls got and are getting in math and science, is now unbelievable.
John Phipps, Estes Park
The New Jersey execution-style killings of three young, promising black students and the shooting of another young girl turns my stomach. Is anyone in government finally going to do something about sanctuary cities? What are we doing to our own people?
Janice Herron, Evergreen
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