WASHINGTON — America’s roads, public transit and aviation have gotten worse in the past four years. Water and sewage systems are dreadful. The basic physical backbone of American society is barely above failing, a report by top engineers says.
It’ll cost $2.2 trillion to fix America’s ailing infrastructure, according to highlights of a report being released early, just as the House of Representatives readies its first vote on President Barack Obama’s call for a massive economic stimulus spending package.
The country’s roads, dumps, dams, bridges, schools and rail systems need lots of that money, say the engineers, who would get a piece of the pie in working on the repairs. Government officials are already aiming billions of dollars at those physical needs as part of what at the moment is a $825 billion economic stimulus package. But the engineers say that’s not enough.
Overall, the American Society of Civil Engineers gives the U.S. physical backbone for everything from schools and parks to dams and levees a D. That’s the same overall grade as the last time the group gave a report, in 2005, but it really is slipping from a “high D” to a “low D,” said report chairman Andrew Herrmann, an engineer with the New York firm Hardesty & Hanover.
Of the 15 areas the engineers looked at, three got worse and only one got better. The three that worsened were all transportation oriented: aviation dropped from a D+ to a D; so did public transit; and America’s intricate roadway system potholed from a D to a D-.
Only the energy system improved, from a D to a D+.
In 2005, the engineers said it would cost what would be $1.7 trillion in current dollars to fix what’s broken. Now the price tag is $2.2 trillion.
“That just goes to show that waiting has cost money,” Herrmann told The Associated Press on Tuesday evening. “We haven’t made any progress in four years. If my kid came home with 11 Ds and 4 Cs, I know I wouldn’t be happy.”
America’s solid-waste system was the only C+ on the report card. Bridges got a C; parks and rail systems managed C-. Solid Ds went to hazardous waste and schools. The worst grades, D-, went to drinking water, inland waterways, roads and sewage systems.
