

America's Infrastructure Is Slowly Falling Apart - skorecky
http://www.vice.com/read/america-is-collapsing-a-brief-look-at-the-us-infrastructure-meltdown-130

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PhantomGremlin
The article doesn't touch on the root of the problem, which is that
construction costs are totally out of control. In crude terms, "where the FUCK
is all the money going???"

Here's an example. About 33 years ago we completed a very nice, very
functional bridge across the Columbia River, I-205 between Oregon and
Washington. It's 4 lanes in each direction and cost $170 million.[1]

Fast forward to a few years ago. There's a second crossing across the
Columbia, I-5, a few miles downriver of the above I-205 bridge. It's much
older and probably needs replacement. But the proposed solution would cost
about $3 billion (and perhaps $10 billion according to critics).[2]

The taxpayers paid $170 million in the early 1980s. But somehow we're told
that the equivalent today would cost $3 billion. And the "tax and spend" crowd
are totally OK with that. Fortunately this particular boondoggle was killed by
the Washington State legislature, which refused to appropriate its $450
million share. And yet the project somehow managed to spend $175 million just
in EIS and some design work.

I think that most 5-year-old children have a better understanding of money
than most politicians and transportation planners. Either that or it's just
mostly brazen graft.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_L._Jackson_Memorial_Brid...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_L._Jackson_Memorial_Bridge)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River_Crossing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River_Crossing)

