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Dan Weikel wrote a major piece for the Los Angeles Times about Interstate Highway 5, the 1,381-mile main artery from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, running the length of California and through Oregon and Washington. The article’s assessment of that important highway can be summarized in three words: It’s falling apart!
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POPULATION & INFRASTRUCTURE
Have you lived in a big city long enough to remember when radio traffic reports were given only on the half-hour, only during commute hours . . . generally with nothing to report? Now, they come every ten minutes, 24 hours a day . . . and there is ALWAYS something to report.
Have you driven on Interstate Highways long enough to note their deterioration over the years? Wonder why? According to Steve Heminger, Director with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, “No one is out there trying to match population growth with highway capacity--we couldn’t afford it even if we wanted to.”
Can’t afford population growth? That’s right. Can’t afford it for highway and bridge construction and maintenance. Can’t afford it for school construction and maintenance. Can’t afford it for sewage and waste water treatment plants. Can’t afford it for energy production and distribution. Can’t afford it for airport facilities. Can’t afford it for hospital and clinic construction. Can’t afford to maintain state and national parks to meet the needs of an increasing number of visitors. Can’t afford it; can’t afford it; can’t afford it!
Cities, counties, states, and Congress can’t afford to build needed new infrastructure or to properly maintain existing infrastructure. Yet Congress can’t find the will to do what needs to be done to stabilize U.S. population until we catch up with needed construction and maintenance of infrastructure. Meanwhile, local governments seem unwilling to exert pressure on Congress to do what needs to be done. As recent civil engineering assessments make clear, the failing infrastructure situation will only get worse as population--and its demands upon infrastructure--increase.
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©2006 Edward C. Hartman. All Rights Reserved
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