Aging Infrastructure Research Paper

According Edmonton’s 2012 budget report, almost all municipalities across Canada face a significant infrastructure deficit. Neighborhood renewal occurred periodically with funding from other orders of government, yet it failed to address the full life-cycle requirements of preventative maintenance, rehabilitation, and reconstruction. Over time, the condition of roads, sidewalks and sewers deteriorated, resulting in more frequent collapsed sewers, increased sidewalk hazards, and dramatically increased maintenance like pothole repairs. The Office of Infrastructure and Funding Strategy highlighted the need for ongoing funding for neighborhood infrastructure to overcome an anticipated $2.2 billion funding gap in neighborhood roads and related infrastructure.

In this detailed report, essential actors such as the Transportation, Natural Resources, and California Environmental Protection Agency provide ongoing projects they are developing which collectively helps California attain an improved infrastructure plan. In recent events, Californians passed Measure M in 2016 by a 71.5% margin which will serve as sales tax to “improver freeway traffic flow/safety; repair potholes/sidewalks; repave local streets”(Metro). An unpopular decision that has affected commuters was the recent gas tax signed into effect by governor Jerry Brown on November 1st 2017. This increase in tax , formerly known as the Senate 1 Bill, increased gasoline prices by 12 cents to help fund the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Department of the California Highway Patrol. Over the course of a decade, this legislative package aims to collects $54 Billion to fix roads, freeways and bridges. In terms of distribution, $200,000,000 of the funds will go into road maintenance, $100,000,000 of the funds will go to the Active Transportation Program, and $400,000 of the funds will go to maintenance and rehabilitation (State of California

Being the fourth largest metropolitan city in the United States and the largest city of Texas, Houston is subject to a mighty amount of traffic that affects its roadways. As one would suspect, these roadways are constantly deteriorating due to this severe usage, but this problem isn’t being addressed proportionately. The Houstonians need improvements made towards roadways now to decrease traffic, provide an environment that is more safe, and reduce the above average financial costs to operate their vehicles in Houston compared to other cities in the United States.

You might have heard recently that the United States Trust Fund is currently experiencing a solvency issue due to an increased cost associated with financing road projects. The members of the United States Congress, as well as numerous other influential leaders, have been discussing means of addressing this “broken” Highway Trust Fund. This issue has been consistently thrown on the back burner for some time and due to this procrastination an issue that would have been an easy fix a few years ago has now ballooned into a much larger issue. Lately it seems like every time I turn on the news I have seen news reports of bridges collapsing and pot holes getting worse, it scary to think that I will one day have children driving on these roads if

Every family, every community, and every business needs infrastructure to thrive (ASCE). It is evident that we are dependent on our nation’s infrastructure, but as Andrew Soergel, an economy reporter at U.S. News states, “We need to stop talking about infrastructure as simply an engineering prospect and more as an economic one.” He’s right as infrastructure projects currently make up a vast part of our economy, nearly 11 percent of the American workforce today is employed directly in infrastructure sectors (USNEWS). In a report on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Congressional Budget Office wrote that, “Spending on infrastructure created the second-most economic activity for each dollar spent.” This power comes from the strong economic activity that is generated by the direct hiring of workers to build the needed infrastructure, as well as the boost from the increased spending of those newly hired workers. National Editor of Forbes magazine Robert Lenzner estimates that long-term infrastructure investment programs are bound to create 23,000 jobs for every $1 billion of investment. This will help lower unemployment and raise GDP. The long-term health of the economy is also helped by strong public infrastructure because it helps to boost the productivity of workers and businesses in the private sector. Well-maintained roads, for example, allow

When a large magnitude earthquake strikes, roads might buckle, dams sometimes fail, and buildings can collapse. As more earthquakes occur, building regulations have been altered to ensure that buildings experience minimal damage. The Trans-Alaskan Pipeline System (TAPS), which transports oil from Prudhoe Bay to the Gulf of Alaska, had engineering in place so when the earthquake struck the Denali fault in Alaska in 2002, the pipeline didn’t leak any oil (Nyman, Johnson, and Roach, 2003). The success of the pipeline came from its supporting structures. The engineering used in the TAPS should be applied to buildings in areas that are also prone to large magnitude earthquakes, such as Washington and California. California is home to the San Andreas fault, a major transform fault, just like the Denali, and Washington is home to the Seattle Basin, whose geometry and geological units amplify main and aftershock waves. Washington and California should first implement better building regulations, and if the premise is successful, it could be applied anywhere large magnitude earthquakes occur.

II. CAUSES: As a functioning asset to people, our roadways must be monitored, maintained and most importantly funded to keep the structures serving their intended uses safely. Also, we all know the adage, nothing lasts forever, and this is true with our roadways, but our society’s pollution accelerates the decay. And these are two main causes where we, as a nation have fallen short.

Throughout the course of history there have been many advances in the world of infrastructure, mostly occurring in the 1800’s and the 1900’s. Infrastructure is defined as the basic physical and organizational structure needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function. This definition shows how important infrastructure is to people’s lives today. It affects how people live, travel, and communicate with one another. Three men who made huge contributions in the world of infrastructure were Robert Moses, Richard Ravitch and Othmar Hermann Ammann. All three of these men were involved in designing numerous landmarks, highways, bridges, tunnels, and other forms of infrastructure that today we take for granted. Although all of these men were involved in infrastructure in the New York metropolitan area, their contributions, personalities, and the public’s opinion of them were all different.

Evolution is present in every step of history. From huts and spears to wood houses and guns, humans are one species that seem to evolve every day. One of our most vital tools in which we keep improving is transportation. A particularly important stage in the United States’ history was the development of the train and the building of railroad tracks. Assembling the railroad did not just impact the transportation industry, but it also ended up impacting a wide variety of different industries. It all started in the 1860’s, when a few gentlemen decided they wanted to connect the East coast with the West coast by building the transcontinental railroad.

The issue of restoring American bridges comes from a federal point of view, specifically the Department of Transportation that in charge of ensuring the passing of FHTF-RAIAPS. Passing this bill signifies an increase in gasoline tax as well as an increase in corporate tax. FHTF-RAIAPS resembles President’s Obama proposal— to overhaul corporate and business taxes to pay for repairing and replacing the nation’s aging roads, rails, bridges and tunnels— except that he opposed to raising gasoline tax (Shear, 2014). The fact they differ in equitable taxation for gasoline, makes their restructuring approach totally different from obtaining public input, delivering organizational activities, getting outputs and achieving the desired

It is important to modify and preserve the transportation system because the number of people using transportation routes is constantly increasing. This means the government must rebuild or replace bridges, pave roads and offer safer more reliable transportation routes that have less traffic and congestion.

Although Congress doubted whether it was worth the cost, “The Governor's reported, “An adequate highway system is vital to the continued expansion of the economy.” to support the expected population growth.” (Weingroff) The Highway System also provided much needed jobs to millions of men. “More than 9.5 million persons - one of every seven workers in the United States - has a job directly connected with highways or their use.

United States’ national infrastructure are resources that are vital to keep commerce operating. Technology have allowed the governments and the private sector to share vital information with them. The nation well-being depend on each of the critical infrastructures, the big question is on how to maintain all of our infrastructure sectors operative without any problem. There a big wave of threats to our nation and if one of this threads go through, it can created a multidimensional problem to the infrastructure system of the country. The main concerns that exist in protecting the U.S. against any attacks to any U.S. infrastructure and in the same time on how to have a system that work well with other agencies. For example; is important to

The thousands of miles of highways, electric lines, gas pipes, and water lines along with the thousands of bridges take billions of dollars to maintain every year. In a ten year span in the 1980’s, estimates to rebuild the areas of our nation’s infrastructure that were in disrepair

Are you noticing electrical concerns around your parent's home when you visit, and you worry that they could have safety hazards that they don't notice or know about? Is there breaking always tripping and your parent can't easily get to the box to fix the problem?