The issue isn't whether or not bridges and the like deteriorate to the point of collapse and casualties. ce folks.
Of course it isn't, but we tend to talk about it because it is a popular talking point for people who want more infrastructure spending. Either way, literally failing bridges are exceptional and don't tell us much about the condition of most roads and highways in this country.
With regard to maintenance costs, $1M is really not that much to maintain a bridge, even in inflation-adjusted terms. Bridges tend to be super expensive. What should we have been spending on it per year, and what would a comparison to the cost of building and maintaining a new bridge distributed over its likely useful life look like?
By the way, it is very much not the case that the marginal dollar spent on highway or road construction or maintenance necessarily has any kind of GDP multiplier effect. This shouldn't be surprising; almost all forms of public spending suffer from diminishing returns. As we already have one of the best highway systems in the world, with more miles of road per driver, more miles travelled per capita, and more registered vehicles per adult than almost all other countries, perhaps there are other priorities that deserve or focus. (We also have much higher rates of traffic fatalities, but most of this is explained by higher miles travelled and most of the remainder is attributable to higher rates of intoxication and lower seatbelt use compared to our peer countries.)
Also, I can't help asking, was the irony in pivoting directly from comparing our roads to Nigeria's to pleading for a "rational discussion" intentional?
I think you're missing the point about the Pittsburgh bridge I mentioned. It wasn't $1 mil a year spent to maintain that bridge; it was $1 mil a year (in early 80's dollars) in lost revenue that decay of the bridge cost a single company every year. One of the largest companies in the region at the time to be sure, but when you factor in every large, medium, and small business losing revenue every year because of it's deteriorated state, I damn well guarantee you the cost of upgrading the bridge would've had a net economic boon far far outstripping it's cost.
That's the situation we're in now. Yes, Av, we still have at least one of the best transportation infrastructure systems in the world, but that's one of the reasons we have the strongest economy in the world. However, we are undeniably pissing away that infrastructural economic advantage as the number of roads and bridges reaching classified levels of "crappy" and "even worse" reaches post-war highs. And it's all due to political intransigence much more than any realistic assessment of our national infrastructure needs.
Nigeria was my random choice among any third world country. A bit of hyperbole perhaps, but when folks like Steve McQueen argue that the number of people killed by collapsing un-repaired bridges isn't TOO bad right now, it was hardly an over-the-top comparison.
