The latest infrastructure report card shows mixed optimism as the country attempts to revitalize its built environment.
For college students, there’s a wise old adage that goes something like this, “C’s get degrees.” It’s true. If you’re looking to do the bare minimum to graduate and get on to your professional life, C’s will get the job done. In the latest Report Card for America’s Infrastructure by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the country almost got the job done. For the first time in 20 years, the infrastructure of the United States graded above a D, bumping up from a D+ to a C-.
In light of the economic conditions during the past 12 months of the coronavirus pandemic, this is actually a cause for celebration. Despite many states facing cataclysmic chasms in their fiscal budgets, progress was still made on the infrastructure front since the last report card was released in 2016. As the economy prepares to reopen with full vaccine rollout, there are several key areas from the report card that lawmakers should key in on as President Biden looks to turn his focus to the next phase of the nation’s recovery from the pandemic.
The ASCE report card covers 17 key infrastructure categories and grades them based on the following criteria: capacity, condition, funding, future need, operation and maintenance, public safety, resilience and innovation. The 17 categories are as follows: aviation, public parks, bridges, rail, dams, roads, drinking water, schools, energy, solid waste, hazardous waste, stormwater, inland waterways, transit, levees, wastewater and ports.
Despite America’s overall grade at the C- level, many of the infrastructure categories are still in poor condition, grading as low as D-, which feels generous. According to ASCE’s grading scale, any infrastructure graded at D is mostly below standard and approaching the end of its viable service life with a serious risk of failure. This is still unacceptable for a nation with a GDP of over $20 trillion.
A C- grade for our nation’s infrastructure isn’t exactly anything to write home about, but there has been some progress made and still some glaring flaws. Let’s break down the good, the bad and the ugly of this report card and focus on what needs to be done to bring America’s infrastructure up to a more acceptable level.
The Good
To go from a D+ to a C-, something had to be done right over the last four years. Five categories—aviation, drinking water, energy, ports and inland waterways—saw their grade improve versus only one, bridges, seeing its grade decrease. This is a start.
Rail
With a solid B, rail infrastructure received the top mark on the report card. America’s rail network is an underrated part of the supply chain, with freight rail playing a key role in multimodal shipping networks that help fuel the exponential rise in e-commerce. Freight rail infrastructure is well-funded because the tracks are privately owned and capital projects are paid for from company revenues. Contrast this with the passenger rail networks, which are heavily reliant on government subsidies and grants. Delays are still very common for passenger trains along the nation’s most heavily used routes in the Northeast. Passenger rail revenues have taken a substantial hit due to COVID-19. Freight rail looks very strong, but continued investment and advocacy are required if America is to have a passenger rail network on par with Europe or Japan.
Ports
America’s ports also scored well, checking in with a B-. As with rail, this makes some sense when you consider the fact that ports are primarily privately owned and must be kept up to standard to continue revenue growth. The country’s ports generate over 25 percent of the national GDP and create over 30 million jobs. Ports must constantly be maintained and upgraded to stay operational in harsh marine environments and be able to handle rising capacity demands. Rising sea levels and resiliency are the biggest challenges for America’s ports, and some inland, rural ports face funding gaps when compared to urban seaports, such as Houston, Long Beach, Virginia Beach and New York City.
The Bad
Rail and port infrastructure have the benefit of being largely funded by private corporations and their revenues. Logically, these should be the two infrastructure categories that are in the best shape because they are not reliant on federal and state government dollars. Unfortunately, ports and railroads are low on the list of infrastructure that the majority of Americans use every day.
Bridges
America’s bridges saw their grade drop from a C+ in 2017 to a straight C this year. This isn’t cause for immediate panic due to the way bridges age. Many of the nation’s bridges are nearing the ends of their effective service life cycles at the same time and improvements and upgrades are slowing down. Over the past four years, the number of bridges over 50 years old nationwide increased from 39 percent to 42 percent. These bridges are old, crumbling and, in many cases, are being subjected to vehicular loads above and beyond their original design level.
Being able to effectively manage this rapidly aging bridge infrastructure will come down to funding, but the current funding gap stands at over $14 billion annually. Without a serious commitment at the federal level to raise the gas tax for the first time since 1993 and effectively fund the Highway Trust Fund, it will be difficult for significant progress to be made on the condition of America’s bridges.
Energy
The debacle in Texas notwithstanding, America’s energy grid is in passable condition. Severe weather—as was the case in Texas—is typically to blame whenever something goes wrong with the energy grid. Utility companies have invested heavily in making their networks more resilient to stand up to unpredictable weather. This will be key in countering the effects of climate change. Grid operators must be proactive and take steps to make their systems more resilient before major climate events occur.
America’s energy infrastructure encompasses many different systems and sources, some more unpopular than others. President Joe Biden’s decision to nix the Keystone XL pipeline just weeks after being inaugurated was a controversial one that will cost thousands of jobs. The country can continue to rely on many different energy sources and does not need to abandon fossil fuels entirely, but this will require more cooperation, coordination and willingness by environmental advocates and industry leaders to work together to find more common ground.
Drinking Water
Flint, Michigan finally has clean drinking water, ending one of the longest-running public safety debacles in United States history. By and large in this country, if you turn on your tap to fill a glass, clean, potable water will come rushing out. This is good. What’s not good is the fact that the pipes that carry our drinking water are aging out—especially in big cities—nearly as quickly as our bridges and roads. Because of the age of the pipes, an estimated 6 billion gallons of water are lost every single day. Technology, like machine learning and remote sensing, is improving to make it easier for water utilities to isolate leaks and make necessary repairs. Americans don’t necessarily experience the effects of substandard drinking water infrastructure firsthand because their water supply isn’t interrupted, but failure to continue upgrading aging pipes could have catastrophic results.
The Ugly
Let’s not kid ourselves. There’s still a lot of work to be done to bring American infrastructure up to the level warranted by our country’s status as the leading world superpower. Eleven of the 17 infrastructure categories received a D grade. With so much of the nation’s infrastructure at this severely deteriorated level, there is a risk of at least one catastrophic failure event every single day somewhere across the 50 states. With so much infrastructure at the end of its service life, Americans will soon be experiencing impacts, including damaged automobiles due to potholes, flooding, contaminated water, massive traffic jams or delayed flights.
Schools
American children across the country have had their educational experience turned upside down over the past 12 months due to the ongoing pandemic. There certainly would have been some interruption to in-person learning even with schools receiving an A grade, but the widespread underfunding for school construction, maintenance and upgrades left many schools unsuitable for use during a pandemic
More than 50 percent of public school districts need HVAC upgrades, over one-third of schools are overcrowded and have students learning in modular classrooms, and nearly a quarter of America’s school buildings are in fair to poor condition. In urban areas, schools are crumbling and lack heating and reliable internet connection. School funding must become a priority to allow our young minds to reach their full potential.
Roads
Americans might not realize it, but failing roads and highways are costing them upwards of $1,000 every single year in the form of wasted fuel sitting in traffic. The national highway system is being pushed to its limit, being asked to carry traffic volumes far beyond what it was designed for over 75 years ago. Every single major metropolitan area is snarled by traffic every single day. Roads need to get smarter to deal with the widely expected surge in autonomous vehicles in the next decade.
Roads and bridges go hand in hand, and both face the same funding challenge due to the insolvency of the highway trust. The funding backlog for road maintenance is over $750 billion, with the COVID pandemic doing no favors to state transportation budgets. Climate change and more extreme swings in the freeze-thaw cycle will also add billions of dollars in pavement maintenance costs each year. America’s roads need to be made more resilient now while there’s still time to prepare for the real crisis.
Dams, Levees and Stormwater
America’s dams and levees both received a D grade as well as the stormwater infrastructure. This is potentially a major public safety threat. Development is pushing closer and closer to the edges of major flood plains, while the increased impervious surfaces increase the risk of urban flooding. Our national network of dams, levees and surface stormwater infrastructure are supposed to keep us safe from flooding, but they are not prepared to handle the increased runoff that goes hand in hand with development and more frequent severe storms due to climate change.
There are over 2,300 dams classified as high-hazard that are deficient. Meanwhile, over 17 million people live or work behind a levee. The 2019 floods that ravaged the Midwest did over $20 billion in damage, and the trend of extreme rainfall events will only intensify. Failure to commit the necessary resources to upgrade America’s dams, levees and stormwater infrastructure is asking for trouble.
What’s Next?
Infrastructure was a key point of emphasis during President Biden’s time on the campaign trail, but his administration has not been able to make any strides to turn his talking points into policy. Despite a lack of a coherent policy approach to infrastructure at the federal level over the previous four years, progress was still made, and the nationwide grade ticked up slightly.
Coupled with the current administration’s bold plans to use infrastructure investment to help jolt the economy back to life as the pandemic ends, this is reason for optimism. Funding must be made available to keep things moving in the right direction, both at the project level and in support of aggressive innovation in the fields of materials science, data collection, machine learning and futuristic software. Our country has a long history of finding a way to solve difficult problems, and a renewed commitment to take infrastructure seriously can stave off the long-term crumbling of our built environment.
