WaPo: Failing U.S. transportation system will imperil prosperity, report finds

[marmar]

The United States is saddled with a rapidly decaying and woefully underfunded transportation system that will undermine its status in the global economy unless Congress and the public embrace innovative reforms, a bipartisan panel of experts concludes in a report released Monday.

U.S. investment in preservation and development of transportation infrastructure lags so far behind that of China, Russia and European nations that it will lead to "a steady erosion of the social and economic foundations for American prosperity in the long run."

That is a central conclusion in a report issued on behalf of about 80 transportation experts who met for three days in September 2009 at the University of Virginia. Few of their conclusions were groundbreaking, but the weight of their credentials lends gravity to their findings.

Co-chaired by two former secretaries of transportation - Norman Y. Mineta and Samuel K. Skinner - the group estimated that an additional $134 billion to $262 billion must be spent per year through 2035 to rebuild and improve roads, rail systems and air transportation. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/04/AR2010100402269.html

[Warren Stupidity]

1. but we have more warships and airplanes than anyone else combined

and our rich are the richest rich shits on the planet. So fuck the bridges, screw rail transport, the heck with any form of public transport at all.

[the redcoat]

2. If only

they thought logically for a minute and considered mag-levs. The low costs of operation and maintenance are unbeatable.

[customerserviceguy]

3. I was thinking somewhere along the same lines

The article in the OP looks like "Not Enough Livery Stables For Horses" from a 1900 newspaper that projected the amount of horses that would be needed by 1950.

Maybe decaying old infrastructure is exactly what we need to get 21st Century infrastructure instead.

[subterranean]

4. Don't worry, the free market will take care of it.

:sarcasm: