Fixing America's Infrastructure

Our bridges, roads and tunnels are crumbling. Time for an extreme makeover.

By Gary Sledge

From Reader's Digest

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Ripping at the Seams

Last October, in an issue devoted to imaginative ways to solve America's most daunting problems, Digest editors issued a warning that because we were not investing enough in our nation’s roads, tunnels, dams and bridges, potential tragedy lay just around the corner. We turned that corner on August 1 -- the highway bridge on Interstate 35W over the Mississippi in Minneapolis, MN, collapsed. 13 people were killed and 100 were injured. Read on to see the complete scope of our national infrastructure crisis, and what we need to start doing now to prevent future tragedies.

In Boston the roof fell in. In New York the lights went out. In Oregon, antiquated bridges suffer from rotting timbers and metal fatigue. America was built with steel and concrete -- and a vision for the future. The future is here -- but it's ripping at the seams. It's time to build for the next generation.

This July, a 12-ton section of Boston's newly constructed highway and tunnel system, the "Big Dig," collapsed, killing a woman passenger and becoming a rallying cry to fix our faulty infrastructure.

According to the 2005 Report Card compiled by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the U.S. needs to spend $1.6 trillion above what's budgeted to shore up its dams, strengthen its bridges, reboot its power grid and reconstruct roads and sewers. Patchwork won't do, since crumbling water and sewer systems, canals, railroads and airports are putting the economy and people at risk. Our particular focus is on the roads, bridges and tunnels, since the nation would come to a dead halt without them.

In 1956 President Eisenhower worked with Congress to create the Highway Trust Fund, financed by taxing gasoline. The act created the greatest highway network in the world -- a network that was essential for America's economic success.

But cars and trucks on the road have quadrupled since then, and the miles each driver travels have vastly increased. The result: Roads, bridges and tunnels are collapsing from the pummeling impact.

Although there's no national public works project before Congress, here are some of the ideas and innovations being put forward.

What Government Can Do

Create the modern equivalent of the Highway Trust Fund for the entire American infrastructure -- from power grids to suspension bridges.
Establish a national authority to approve projects and issue bonds with maturities of up to 50 years to finance new construction and support repair.
Guarantee tolls and gas taxes go to roads -- not to other projects, as $1 billion did in North Carolina.
Experiment with Oregon's idea: Tax vehicles based on miles traveled, determined during annual inspections or through GPS monitoring.
Try the Indiana plan: Lease toll roads to private investors and use the money for road improvements.