American Infrastructure Report Card (2013) | Hacker News Reader

American Infrastructure Report Card (2013)

infrastructurereportcard.org

The state of US infrastructure, compared to most other advanced countries, is embarrassing (my opinion).

At the same time, markets are offering to lend gobs of money to the US federal government for 30 years at 2.2%/year.[1]

Why not take advantage of these low rates to borrow and invest in public infrastructure like sustainable energy generation, modern high-speed transportation, and ultra-fast (100GB) internet connectivity? Put a team of top technology entrepreneurs in charge of awarding all contracts to sidestep corruption and idiocy.

Why not?

[1] https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/i...

Honest question -- I always see people argue the need for ultra-fast internet, but I'm not sure what the economic benefit of increasing speeds beyond their current rate of improvement, which in most parts of the country seems reasonably sufficient for the vast majority of work, especially given the bottlenecks are quite often in the home. Would it really provide a comparable increase in GDP/utility to say, improving transport and saving people 30min/day in their commute?

Geeks love their internet, so it's always on the list. Only half jest.

I understand the idea is, if we build massive pipes, life changing uses of the internet will be invented that cannot even be conceived in today's bandwidth-strangled world.

Hmm, have those predictions of life changing uses been borne out in places like South Korea, with actual superfast internet? (Not sarcasm, genuinely wondering)

I work with 3D imagery data, our customers need to upload gigabytes of data and models. Mining customers in certain regions of the US basically have 56k connections. America's infrastructure makes it impossible to do high tech, high bandwidth work. Maybe people only design and build low bandwidth applications because that's all our weak infrastructure can handle.

If we had better infrastructure, we would take advantage of it, I guarantee you.

I feel like every time internet speeds increase I find reasons why I'd want it to be a bit faster. Currently, 4k video adoption is likely being held back by bandwidth speeds: http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2015/01/4k-streaming-bandwidt... - Youtube recommends encoding 60fps 4k video at 53-68 Mbps, which is beyond many people's internet connections. The business potential of technology rarely arises until the mainstream customer can use it.

This study quantifies the gains from a fairly macro perspective: https://www.ericsson.com/news/1550083. 0.3% GDP growth for doubling internet speeds seems reasonable and is not unsubstantial. My guess is doubling internet speeds is cheaper than e.g. adding public transportation to even a small number of cities.

What's the current market penetration of 4K video? I work in the industry and have no need for a 4K device. How many normal people even want, let alone have 4K capabilities?

How long did it take for consumers to go from 480p to 720p to 1080p? 4k+ provides little benefit for the average consumer because TVs aren't quite there yet but with VR/AR on the rise, how long with that remain true?

There are also huge network effects which may cloud the benefits, until suddenly some mass market consumer application makes it blatantly obvious. Youtube and Skype are so successful because a significant portion of the world has access to fast Internet and microphones/cameras to the point where I can talk to my grandparents in rural Russia despite not being able to visit them in person for almost a decade. What if our Internet was fast enough and our displays cheap enough that working remotely or across international offices becomes as simple as installing several wall sized monitors in geographically spread out rooms? The display tech will get there eventually (just look at the stuff Corning is working on), but if there isn't any infrastructure to utilize the tech it will take much longer for mass adoption. It's a chicken and egg loop but while the technology improves, we have to make the positive decision to invest in infrastructure even if the benefits aren't immediately clear.

I see an obvious improvement in clarity going from 1080p to 4k on my 65" TV.

I think the lack of content today isn't due to a lack of purpose, it's a lack of demand because the technology isn't quite there. In the next few years way more people will have 4k TVs and internet connections that can handle streaming 4k video. I already see a lot of people upgrading to bigger TVs as prices fall, where 4K will really matter.

With a fast enough internet, centralized data centers can become something of a past thing. Companies can start in the garage. AWS can become a thing of the past if networks were strong enough and equal everywhere. It may also be much cheaper to make the internet better than to save time on the commute (easing up the commute can only be incremental and only invites even more people into the traffic.) My opinions may be heavily biased since we have no where even come close to follow up other countries on internet speeds (Lebanon.)

All else being equal, the size of an economy seems to be proportional to the size of the networks of people and things that make up the economy. For example, countries with larger populations tend to have larger economies, and countries with better communications and transportation infrastructure tend to have larger economies.

It makes sense. The better and more extensive the networks that make up the economy, the easier it is to meet, transact, collaborate, move physical and digital goods back and forth, teach and learn from others, expand markets, compete, etc.

As people and things become more connected physically and digitally, the networks that make up the economy get larger -- by definition.

If you have a friend in Hong Kong, please ask him the time it takes to download a 1 gig file and also ask him the price he pays for such speeds. I hate it every time when I have to upload my raw and processed photos to cloud using my Fios Internet.

In my mind, this is a question of productivity as well not just about downloading movies or watching 4K. If everything is cloud based, we need the cloud to be faster as well as any interaction between the cloud and us to be as fast as possible.

We never pay it back. We just keep rolling it over, and someday the rates won't be 2% anymore.

Frankly if the US can get to $19 trillion in debt and not fall over, $4 trillion more won't kill it.

All the while, lenders have few other borrowers to have as customers on this scale. China is a black box and Europe is a disaster.

If we ever paid down the national debt it would be a disaster. The government prints its own currency. The only reason to borrow is to give the market 100% accurate information on exactly how much the government is spending, as opposed to just printing more dollars. As long as the economy grows faster than the debt it can be rolled forever without any major problems.

Of course taxes are near historic lows in the post-war period so we can easily pay for it by raising taxes.

I'll also point out that the infrastructure spending stimulates the economy, generating tax revenue so the long-term cost isn't perfectly correlated with the immediate price tag. As long as the private sector isn't at capacity (or the spending is limited to actual infrastructure needs) it won't distort the market.

Gorging on cheap credit works great until it doesn't, then you're screwed.

Even debt on a 30 year timeline has to be repaid eventually. Pushing the limits of how much credit is available leaves a country with no margin left to weather an economic slowdown. See: Argentina at the turn of the millennium.

In the USA's case it already took on a huge amount of debt during the last financial crisis. Another round of deficit spending that big would put the US at its highest debt/GDP level ever and firmly into unknown territory as far as just how much credit the world is willing to extend it.

Edit: For the US this is an especially dangerous game to play because unlike most other nations, it is too large to be rescued by the IMF.

The IMF for all intents and purposes is the US.

The current international financial system is the white collar version of mutually assured destruction. The dollar is what gold was -- every nation on earth has pallets of $100 bills to conduct trade, buy oil, etc.

The US gets to effectively tax the world, and the alternatives are grim. Gold is too scarce. Alternate currencies like the Euro have their own problems, etc.

So the smart money is to keep buying those bonds. The end game will be refinancing or inflating it away, but it's in everyone's interest to keep things going.

"markets" :) FED holds 10% and other government agencies about 20% more. FED is basically acting as buyer of last resort there is already no buyers for about 10% of debt being issued.

Congress, mostly, is why not.

American infrastructure, and a lot of other vital institutions, are in poor shape because waste is highly profitable.

Oddly enough, it seems that the more regulated a state is, the more profitable that waste becomes.

This isn't to say that some regulation isn't beneficial; for example, the work done by organizations like the FDA and OSHA mostly very good things.

But at the same time, we can see plenty of examples of how well-meaning regulation has backfired horribly for the nation: CBOs driving up the cost of healthcare, lowest-bidder laws resulting in dogfood-reject-grade food for kids and the elderly, and the utter nightmare that is trying to build anything in California.

The question is not whether or not to regulate, but how to build and implement regulations that are loose enough to allow creative solutions to flourish, while at the same time limiting the impact of malicious or incompetent actors?

After I looked at this page I immediately wondered who funded it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Society_of_Civil_Engi...

An interesting read!

My main, and likely cynical take away from this however is that this is funded by people likely to benefit from an increase in infrastructure spending. This isn't exactly an unbiased view.

While I normally welcome that train of thought, in this case I'm inclined to ask if they aren't also the leading experts to comment on this sort of thing? It certainly brings the conflict of interest evident in e.g. cable regulation vs. industry members, but in this case at least, the organization involved seems to have more in common with e.g. the ACM/IEEE, and as such I give them a little more leeway and am more than willing to look for logical arguments. Sure, always be aware of bias, but in this case, I'm glad that it's a professional society of civil engineers telling us how dire the civil engineering situation is; frankly I hear it as a common complaint in CS that we often don't have our expertise on our domain heard by those in power :)

I'm with you there! I'm glad this exists! But I think the ideal outcome across all the stakeholders would probably end up a compromise - because this is primarily about the Engineer's opinions, in my view.

Last week, my plumber told me how dire the situation was under the house. Even though he is an expert, I still got 2 other quotes.

On the other hand, the interest of the ASCEE and the American people are congruent. Bridges in the US seem in a very poor shape, compared to the rest of the First World. When did a thing like the I-35 bridge collapse last happen on the Old Continent? And even in Portugal the electricity doesn't routinely fail for several hours after a thunderstorm because they managed to bury their wires over there.

I agree, for the most part. But the increase in tax or government spending is something that I feel like the taxpayer would likely not fully support! I think everyone wants better infrastructure, but not only better infrastructure.

More often than you'd think, depends on how you judge the severity of these relative to the I-35 collapse, but on a human life scale there have certainly been many in the last couple decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures

Agreed, especially since important infrastructure categories like communications and financial/banking are absent. The categories which are listed closely follow the Millennium Challenge top 10, according to that Wikipedia page, they "had the greatest positive impact on life in the 20th century."

But are achievements of the 20th century likely to be exclusively the same ones driving the 21st century? These categories are certainly still critical, but is it an exhaustive list?

I don't think anybody denies infrastructure is important. Hillary Clinton's plan is to spend $275bn on infrastructure[1]. Donald Trump wants double that[2]. But if we're going to spend billions or trillions of dollars we might want to make sure it's thoughtfully allocated.

1. https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/fixing-americas-infras... 2. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/us/politics/trump-clinton-...

Unlike interest groups with mysterious names like "Amercians for Families and Fuzzy Kittens", it's pretty obvious what an engineering society is advocating and why.

The facts are mostly in their favor. How many interstate overpass bridges are there? Most have 35 year lifespans, and most are older.

In my area (Albany, NY) the State is just wrapping up a 6 year project to retrofit a major bridge that was a sister of the I-35 bridge in Minnesota that catastrophically failed a few years ago -- before that event, it was known to be in rough shape and nothing was done.

Also in my city, a century old storm sewer just collapsed last week, swallowing an entire street, taking out a primary water main and gas main in the process.

This sort of infrastructure is decaying all over the place, and even when not failing catastrophically, it causes other issues. For example, current standards are to separate storm sewers from sanitary (i.e. Poop) sewers. Most older areas end up overflowing storm drains into both systems, overwhelming treatment plants and dumping untreated waste. Increased sprawl and pavement mean more storm water -- so local rivers and harbors are fouled all over the country.

This isn't exactly an unbiased view.

True, but one thing to consider is that engineers and construction workers can make a lot more money performing emergency repairs (replacing a bridge that has just collapsed or fixing a broken water main) compared with a run-of-the-mill rehab or new project.

4 trillion to start to fix our country's infrastructure but we spent $6 trillion in Iraq [1][2] that resulted in ISIS. We used to help rebuild economies like in Germany/Japan with economic plans implemented after WWII where everyone mutually benefits. Many other things could have been done to better economics, economics wins all wars. Maybe that is the long goal but it is almost two decades in and is in worse condition.

Building up infrastructure leads to better economics on those improved platforms. How about upgradeable GB internet across the country? How about an electric car upgradable highway charging system? How about paying down some debt not making more of it after each war since WWII? We sure know how to invest...

[1] http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/18/business/la-fi-mo-ir...

[2] http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-iraq-war-cost-2-trill...

Fiscal consolidation seems like an orphaned child in USA. The left does not believe in it and the right does not care anymore.

If we could pass a public stimulus to help banks become too big to fail, why can't we get together and pass something similar to help our Infrastructure too strong to fail?

I think as a rule of thumb government money will always flow in the direction where self interests of politicians and government servants are better served.

Building a road is a time tested government program. It is mature, there is lots of competition and opportunity for publicity or kickbacks is limited. The profit margins of the road construction companies are pretty thin too. I dont think politicians benefit by building a road or bridge. Today they benefit by having outrageous programs like high speed train that will not see light of the day for decades to come (or probably never) or transmitting American programs into Cuba (which the cubans cant hear because the signal is blocked).

The only way is to put a hard constitutional limit on the government spending as a % of GDP. The government is then forced to take measure to increase GDP if they want to subsidize education of Chinese prostitutes or spend $$$ on study effects of LSD on monkeys.

While I agree with you wholeheartedly, I don't think the situation is that simple. The military industrial complex is the largest job program in US, maybe even human, history. While there was certainly a huge level of corruption and profiteering during the war, I don't think it's much different than inefficiencies in any other industry except for the magnitude. Even then I think healthcare in the US wastes just as much as the defense industry; maybe even more since our healthcare expenditure is at over 15% of GDP compared to the 20% of government income going to defense. Healthcare also has a huge impact on lives just like any war because every human being in the country comes in contact with our health system, often involving high stakes.

I think the way forward for the US is to completely retool the military industrial complex to a civilian/academic industry that utilizes its resources for the public good instead of geopolitical posturing. Between the factories, scientists, engineers, and trained, disciplined soldiers I think that the complex could single handedly turn around our infrastructure decline. US defense spending in 2000 was almost 400 billion so a decade later we'd still have spent the majority of the money we did, war or no. If we just cut the defense industry and reinvested in infrastructure instead of retooling our existing system, there's no telling whether the net result would be any better than what we have now just due to the shock to a $400-600 billion dollar jobs program and any social instability or brinkmanship that results (aka a demagogue like trump winning an election in a backlash).

The article you linked, doesn't say we spent $6 trillion in Iraq, it mentions a report saying the costs could be 6 trillion over the next 40 years. The infrastructure report wants 4 trillion by 2020. Very different time periods.

2 trillion+ already spent and gone and much of the remaining 4 trillion in interest and healthcare for veterans. That money would be more available today and we still have to pay it. Harder to get money now if large amounts are already spent now and in the future, it does impact 2020 budgets. Are you saying debt now doesn't impact spending? It does indeed. The fact the interest will carry for 40 years is telling in how we are budgeting for the wrong things.

Money owed is money owed even if interest only becomes 2 trillion we are still at 4 trillion. It will probably end up as more than 6 trillion as these figures are usually off on the low side. That is money that is on the books that could have been used for infrastructure and is harder to get now.

I'd characterize the state of Bay Area roads as decrepit.

It's angering that the extra wear on my suspension is costing me money, and it's really embarrassing when I think about all the folks who come in from say, Japan or Germany. They have to really wonder what we are thinking.

I suppose it's taken a long time for the state to refill its coffers after the financial crisis, but that was what, 8 years ago now? Can we get on with it?

They were even worse before the Recovery Act funded some projects....but yes, mostly terrible

I think the root issue is that most people would rather drive a Tesla on 'decrepit' roads than pay 50% marginal tax rates and $2/L for gas to drive a Honda on the Autobahn. Give or take.

We already did that. Remember "shovel ready jobs?"

To bad it was all a scam.

Reminds me of a bridge I saw under construction over an interstate in IL. No road leading to it.

Or the billions in telecom tax breaks for higher speed Internet infrastructure.

Hope and Change, ahh, good times.

Now we are Stronger Together.

Can someone please change it's to its in the title?

Yup.

*its

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