2025 Infrastructure Report Card | Hacker News Reader

2025 Infrastructure Report Card

infrastructurereportcard.org

72 pointsjonbaer31 comments

Surprised rail is given a B- when you would think compared America's rail network against China, Europe, Japan etc. its more like a D or lower. Amtrak is good in some regions but decades behind other similarly wealthy countries and even plenty or countries with much lower GDP per capita.

Rail in America is dominated by freight, and they do a pretty good job.

Part of what causes problems is that the freight rail is run in a way that does not allow any other use, including even other freight if something goes wrong (like regularly running trains longer than longest siding)

America's rail faces significant challenges those other countries don't. An equivalent rail track in the US is vastly more expensive, new right-of-ways are much, much harder to acquire, especially near cities, and even when you do connect two metros that are in the happy medium where high speed rail can typically beat car and plane, you still find yourself that your terminals are low density sprawl, so the car will be more attractive in distances where in, say, Spain, it's just not.

Some connection pairs are probably still worth doing anyway, but we won't get the multi million trips a year of a really successful line in many cases. So it's all a much harder sell

The new right of way problem is hard to overstate. After all, literally no one wants the government taking their land, and there's usually a court judge willing to hear the case.

Freight rail in USA is massively better than anywhere else in the world.

Don’t they have daily de-railings? I remember some YouTube video talking about derailings with hazardous materials.

Most of those are minor incidents in rail-yards, the equivalent of bumping someone's car in the parking lot.

From what I know the equivalent stat for the EU is one per two days, so better but still in the same ballpark.

I don't know. We're talking about 10,000 trains operating over 150,000 miles of track. A few de-railings per day in train yards is probably within an acceptable error rate. But, I don't know.

USA has the largest freight rail network in the world

It is important to keep in mind how this "Report Card" is a lobbying tool. A wishlist meant to influence, not an independent assessment meant to inform.

The prognosis is to spend more money building more things. This has been the prognosis every year since the lobbying started. Prior projects built based on this excessive lobbying have since reached end of life this scheme is so old. Now the reports include horror stories of this federal lobbied over building which got poorly maintained: as if the poor maintenance is not the expected result of building more than can be maintained.

Infrastucture funding in the US typically operates such that the federal government gives money to build new stuff, while local governments are left attempting to pay for the maintenance.

Try to find a single page dedicated to identifying over provisioned infrastructure which could be downsized to reduce maintance costs... The ASCE's solution to all problems is to spend more money building more.

>The ASCE's solution to all problems is to spend more money building more.

It almost doesn't matter. Those jerks are written into law just about everywhere. Even if you wanna build right size or remove oversize they'll get their pound of flesh.

If I had to pick the best recent improvement in domestic infrastructure it would be broadband access. I am seeing competing FTTP providers popping up in some Texas markets. The biggest regulator around here seems to be whatever local HOA you are part of. I've done a total 180 on these organizations. When ran well, they can dramatically improve your life.

It would be interesting to see an international ranking of this

... visualized over time.

China would look crazy on that graph

Preferably in a table format.

The World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report and the IMD World Competitiveness Center both rank infrastructure quality internationally, with the US typically scoring around 13th-17th place behind Singapore, Netherlands, Switzerland, and others.

This is an important inventory to maintain, as the cost to maintain or rejuvenate this infrastructure is essentially off the books sovereign debt that must be managed (and you can’t manage what you don’t measure).

American infrastructure is legitimately bad. I say that as someone who grew up there and spent the last half decade in UK.

What’s different about America is that we find different ways of dealing with the crap infrastructure, based on how much we’re willing to spend.

Want to circumvent the awful public transit system? Just pay for an Uber. ($70 JFK to Manhattan vs. the worst experience of your life taking public transit x3 if you’re lucky…)

Not happy with Medicare? Pay for private insurance. (btw - this happens in UK too.)

Public schools not up to par? Pay for your kid to go to private school.

Drinking water icky? No problem, buy some Evian from Whole Foods (Amazon delivers!)

Don’t like your Broadband? Well unfortunately in this case you’re SOL…

Some of this stuff is bad with no alternative, like the bridges and the broadband… those are the weaknesses that worry me. You can’t privatize bridges.

Meanwhile in the UK: trains run nonstop to every city, broadband is 500mbps on average (and $50), healthcare is free (slow, but not much slower than US)… but everything else is same problems and they pay less here.

USA is a very, very large place.

> American infrastructure is legitimately bad. I say that as someone who grew up there and spent the last half decade in UK.

"the last half decade in UK" -- so what is that, the last 3-5 years? Where did you live? That matters.

> Want to circumvent the awful public transit system? Just pay for an Uber.

Again, USA is a very large place. Which city are you talking about? Only NYC?

> Public schools not up to par? Pay for your kid to go to private school.

What does "up to par" mean? Which public schools, where? The quality varies significantly state-to-state, and even county-to-county.

> Drinking water icky? No problem, buy some Evian from Whole Foods (Amazon delivers!)

Where are you talking about? (we know about Flint, MI)

> the last 3-5 years

It’s actually closer to a decade (2016).

> What does "up to par" mean

Honestly idk, I have no kids and I went to the top private school in the US.

> Drinking water icky

I’m just addressing the points of TFA which categorizes infrastructure like this. Me personally, I fill my bottle from the tap (even with “hard water” which is a very UK thing..), and only worry about it to the extent I’ve filled the same bottle for a few months…

Counter-point from Chuck from Strong Towns, "The Infrastructure Report Card is a Joke" from a month ago:

> We’re spending more than ever on infrastructure—but getting less. This report card isn’t truth. It’s marketing for broken systems.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJVM-mkONiE

Rush hour impact should be part of the road score. I am amazed Seattle is rated higher than an F in that respect. 405 south of Bellevue is TERRIBLE.

That is a problem particular to King County and their own politics. I-5/90/405 as well has 502 and 99 have always been a divisive issue when it comes to infrastructure investment.

Being the world's first economy and rating C on average and D on critical infrastructure should be a wake-up call for Americans and libertarians. Rich in dollars but poor in every other measurable way.

The worst part about all this: “For the first time since 1998, no Report Card categories were rated D−”

Not having any categories being just a tick above absolute failure is… something to be proud of? Really?

But we can pay $170 billion for ICE. It’s a pathetic state of affairs.

There's also the converse argument, to governments that look to infrastructure as the secret to all prosperity - America succeeds without infrastructure, somehow.

I love that this is a thing, but man am I disappointed by the lack of a quantitative methodology (especially in terms of ranking problems by probability, severity, and cost) and specific, actionable recommendations. In aviation for example, some of the recommendations include

>Understand and adopt new and emerging technologies...

>Embrace proactive approaches to address sustainability, resiliency, and risk...

>Support and encourage airports to look at their systems holistically...

I can't disagree with any of those things, but at the same time nothing in this report helps clarify where we should allocate our ever-more-finite resources.

A C seems pretty generous...

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