America's Infrastructure Is Slowly Falling Apart

The article doesn't touch on the root of the problem, which is that construction costs are totally out of control. In crude terms, "where the FUCK is all the money going???"

Here's an example. About 33 years ago we completed a very nice, very functional bridge across the Columbia River, I-205 between Oregon and Washington. It's 4 lanes in each direction and cost $170 million.[1]

Fast forward to a few years ago. There's a second crossing across the Columbia, I-5, a few miles downriver of the above I-205 bridge. It's much older and probably needs replacement. But the proposed solution would cost about $3 billion (and perhaps $10 billion according to critics).[2]

The taxpayers paid $170 million in the early 1980s. But somehow we're told that the equivalent today would cost $3 billion. And the "tax and spend" crowd are totally OK with that. Fortunately this particular boondoggle was killed by the Washington State legislature, which refused to appropriate its $450 million share. And yet the project somehow managed to spend $175 million just in EIS and some design work.

I think that most 5-year-old children have a better understanding of money than most politicians and transportation planners. Either that or it's just mostly brazen graft.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_L._Jackson_Memorial_Brid... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River_Crossing