Infrastructure

In a diary over on DailyKos, metallurgist Joel Hirschhorn addresses a looming concern about infrastructure, in light of the Minneapolis 35W collapse.

Many academic and professional groups have for many years produced countless reports on mounting unpaid public costs for updating our crucial physical infrastructure, including bridges, but going way beyond those to, for example, roads, water and sewer systems, tunnels and much more. Make no mistake: The deeply researched and totally supported case for a massive national infrastructure spending program could not have been clearer. But spending on infrastructure is not sexy and politicians at ALL levels of government have found countless excuses for not facing the totality of the problem. Instead, public spending is dribbled out, dealing with the most urgent problems or, worse yet, the ones that are the most visible to the public. But unaddressed are massive numbers of problems, such as the Minneapolis bridge and thousands more bridges, that our bureaucratic system has learned to game, postpone, rationalize and, therefore, put the public safety at considerable risk.

Oregon has MANY bridges, not to mention tunnels, dams, rail, water treatment, and other public works projects that are approaching a point in their lifespan where they need to be evaluated or already have been. Oregon is also one of the states where the anti-tax movement has a foothold. That is a problem pairing of circumstances that must be addressed or the tragedy of the Twin Cities will been seen somewhere in this state.