By Joseph Picard: Subscribe to Joseph's RSS feed
October 11, 2010 8:04 PM EDT
Approximately 4 million miles of roads transect the United States today, taking vehicles over 600,000 highway bridges. In addition, there are 28,000 miles of freight and transit rail, 19,000 airports, 300 marine ports and 26,000 miles of commercially navigable waterways.
It's not all in bad shape, but enough of the nation's transportation infrastructure is hurting that experts are worried.
"America's federal transportation programs suffer from the absence of steady, adequate funding and consistent, logical planning," said Gerald Baliles, director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. "Existing structures fall into disrepair, plans for new construction fail to adequately address the problems that they intend to fix, interconnectedness between various modes of transportation is not optimized, and millions of hours of productivity are lost and billions of tons of gasoline burned as citizens wait at a standstill."
Baliles made his remarks in an introduction to a report by the Miller Center issued last week and titled Well Within Reach: America's New Transportation Agenda. President Obama echoed the message today.
"These reports confirm what any American can already tell you: our infrastructure is woefully inefficient and it is outdated," the President said this morning at a White House press conference.
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"For years, we have deferred tough decisions, and today, our aging system of highways and byways, air routes and rail lines hinder our economic growth," Obama said.
Obama appeared in company with the authors of the Miller Center report, two former Transportation Department chiefs, Norman Mineta and Samuel Skinner. Skinner was Secretary of Transportation under President George H.W. Bush, and Mineta served in that position for President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush.
The President noted that, currently, the average American household spends more on transportation each year than on food.
The government estimates that congested roads cost the nation $80 billion a year in lost productivity and wasted fuel, while clogged airports cost $10 billion annually in productivity losses from flight delays.
"In some cases, our crumbling infrastructure costs American lives," Obama said. "It should not take another collapsing bridge or failing levee to shock us into action."
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was also at the event.
"America is not keeping up with the rest of the world in addressing its infrastructure," Villaraigosa said. "We're doing a third of what Europe is doing. We're not even in the same league with China when it comes to this."
"We have to find new and creative ways to invest in infrastructure and generate the revenue to do so," Skinner said.
The Miller Center report calls for a "fundamental overhaul" of how America approaches funding and building its infrastructure. In summary, it makes ten recommendations:
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