I agree.

Engineering makes decisions all the time about trade offs. You can spend lots of money over engineering a structure so it lasts a very very long time. But then you can't spend that money on other projects.

Lately (in the last decade) there has been a big push by authorities to make smaller dams able to withstand 100 year floods. (Or may it's 500 year floods, I don't remember). I think with climate change this is a smart approach. But I know of two lakes this has impacted. One is on Goshen VA and the Boy Scouts had to spend millions to upgrade a dam. The other is NEPA where I have a relative who owns a house on a pond. The state drained the pond because there was no money to fix the dam. Now they live on a meadow full of ragweed and deer ticks with a small creek running through it.

http://www.penndot.gov/ProjectAndPro...s/default.aspx

2 year old info...
http://crossroads.newsworks.org/inde...ally-deficient

a map
http://crossroads.newsworks.org/inde...icient-bridges

But I also disagree.

Political leaders need to make decisions about what sorts of infrastructure should be funded.

Do you throw stupid money at a stadium to enrich the team owners? Fill potholes and repair crumbling concrete abutment? Build new roads? Expand an airport's capacity?

Engineering can tell you how much various projects will cost and how urgent a repair might be, but leaders have to decide what they want to prioritize.

They always build the stadiums, don't they?

Maybe not. In San Diego they actually put it to a public vote. And the vote lost bigtime, 57 to 43 against.

A few weeks later, the owner announced the San Diego Chargers will become the Los Angeles Chargers in 2017, as a new stadium is being built there for the team.

Good or bad for San Diego in the long run? ...who knows... it certainly isn't going to make LA any better...

~

Meanwhile the people in Philly are very happy to see funding come together for a "cap" over I-95, so the people of the eastern section of the city will have direct access to the waterfront, with a huge public park and grass and drainage and whatnot.

West Philly is still a shithole, but the cap will be glorious for the people who live in $1M townhouses in Society Hill.

PennDOT and its 6,000 structurally deficient bridges will be spending $100M for that cap

And we all say, well hey, if the cap makes Philadelphia into an even greater destination for the next 100 years, because instead of pedestrian bridges over the highway, we have a lovely park over the highway...? Isn't that an amazing investment in our future? More money later?

Mmmmmmmmaybe. But the reason this project gets big traction is because, in the last ten years, smart thinkers have come to the conclusion that highway access to central parts of cities has actually hurt the cities.

Those highways were the big money infrastructure projects 30-50 years ago, promising all the benefits etc. etc. so what happened? Now the big projects are having them be tunnels, or having them have ceilings.

...so couldn't we all just not have the big infrastructure projects 30-50 years ago and save two rounds of this stuff? ...who knows...

Paying the engineers is in the hands of the politicians.

Yes, leave it in the hands of engineering which it pretty much is. But engineers and their techs, can only do the inspections, calculations, and reports.

Then it goes to the politicians to acquire funding, including fighting with other states for federal money, allocate that money for a specific project, and award contracts to their campaign contributors and cronies.

Example- Right across the road from me they're spending a zillion dollars turning an abandoned rail line into a paved walking trail with a landscaped parking area. Yet the road going by looks like a WW I battlefield. That pisses people off.

Next you'll be asking the government to support time machines...

...but it comes back to campaign finance?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2402...?hc_ref=SEARCH

A high school friend is involved with this. They focus on Upstate NY but I'd guess there are similar organizations elsewhere looking for procurement reform.

Cold magic...

New take on the snack bar... :unsure:

Downhill ice skating :eek:

I want to see the world downhill ice skating track Zamboni competitions.

Will you settle for a Petroleum Institute cartoon from 1956?

Better bigger.

Nsfw