A healthy national infrastructure requires not just competent engineers but also a government—and a public—willing to pay for it.
People blame me because these water mains break, but I ask you, if the water mains didn't break, would it be my responsibility to fix them then?
When you travel across America, when you take the trains and drive on its roads, when you visit cities in the middle of the country, the dismal—even rotting—state of American infrastructure is surprising.
Cash is not cheap. The physical infrastructure is not easy to maintain and cheap.
Events like Hurricane Katrina and the Minnesota bridge collapse suggest a national infrastructure that has suffered from lack of tending.
Roads do not upgrade or maintain themselves. Bridges do not repair themselves or rebuild themselves.
We should not be waiting until trains derail, bridges collapse and people die to adequately fund our transportation infrastructure.
