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U.S. infrastructure: The Pot-Holed Highway To Hell

ft.com — The state of transport and communications infrastructure is a symbol of a nation ’s economic development and the US is starting to look like a third world country.

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  • allowners, on 05/11/2008, -19/+61We need a new system anyway, one that is practical and efficient, one that does not export our national wealth. I suspect the US has the most inefficient transportation system in the developed world.
    • arrrapirate, on 05/11/2008, -6/+22you should come to canada
      • Wacer, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2I have been to Saskatchewan and some of the roads were fine. Some of the highways were downright horrible.
    • widgetmaker, on 05/11/2008, -1/+14Nope Britain takes that honour :) We easily win the dubious honour of worst, over priced, delay ridden, expensive transport network in the developed world.
      • dark_helmet, on 05/12/2008, -1/+5I've lived in britain, and i live in canada. Getting around ottawa (where i live) is definitely worse than trying to get around london. I can't say much for other Canadian cities though, since i've never lived in any during my adult life.
        • boot20, on 05/12/2008, -1/+7Getting around the rest of Britain can be a pain though. The Tube does well for London, but honestly, the rest of the country is very far behind in decent infrastructure for transportation.
          • 10scott10, on 05/12/2008, -0/+4I'm from LA. the only real mass transit we have is buses. our "subway" system is horrible it goes basically no where, and there is so much red tape from locals that they can't expand it anywhere on a time frame not measrued in decades. plus, We have the worst traffic west of the Mississippi.

            i guess thats what happens when you have a city so spread apart. (people commute to LA that live like 60 miles away. this is very often a daily commute for some people)
          • kuzotz, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2I live in Oklahoma City. What mass transit? Oh you mean the city busses that stop running at 7pm....

            But atleast we're trying, but hey Oklahoma has the worse roads in the US as every single bridge should've collasped a long time ago XD
          • masterofshadows, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2I live in Orlando, the sprawl here, coupled with the poor quality of public transit has made this place impossible to not own a car. Lynx(bus co.) does try, but after a conversation with a driver i understand why its so bad, and why they are in such bad financial straits. For a bus company its a bit strange that only about 20-25% of their staff are drivers, and 10% is maintainance. everyone else is overhead.
      • MelvinSchlubman, on 05/12/2008, -1/+2Terminal 5
    • ArachnidDude, on 05/11/2008, -19/+3that's the stupidest thing ive ever heard. the US is BY FAR, the best in the world.
      • toshirosan, on 05/11/2008, -3/+18it is obvious that you have never ventured outside US. There is a bigger world with a lot of other countries you know, and most of them, including the so called "third world countries" have a lot better system than the US, even a better government and economy.
        • solid12345, on 05/12/2008, -4/+5By better system you mean yours in Japan for example where you actually pay salary wages to people whose job is to shove people into train cars like cattle?
        • boot20, on 05/12/2008, -1/+10I'd like to point everyone to the German transportation infrastructure. It's absolutely brilliant.
          • popfrogs, on 05/12/2008, -0/+6Iraq, Iran and other Middle Eastern countries also have great highway systems. Jaguar and Aston Martin often test new cars in Dubai due to the great highways there and the extreme temperatures (100 degrees, 95% humidity).

            It's funny what countries can build when their enormous war budgets are briefly redirected to something useful.
        • ArachnidDude, on 05/12/2008, -1/+1would you care to cite examples? and after you figure it out, maybe you can tell me why you don't live there, since you're so impressed.

          boot20... brilliance is one thing, affordable is another. How much does an average citizen spend on transportation costs every year? I'd be willing to bet the gas tax is peanuts compared to any country with an even remotely superior road system, excluding the obvious exceptions of middle eastern oil countries, who have unlimited funds for such things.
          • boot20, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1The problem is that pretty soon the ONLY answer is public transportation. Either we are ahead of the curve and eat the cost (and reap the rewards) or behind the curve and continue to be dependent on an unstable region for our crack addiction.
          • ArachnidDude, on 05/13/2008, -0/+0In other words, they spend A LOT. And um, there's plenty of oil addiction to go around in Germany.
      • PhilLesh69, on 05/13/2008, -0/+4That is just provincial thinking to say "The US is by the the best in the world". I'm assuming that you've never visited other countries, or even read much about them.

        Germany's public transportation system, and actually most of Europe's, is far superior to what we have here in the US. German roads are amazing, too (and the people there know how to drive, just to add insult to our poorly skilled American drivers.)

        America has the most inefficient transport system, overall, compared to the rest of the developed world. In Europe, rail is used more than air. Much more efficient. Public transport with buses, trams, trolleys and monorails connect suburbs to urban centers. Much more efficient. Goods are generally only trucked from rail heads to the end points, instead of being trucked from port to end point. Much more efficient.

        Not to mention the majority in other countries do not drive 7,000 pound SUVs just to get a cup of coffee. They drive much more efficient cars.

        It is so funny that people have this mentality that "WE ARE BETTER, BECAUSE WE'RE AMERICANS" but don't really know what the hell they are even talking about. They just say it because it makes them feel good.
        • boot20, on 05/13/2008, -0/+3Uh, America is the world and New York, New York is the center of the world...duh...

          (that's sarcasm for those visiting from 4chan)
        • ArachnidDude, on 05/13/2008, -2/+1Piss off, phil. I said the U.S. network of roads is the best in the world, and it is a fact. The entire system was built on a minor gas tax, and allowed our economy to prosper far faster than the rest of the world. The proof is in the pudding. Sure, the U.S. is having economic problems now, but I'll give you a clue.. It ain't the roads. Just to clarify, by efficient, I mean to the citizen, not the tree-hugging tax happy liberal govt. As in cheap.

          All you 'little car', 'mass transit', 'trolley' goers just need to wakeup and realize that the U.S. is a big, developed place. There are too many cities that are bound to the automobile (*forever*). Mass transit can be integrated, but the auto is not going to die, and big families need big cars. So it doesn't make me "feel good", Phil, when a bunch of idiots start acting like our infrastructure is in crisis, and try to cause the cost effectiveness of transportation in this country to go out the window.
    • AsylumAleikum, on 05/12/2008, -22/+15A diggiot "suspects" something bad about the U.S., and gets +12 digs. This speaks volumes about anti-american morons infesting Digg.
      • allowners, on 05/12/2008, -3/+7A nimrod with nothing original to say gets 0, now that speaks volumes!,
      • PhilLesh69, on 05/13/2008, -0/+2Actually, a person who cannot find fault with his nation is the anti-American moron. People who try to find ways to improve the country by figuring out the things we do wrong are true patriots. Idiots who think that this country can do no wrong are nationalistic fools who allow their country to sink deeper and deeper into an abyss of mediocrity.
      • ArachnidDude, on 05/13/2008, -0/+0Exactly right Asylum.
    • Sil369, on 05/12/2008, -2/+8China will build the roads, and the US will buy it from them.
      • Elshar, on 05/12/2008, -1/+2No, more like China will build the roads, the US will install toll booths and then sell them at-cost to India. Stuff like that happens all the time here in the name of the almighty dollar. Pretty sick, really.
    • solid12345, on 05/12/2008, -6/+6And what do you propose, magic flying machines that take us everywhere? When will people realize that we can't build a practical transit system like West Europe or Asia, our country is too vast. The Russians are in the same boat, they have to drive or ride a bus everywhere they go too but you don't see people bitching they are wasteful.
      • boot20, on 05/12/2008, -0/+10The problem is that the American infrastructure doesn't even support local commuting very well. Let's take LA as the prime example of a broke infrastructure. It's easy to fix if they'd only focus on public transportation and proper city planning.
        • kuzotz, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2Oklahoma city is trying to expand, and its getting worse. Especially since it's growing in population. I mean what use to be a small city is now a medium size city and getting larger.
      • allowners, on 05/12/2008, -0/+5Yeah, but they've got oil, we don't. While the oil lasted, if everybody's stupid enough to wast it, who's going to complain? Now that we're killing people to fuel our inefficient transportation, I'd think people might start to complain at some point. Then again, that would require thought.
      • PhilLesh69, on 05/13/2008, -0/+2So, I guess America isn't such a great nation after all. I mean, if those backwards Europeans can do something we can't, I guess we've lost our grandeur and can do spirit.

        America is not too vast to build a proper public transportation infrastructure. That is a cop out.

        How does every school child in this country manage to get a bus ride to school every morning?
        • ArachnidDude, on 05/13/2008, -0/+0Umm.. By riding a bus that uses gasoline and pavement. WTF?
    • Richandler, on 05/12/2008, -0/+7That's what happens when bureaucrats are allowed to make roads. Any over really think about how absurdly inefficient 4-way stops are? Or stop lights that have zero intelligence too them. Also the notion that adding more lanes to a highway will relieve congestion... you build it they will come is a very old saying.
      • popfrogs, on 05/12/2008, -1/+10You're right about extra lanes. Unless the entire street level network is linked to the highway (i.e. stoplight timing near highway intersections change to allow greater flow during rush hours), adding more lanes does nothing.
        Ultimately the US needs to build a high speed train system linking major cities. Use nuclear to power it. If it cripples the airlines, good, because the TSA sucks and I have yet to see more than 2 US airlines that appear competent and able to keep themselves alive without begging the government for a bailout every few years.
        • kuzotz, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2yea I actually fly air canada for domestic flights. THat's how bad it has gotten to find a reliable airliner, but Delta actually isn't doing too bad for itself in terms of late flights and incompetence. Delta is close to a competent airline, but not quite there.
      • PhilLesh69, on 05/13/2008, -1/+14 way stops are not the problem. There are 4 way stops everywhere in the world. There are formulas that base the needs of an intersection based on the amount of traffic on both the primary road and cross streets (or where two cross or primaries intersect). If enough traffic travels the road at sampled times, they upgrade to the appropriate traffic control method.

        Almost all traffic lights are somewhat intelligent. They have sensors to detect cars waiting at red lights, and different timing schemes for different times of day. If you drive up 18th st NW from Constitution to K st in Washington DC going 5 mph above the 25mph speed limit, you can actually keep your foot off the brake the whole way. Sometimes you might just reach the intersection just as it changes to green, but they have had that street perfectly timed since at least 1991.

        Granted, traffic lights could have much more intelligence that would save fuel and time. LIke, for instance, a camera system that would determine ithat a car is approaching a green light just as another car is coming to a stop at the red light on the cross street, and then would not cycle the light until the approaching car has cleared the intersection, and of course, to determine if, during the cylcing of the light, that a car isn't going to stop in time, to delay the green for the waiting cars to prevent collisions, etc. But that stuff will happen soon enough anyway, it's just a matter of someone figuring out the right algorithms and putting together the off-the-shelf technology necessary to do so.
    • geddon, on 05/12/2008, -7/+3That new system is called Capitalism: where companies keep the roads bright and shiny for those who are able to afford it.
      • ArachnidDude, on 05/13/2008, -0/+0I think your jab was misunderstood by the dreamy dogooders in here. But you are right, that's exactly what it's come to. Which is why I hate this article.
    • alclone, on 05/12/2008, -0/+5I think the highway's quality is more based on the state and not the country. As I was making a car trip from West Virginia back to my home state of Pennsylvania... the road went from quiet to ass loud
      • popfrogs, on 05/12/2008, -0/+5Well actually it's two pronged. There are Federal funds for interstate highways and state money for local highways. Some states get more money than others (Texas vs. Oklahoma) due to a number of factors including constituency, number of drivers (more drivers = more gas tax = more money).
        I always know the second when I cross the state line driving from Dallas to OKC because all of a sudden the damn highway becomes a roller coaster made of something resembling gravel.
        • kuzotz, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2lol. I live in OKC I know what you mean, but once you get into OKC the highways locally there are getting better, but I wouldn't drive on the bridge that goes through downtown seeing that I've noticed how it's crumbling, and you can see the steel skeleton of it.
    • dehue, on 05/12/2008, -3/+7So where are these bad roads that everyone here is taking about it? I've driven all over the west coast and haven't had a problem yet. Even places like Tahoe where it snows like crazy in the winter have great roads. But really, you people should come visit Russia sometime, the roads here can get so bad that it's almost impossible to drive through. And this is just one example right here http://www.englishrussia.com/?p=315
      • boot20, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2Apparently you didn't dive 5, 80, 580, 880, 680, 1, or 24.

        Although, finally California is doing some work on 24....
        • dehue, on 05/12/2008, -1/+1What? Oh, come on, what's wrong with 680 and 580? Sure, the roads aren't exactly new, but they are definitely not in a horrible condition. I've seen roads way worse than that. Believe me, if the roads here were as bad as you say, no one in the bay area would be going 80mph on them.
          And you are right kuzotz, I've never been to Oklahoma, although I wouldn't mind visiting to see how its like.
          • boot20, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Drive 680 near Walnut Creek and get off at the Ygnacio exit and tell me 680 is fine. On 580, just drive anywhere near Livermore and tell me 580 is fine.

            Caltrans does very little on most of the freeways, but the surface streets are nice....
      • kuzotz, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3also dehue has never been to or driven through Oklahoma.
      • joshuabowers, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3You apparently have never driven the surface streets out in the Rancho Cucamonga / Ontario area; CalTrans has a number of the thoroughfares in a fine state of disrepair year-round.
      • PhilLesh69, on 05/13/2008, -0/+2Come to the east coast. The roads here can be pretty treacherous. Of course, there are some nicer roads, some even really well maintained, but overall, the roads suck.

        95 is really bad from DC to NYC, with patches of nicely paved sections here and there.

        DC roads are notoriously horrible. Pot holes that can literally rip a wheel right off a car (I hit one that cracked the upper and lower control arms on both rear wheels, along Canal Rd going into Georgetown about 6 years ago.) I even remember when they repaved the right lane of the Clara Barton Parkway, and then stopped for the winter, leaving the original paving of the left lane intact. The new right lane was so poorly paved that your car would wobble down the road. Everyone started driving exclusively in the left lane (which is a major pet peeve of mine, I hate people who sit in the left lane at or near the speed limit)

      • ArachnidDude, on 05/13/2008, -0/+0Well, hey, California kinda sucks, don't it? I mean, I like you guys and all, but, uh.. well, your state is dead broke. Build toll roads, right? That will really help your economy.. /Please detect the sarcasm!
    • HeroicLife, on 05/12/2008, -3/+4The solution to road socialism hell is to private the transportation system. For one potential scenario, read my post: http://www.rationalmind.net/2005/01/05/private-roa ...

      There are many innovations that might exist in a free market for transportation. I would not take even traffic lights for granted. One thing you see in other countries is a timer or progress bar on lights, so you know how many seconds you have until the next light. Perhaps it's preferable to use a traffic circle, more underpasses, or a totally different convention. There is also the opportunity to apply artificial intelligence to predictive traffic monitoring, so cars never get red lights. Adding special roads for computer-driven cars would eliminate lights entirely. All this is off the top of my head - we really have no idea what entrepreneurs could come up with.
      • boot20, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3Assuming the government doesn't give it handouts like it does for the airlines, it'd be just fine...

        No idea why you are being dugg down...
      • ArachnidDude, on 05/13/2008, -1/+0NO! Extremely stupid paradigm, people. Selling off infrastructure to private interests will not only inflate the price of everything, and it leads to extreme abuse of the laws of eminent domain. HeroicLife is a fool, with no regard to the future consequences of his ideas, and no regard for the massive inflation that will be (and is being) created from the privatization of roads. It seems that every Aggie who graduated in the last 20 years is hell bent on stealing Texas' roads from her. BTW, you and your Aggie cronies have it wrong. Roads today are not a monopoly, they are communist. And they should stay that way.
    • PhilLesh69, on 05/12/2008, -0/+4Bridges have collapsed, remember?

      If this article is trying to say that America is STARTING to look like a thrid world country, then the author of this article hasn't ventured very far from New York, LA, Chicago or DC.

      I've been all over this country, and all I can say is that many parts of this country remind me more of the Bahamas or Jamaica than it reminds me of the parts of this country I live in. I've seen people living in school buses converted into make shift homes. I've seen trailer parks. I've seen homes with corrugated steel walls leaning against two-by-fours. And that isn't even the inner city blight, this is just out on the country side.
    • masamunecyrus, on 05/12/2008, -2/+1I'm currently living in Japan, and trust me, while the quality of US roads are inferior to most other countries, the road system is MUCH better. From my home to Narita airport in Tokyo is about 50 miles, but it takes over 3 hours to get there by car. Japan may only be as big as California, but if you traveled it by car, it'd feel like driving from Maine to Florida. The reasons are large and many, but to sum it up, the United States' Interstate system is extremely convenient (despite what driving in Chicago or Atlanta might tell you ^_^), the roads are simply layed out and make sense, and they're sufficiently wide almost everywhere.

      It's so much harder to maintain roads in the United States for various reasons. The largest ones that come to mind are that since cars are THE form of transportation in the United States, and we have the third-largest population in the world, our roads are much more traveled than others. Also, we use larger cars -- that extends not only to private citizens, but our trucks are gigantic, too, compared to other countries. A US-sized semi is large enough to take up a typical 2-lane road in Japan. Secondly, the US has 4 million miles of roads. Compare that to Japan's 750,000 miles, or so. But maybe that's an unfair comparison, Japan is so small. Well, in that case, China has only 1 million miles of roads.

      Public transportation is really great outside of the US; buses and trains are extremely convenient. But please, don't give me this "the US is the world in the world" bitching. Go outside the small area surrounding your home and go see how the roads are in the rest of the world. You'll have quite a different view on what convenient roads are, then.
    • masamunecyrus, on 05/12/2008, -2/+2Ah, another thing that I forgot to mention -- price. Roads are by and large free in the United States. Bridges are also very often free in the United States. By comparison, it could cost me $80 to take the interstate those 50 miles to Narita Airport. And much of that interstate is only two lanes, and extremely backed up by traffic. And it's not uncommon for bridges to cost over $10 to cross. The Akashi-Kaikyo bridge, the only way to get to and from Japan's main island of Honshu to one of its other large 4 islands, Shikoku, costs $23.

      Compare that to how pissed people become when they see a $1.50 toll road in the States.
      • datenshi, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3For god's sake, why don't you just take the trains?
        • masamunecyrus, on 05/13/2008, -0/+1Your comment doesn't make any sense. >_> Just because trains can take you to almost any city doesn't mean that they can take you anywhere. If you did all of your living at or around the station, you'd go broke pretty fast, as station grocery stores are usually more expensive than others. The country doesn't revolve around the few square miles around every station. And you can't hop on a train and tell it "take me to X."

          Hell, I just went to the Indy Japan 300, which is an international race. But the track is located in a very small town -- where purchasable land exists in Japan -- and though I was lucky enough to have transportation provided by my school, it was rained out and we had to take public transportation the second day to get there. Let me tell you, we ended up transferring trains 3 times to get onto a small, local ONE CAR train that only ran ever 45 minutes. Then, when we got to Motegi station (where the Motegi Twin Ring track is located), we ran and took the ONE bus that was offered that day to get to the track.

          Of course, if you'd like to ride your bike to the station, regardless of weather, pay for a train that occasionally takes you away from where you need to go in order to get to a station that has a track that goes there, then occasionally up to an hour for the train to arrive, then pay for that train, then leave the station, wait for some number of hours for one of a few buses (which then gives you a schedule you have to follow in order to return), or else then pay for a taxi to get where you want to go, which also means that you have to call and wait for a taxi to pick you up when you're done, and then pay for the taxi again, and do everything all over again to get back, be my guest. Sometimes cars are necessary. And there is almost 1 car for every household in Japan, so why don't you tell the whole damn country "For god's sake, why don't you just take the trains?"



          Or you can just skip reading that entire block, as it's easily summed up in the words, "Because it doesn't quite work that way in real life."
    • boot20, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Having traveled mostly in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, I have to say they do pretty well in most areas as well. Asia on the other hand is pretty hit or miss. South America does well in the more industrialized countries (like Brazil). Mexico stinks on ice....Russia...well...Russia is Russia.

      I've never been to Africa, so I can't comment on how their road or public transportation systems are.
  • youtellme8, on 05/11/2008, -8/+34I'm not too concerned. A new system is going to have to come when everyone switches to alternative energies anyway. That said, the sooner the better.
    • Bossy, on 05/11/2008, -16/+5So you believe that once cars are on alternative energies such as Hybrid Electric, U.S's transport and communications infrastructure will automatically fix itself? Makes no sense, you must be supporting Obama this election.
      [edit] Damn.
      • DuffyDirect, on 05/11/2008, -0/+9the schenectady railway company was an electric streetcar system powered almost completely by hydoelectric from the hudson river power company in the 1890s. was replaced by diesel autobuses because rails were "annoying" to drivers.
        • Bossy, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3But rails also travel on bridges and through other infrastructures. So tell me again, how will having a rail powered by hydroelectric solve the infrastructure problem? You and the poster above are implying that alternative energy will solve the nation's weak infrastructure problems. Cars will still travel on bridges and cause deterioration.
          • DuffyDirect, on 05/13/2008, -1/+1"the nation" does not build railway bridges or track, private enterprise does. I don't know if you've noticed, but rail companies like CSX, Canadian Pacific, etc. are singing "We're in the money!" and funneling billions of dollars into railway reconstruction. 150 year old tracks that could barely push trains at 11 mph can now accomodate 80 mph. the entire railline in the south was annihilated during hurricane katrina, and it was rebuilt to handle even greater capacity.

            Now these are class-1 railways of course, and not streetcars, but the fact is that the government really has no business building and maintaining roads or train track with public money. subsidies, public take-overs and interference in general is the reason the trolley and passenger raill and steam and electric cars of the early century fell by the way side in the first place. Should they regulate and mandate operations to an extent? of course, but its simply ridiculous that states, counties, and the feds pay to rebuild 2 lane corroded roadways in bum-***** montana every single spring.
    • kylere, on 05/11/2008, -4/+17This is just as irrational as the silly xtians thinking we can ignore things because Zombie jesus is coming soon.
      • PhilLesh69, on 05/12/2008, -2/+1People who live in little boxes made of ticky-tack have no idea what the rest of this country really looks like.

        If you go to West Virginia, or Oklahoma, or Louisiana, or Alabama, or Kentucky, or even parts of New York, Pennsylvania, or Oregon, or Colorado, or basically any state and look at the way people live when you get more than 2 hours away from a "major" city, you'd be shocked.

        Outside of major metropolitan areas, the rest of this country resembles a third world country. People are living in basically shanty towns. Their neighborhoods are half boarded up (even well before the subprime mess), some live in buses and trailers, some have homes that have half-collapsed.

        And it has only gotten worse in the past 25 years.
    • exomni, on 05/12/2008, -0/+5Thank God you're not in public office. Your idea of maintaining a nation's infrastructure is comparable to picking the right time in a product cycle to buy an iPod.

      Your comment is so ignorant it's laughable. Who's going to pay for that new alternative system's infrastructure when we have no economy?
      • DuffyDirect, on 05/12/2008, -1/+3new infrastructure doesn't have to be municipal or government-based, some of the best transportation networks in our history were private ventures. The New York Central, for example. They arrived with such pin-point accuracy that old watch maker advertisements used to say "New York Central accuracy!" in the National Geographic. The whole reason our transporation system is so unbelievably ***** up is because of the government. Their subsidies to airlines lobotomized passenger railways, their tax funded roads and handouts to GM and Firestone devastated effective mass transit, and Amtrak has basically become a word that's a synonym for "*****".
        • OC73, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1The mistake people often make is they believe businesses alone want government subsidies. In reality it's the politicians who are their biggest proponents, since it greatly increases their regulatory powers.
      • Carl306, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Since when was finding sources of funding a problem for this current administration? Remind me what the United States' current budget deficit is? It's big enough as it is, so therefore we might as well at least make it a little bigger by spending money on something WITHIN our borders as opposed to sending the military to every nook and cranny of the world for trillions of dollars.
    • Nudar, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2So these alternative energies are not going to power cars which need to run on highways?
    • PhilLesh69, on 05/12/2008, -1/+3Right now, it is possible to build a home that is completely off-grid, and even capable of earning money by selling energy back to the grid, for only about 20% more than it costs to build a conventional home.

      However, builders are not about to do this because the majority of home buyers are ignorant fools, so they can continue to build the homes at the same cost margins and keep selling them to idiots. Why would a builder assume 20% more costs if he doesn't have to??

      A house can be built to use 50% less energy, to use more natural sources of heating an cooling, to use solar and wind, to use geothermal heat exchanges, even to filter its own water from artesian wells, and would save the homeowner $2000 a year or even earn money for the homeowner. But how will the builder make money off of that? He needs to spend 20% more to build the house, and everyone is always looking for the best price. Why would a builder waste his own money to sell the house at the same price as the cheaper houses if nobody knows to demand this?
  • xsquirrel378x, on 05/11/2008, -8/+32you guys should have come to chicago this winter, the roads were borderline mad max. anyways on to more important subjects, who do you guys like better the snorg tees models or the busted tees models?
    • DuffyDirect, on 05/11/2008, -1/+10interesting. i was able to catch an el every 6 minutes from the loop to midway, and took the metra all the way to joliet in like an hour. who needs a car around chicago?!
    • MtheoryX, on 05/11/2008, -2/+10Snorg for sure.
    • andrewthrice, on 05/11/2008, -2/+6I have an affinity for busted tees because the girls are like busting out of their shirts. Well, not really, but the girl from collegehumor is kinda cute.
    • jobney76, on 05/12/2008, -4/+10adblock plus
      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/186 ...
      • AuroraAlpha, on 05/12/2008, -2/+4You have recived an F for failing to answer the question. if you are not pleased with your provided great please wait 24 hours and try again.
        • UltramegaOK, on 05/12/2008, -1/+4Spelling errors ruin good comments.
    • desuexmachina, on 05/12/2008, -3/+1My current Busted Tees model is a cartoon pinata, so I guess my favourite is Snorg.
    • Scaryclouds, on 05/12/2008, -2/+1Definitely snorg, the assistant *to the* regional manager girl is fing hot.
    • RNEMESiS42, on 05/12/2008, -1/+1That Snorg girl is super cute.
  • vikramprashant, on 05/11/2008, -10/+7This is problem of the many developed countries.....Well nice presentation.
  • BesideYouInTime, on 05/11/2008, -9/+110Can't read without registration = buried
    • lazycat, on 05/11/2008, -3/+16It didn't require sign-up when I submitted it. Sorry for inconvenience.
    • earlycj5, on 05/11/2008, -5/+5I didn't notice a requirement to sign up.
    • MtheoryX, on 05/11/2008, -4/+9Wanted me to sign up as well. Sorry, gotta bury this as spam in that case.
    • crunchyeyeball, on 05/11/2008, -2/+45Just change Authorised=false to Authorised=true in the URL. Worked for me...
    • MtheoryX, on 05/11/2008, -10/+6I shouldn't have to ***** with the URL to read a story! WTF already?

      Post a link that works. This one does not work, therefore buried. Simple as that.
    • bdbr, on 05/11/2008, -3/+6The highway to hell is paved with required registrations.
      • WiredLain, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2Why was bdbr's comment dugg down? It was an amusing tern of a familiar phrase.
  • doskir, on 05/11/2008, -3/+61http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c54f4258-1c5f-11dd-8bfc- ...
    link that skips signup
    • cr4wl3r, on 05/11/2008, -2/+8Didn't work for me; too many redirects.
    • MtheoryX, on 05/11/2008, -4/+2Doesn't matter. This one's getting buried as spam.

      Submit a new story with a direct link to content, and maybe I'll digg that. But this one is dead to me.

      *Edit* And it didn't even work anyway.
    • joegibes, on 05/11/2008, -2/+4moore9989@mintemails.info.tm
      password is 'password'
    • MtheoryX, on 05/11/2008, -4/+4No, no, no. I'll not do it. The title of a digg story should be a link that goes to the article in question, with no further ***** url manipulation or password ***** included.

      Yes, I've been drinking, and I'm stubborn, but it's the principle of the thing. Buried as spam.
    • Superkimberlee, on 05/11/2008, -0/+1thanks for the new link, worked great for me. interesting article
  • Fjosnisse, on 05/11/2008, -8/+21Yanks should convert to a system like the one in Canada .. especially Quebec.. no potholes there /sarcasm.
    You can't have proper infrastructure unless you're willing to pay high taxes. Yanks refuse to pay high taxes so .. what are you complaining about? Where's the money supposed to come from?
    • kolinkoolface2, on 05/11/2008, -3/+8many of us don't complain, we just pay a tax on the road AKA turn pike. We don't pay high taxes which is why our economy grew to the size it is today.
      • pell, on 05/11/2008, -1/+3Canada has almost no toll roads either. The 407 in Ontario as an example.
      • Donwangugi, on 05/11/2008, -4/+7Actually, if you will look at history, the periods we had higher taxes we also experienced greater economic growth. You do not have to look far. Consider the 1990's followed by Bush's tax cuts and slower economic growth.
    • Uranium118, on 05/11/2008, -0/+8I live in Montreal and our roads are like Swiss cheese. When I went to Los Angeles, I was so impressed by the perfect roads, but it's unfair to compared because they don't have a winter like we do.
      • kolinkoolface2, on 05/12/2008, -0/+6that is an incredibly important issue: weather. In the countries they mentioned they don't see next to any snow or ice while most of the worst roads in the country are in the north where we experience the worst of the winter storms.
    • TheSuperunknown, on 05/12/2008, -2/+7We pay plenty of taxes that go to subsidized junk. They don't need more. Cut the crap and start spending our money wisely.

      So many of our taxpayer dollars go to garbage that sometimes I wonder if the government in its current iteration is just a vehicle for funneling public money into private hands.
    • 380ppm, on 05/12/2008, -0/+8Its not a high tax issue, its a mis-allocation of funds issue.
      • OC73, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2Dugg for making such a simple, yet spot on point.
      • JustinNoland, on 05/12/2008, -2/+2Logged in to dig you up. You are absolutely correct, man. Because roads are not a private interest but rather one which the government funds, there is zero accountability for the financial resources road construction consumes. Private systems have an incentive to produce a good product as cheaply as possible: profit. Obviously, the government has very little incentive to maintain roads, let alone do so cheaply and efficiently. After all, its not their money.
        • joshuabowers, on 05/12/2008, -1/+2At least according to traditional economics (so I could just be talking out of my ass, here), your point is actually completely invalid: roads are the perfect example of a public good, as there is absolutely no incentive to private parties to construct roads that others can use free of charge. (Even in the public case, this is not strictly true, as various taxes pay for the roads, but the taxes are not an immediate cost: unlike toll roads, where you need to pay every time you pass over the road, taxes are somewhat invisible.)
  • kahlessreborn, on 05/11/2008, -2/+15Forget jsut highways I love how they handle surface streets on Long Island. The Tore up my block and a few others around October/November which btw they were just fine but there was a re-election going on, long story short the guy won re-election and now its May and our streets are still unpaved. Streets that were perfectly fine before.
    • MrWhite7, on 05/11/2008, -0/+4Sounds like you need to spend less time on digg and more time in someone's office...
    • Tomchei, on 05/11/2008, -0/+6You need to live in the real world. The closest grocery store to me is 10 miles away. I don't see any rail coming up where I live in the near or far future.
      • DuffyDirect, on 05/11/2008, -1/+4If you live in a community that was around before 1950, chances are there ARE rails up where you live -- just that they're paved over.
        • heliox, on 05/11/2008, -0/+5So is he still supposed to use them?
          • DuffyDirect, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2or he could be pro-active, and demonstrate the merits of returning to a streetcar system to his community...?
  • nusuni, on 05/11/2008, -0/+38According to scientists in the 1920s we're supposed to be getting flying cars any day now anyway...
    • calantus, on 05/11/2008, -6/+2if america had continued the way we were going, we would be much better off. Economically anyway.
    • Daedalus17, on 05/11/2008, -0/+2Actually, scientists in the 1970s were saying that too.
    • desuexmachina, on 05/12/2008, -0/+6As much as I would love to have flying cars, I can't imagine how bad it would be to have people who can barely manage to drive in two dimensions worrying about three.
    • zephyr42, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1You mean you don't have one yet?

      man I'm on my 3rd model now.....
  • warlokaz2004, on 05/11/2008, -4/+7this is our 'gas tax' at work *sarcasm*
    • carpespasm, on 05/11/2008, -1/+6so can you imagine want even less money put into infrastructure would be like?
    • 9bpm9, on 05/11/2008, -0/+8We have one of the lowest gas taxes in the world. By a few dollars.
      • lamiaconfitor, on 05/11/2008, -4/+2yeah, if you call 10-15 dollars/gal a few.
        • heliox, on 05/11/2008, -0/+3You pay $10-$15/gallon of gas in taxes?
    • AquaJiva, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Actually, this IS our gas tax at work. Before you make a dumb sarcastic remark, know what you are bitching about. We can't fix our roads because our engines have become more fuel efficient causing per vehicle gas purchases to decrease, reducing money for repairing the infrastructure.
  • Larsonal777, on 05/11/2008, -3/+11Isn't it illegal to make a cell phone call in NY while driving?
    • DuffyDirect, on 05/11/2008, -0/+4You know why I pulled you over there, Hollywood?
      Because I was talking to my agent?
      • lamiaconfitor, on 05/11/2008, -0/+2hey, if Patrick Stewart is taking the bus/subway, its good enough for me.
    • MtheoryX, on 05/11/2008, -0/+1No, that's inaccurate.

      "New York Crash data is collected. Hands free cell phone accessories must be used while driving. This includes mobile and factory installed car kits as well as headsets. In NY City, taxicab drivers cant use cell phones at all while on the job."

      From: http://www.behandsfree.com/legislation.aspx
    • bxblox, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Only if the phone is in your hand.
    • diggerphelps, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3FTA: "...***ride a taxi*** on the pot-holed and congested Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and try to make a mobile phone call en route."


      reading comprehension, FTW.
  • crapuccino, on 05/11/2008, -1/+15It's not just the US. The UK has exactly the same problem. Total under-investment in roads and rail over the past 25 years and more. My local council has announced a further 10% budget cut for repairing the roads.
    • scamper22, on 05/12/2008, -0/+0roads can be deferred for the future :P
      civil servants must be paid now :)

  • DuffyDirect, on 05/11/2008, -2/+17The BQE was not designed for superhighway automobile traffic in the first place. Maybe instead of taking a cab, this blogger should actually drive it, and then he'd be like "oh look, there's about 2 feet until this merge lane disappears!" Ain't no different from what it was like driving on it during the prosperity of the 80s or 90s! Think the road just magically fell apart after the 87 crash or something?! Or, in fact, maybe the bloody idiot should hop aboard the MTA's BRAND NEW AirTrain rapid transit network to JFK instead of using an automobile in the first place!

    So sick of uninformed idiots. CSX is literally pouring tens of billions of dollars into modernizing the entire country's railroad network, for instance, and this chicken little is saying American infrastructure is falling apart...? Please.
    • codyg1985, on 05/12/2008, -0/+4What is CSX doing to modernize the entire country's rail network? CSX can only modernize tracks that it owns, most of which east of the Mississippi River.
      • kuzotz, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3it's typical. Both east coasters and west coasters think that their part of the US equates into the state of the entire US.
        • WiredLain, on 05/12/2008, -0/+180% of the U.S. population lives near or on the coasts. Why do you think they call middle America "Fly over county".
        • DuffyDirect, on 05/13/2008, -0/+1and the other 20 probably live on the 3rd coast, the great lakes.
    • JimmyJoseph, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Yeah go ahead, take the air train - to the A train...then enjoy standing up for an hour and a half ride to Manhattan crammed against a fat smelly guy (while feeling exhausted and trying to hold your luggage). Sadly, aside from walking or cycling, there is NO reliable form of transportation in or around any part of NYC at any time of day. I could LITERALLY fly from florida to JFK faster than I can get from JFK airport to Manhattan.
  • nojingoist, on 05/11/2008, -1/+10Well I live in North Carolina which consistently ranks at the very top in road quality. But, this state has ranked in the bottom-five in public education the last twenty years. Decide where you want your money to go.
    • kreegah, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Pretty much in a nutshell.
    • crapmatic, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Where do you get your stats? Seriously, I'm curious.
  • nastronomical, on 05/11/2008, -19/+8Liberal crock full of *****.
    • lamiaconfitor, on 05/11/2008, -2/+7Yeah, stupid tangible problems...
    • TheSuperunknown, on 05/12/2008, -0/+5Who uses roads anyway?
      • marx2k, on 05/12/2008, -1/+1Where we're going, we don't need....roads
      • Serial0Hacker, on 05/12/2008, -0/+0Why should I pay for another States road, to tim buck two?
  • roflburger, on 05/11/2008, -1/+24comparing roads with pot holes in them to a third world country wow. This is oversimplifying the plight of the third world. There are rutted dirt roads in the "good" parts of the country and some remote towns can't even get trucks to come either year round or in some seasons. This guy is complaining that he cant talk on a cell phone because the road is too bumpy. I don't think that US or any other developed country's road conditions have every actually prevented people from traveling or goods to get to where they need to go. This article is trash.
    • Donwangugi, on 05/11/2008, -4/+2As far as cell phone. I think he is referring to how far behind the Asians and EU our wireless telecommunication technologies have falllen.
    • kuzotz, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Well you guys keep sticking your head in the sand. LEave the ***** US and come back and tell me that we don't have any problems to solve.
  • kreatre2007, on 05/11/2008, -16/+15A "third world country"???? Are you ***** kidding? I guess the liberal solution to this is probably to throw more money at it instead of investing in better road building techniques.
    • Tomchei, on 05/11/2008, -0/+4The problem is more local corruption that techniques.
      Every single road problem boils down to local city corruption.
      I lived in Louisiana for a few years and what should have taken no more than 2 years for additional lanes for I-12 took 5 years for less than 3 miles of road.
      • heliox, on 05/11/2008, -1/+5In CA, the money taken in gas taxes earmarked for roads has been diverted to balance the budget. I hate our government from the liberals in the state senate to the "republican" governor. He should have stayed making Terminator movies.
        • marx2k, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2Are you kidding? Have you SEEN T3? *****, I'm glad you guys got him.
          • heliox, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1LOL..at least all you wasted was $10 on a ticket.
    • lamiaconfitor, on 05/11/2008, -0/+10do you even realize that you contradicted your self?
    • Kerath, on 05/11/2008, -3/+8And the conservative solution is do spend trillions on foreign invasions and occupations.
    • TheSuperunknown, on 05/12/2008, -1/+6You get your definition of liberal from Limbaugh, don't you?
      He's a stoner, you know.
    • ChefGroovy, on 05/12/2008, -5/+3Ha, seems likes the liberal solution toe very problem is to just complain about it in a such a way that they sound like a douche and it gets puts even further on the back burner. Because honestly., what percentage of America gives two flying ***** about a road with a couple potholes in new york city? We are on GRAVEL out here in real America, lets focus on that.

      and to top it if off, if they DID try and fix the pot holes, yet another liberal douche-nozzle would complain that it was taking too long. Or the color didn't match or anything else to whine about it and make themselves feel important. GD I hate libruls
      • TheSuperunknown, on 05/12/2008, -0/+4I like how everything negative must be liberal. How can you argue with that, really? You'd just be a liberal douche-nozzle for bringing it up.
    • Hangly, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3We should invest without spending money!
    • OC73, on 05/12/2008, -1/+1Doesn't matter if "liberals" throw more money into capital projects. Their extreme environmental and anti-petroleum regulations will continue to cause the price of vinyl--both a byproduct of oil and a key ingredient in asphalt--to rise and offset any funding increases.
  • xxyglx, on 05/11/2008, -6/+1Duried due to the subscription requirement.
  • mal1964, on 05/11/2008, -8/+6"Pot Holes" Have nothing to do with "infrastructure"
  • charlesray, on 05/11/2008, -1/+12I wasn't aware more developed countries managed to find a way to prevent ice from freezing in asphalt.
    • Hangly, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3Some countries use concrete. It's more expensive but far more durable.

      That, and when there are holes they fix them. In a timely fashion too.
  • DuffyDirect, on 05/11/2008, -4/+4This is just the worst article I've ever seen. The guy is all over the map and basically whinning that his neighborhood doesn't have FiOS and like someone earlier said that he can't talk on the phone because he runs over pot holes in the road.
  • tpv2066, on 05/11/2008, -0/+3Use this link...

    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c54f4258-1c5f-11dd-8bfc- ...

    No Reg
  • Badandy127, on 05/11/2008, -2/+1What a ridiculous barometer of economic development.
    • UtilityPole, on 05/12/2008, -0/+0No, the state of the country's infrastructure is one of the best indicators you can use. A country's economic growth relies on the quality of its infrastructure. Do you think foreign ivnestors will put money in a country that has horrible gridlock, leaky water systems, and roads that can't be driven on? Do you think people will even move to that country?

      You symbolize everything that's wrong with the U.S.- the widespread idea that infrastructure doesn't matter. It does.

      And let's be honest, here. What excuse does the world's wealthiest country have for having really poorly-maintained roads?
      • Badandy127, on 05/13/2008, -0/+0I symbolize everything that is wrong with the U.S.? Hyperbole much?

        Infrastructure does matter, and I never said it didn't. All I said was that it is a ridiculous barometer of economic development. The U.S.'s infrastructure has been bad for years, yet we have the highest per capita G.D.P. Our economy is a $13 trillion per year force.

        Our excuse? WE'RE BROKE FROM OUR BUDGET DEFICITS. And that's not just the War in Iraq. Take that war out, we're still spending money FAR faster than we're getting it.
  • joegibes, on 05/11/2008, -3/+17If anyone doubts the problems of US infrastructure, I suggest he or she take a flight to John F. Kennedy airport (braving the landing delay), ride a taxi on the pot-holed and congested Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and try to make a mobile phone call en route.

    That should settle it, particularly for those who have experienced smooth flights, train rides and road travel, and speedy communications networks in, say, Beijing, Paris or Abu Dhabi recently. The gulf in public and private infrastructure is, to put it mildly, alarming for US competitiveness.

    You might have expected that investing in US infrastructure would be a hot political topic this year. Well, no. Hillary Clinton spent the final week of her Indiana campaign standing on the back of a pick-up truck arguing for a temporary suspension of the “gas tax”, the fuel duty that pays for highways.

    You read correctly. Faced with the emptying of the Highway Trust Fund, established in 1956 as the US entered a period of growth and prosperity, Mrs Clinton suggested cutting its source of funds (which she claimed could be made up by a tax on oil companies). It was more important to give Americans a summer break from $4-per-gallon petrol.

    At times I wonder whether the world’s biggest economy has the will to solve its challenges or will end up wandering self-indulgently into the minor economic leagues. I expect it will get serious when the crisis is too blatant to ignore, but it has not done so yet.

    Perhaps that is a bit unfair. Some leaders have recognised the problem for economic development, as well as safety. They include Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ed Rendell, governors of California and Pennsylvania, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York. The trio have allied to press for the states and Washington to act.

    I think I sensed defensiveness on the part of Mr Rendell, one of Mrs Clinton’s big supporters, when I talked to him on Tuesday about her gas tax proposal (which happily may have backfired on her). He insisted he would have spoken out against her plan if she had not proposed to fill the coffers from oil taxes.

    Mr Rendell’s main point was that the US needs all the cash it can get for its transport infrastructure, as well as water and power networks. He took a tour d’horizon of the problem: “Dams are in a horrible condition ... We have no real rail transport, unlike most nations in the world ... Summer delays make flying in America a disaster.”

    As it happens, I heard a similar lament from Mr Schwarzenegger at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles last week. He recalled a recent visit to France during which he travelled with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, on the country’s new high-speed train. “I could not believe we were going at 350km an hour,” the erstwhile film action hero marvelled.

    There are lots of ways in which infrastructure inadequacy matters to the US but I would focus on two.

    First, it imposes a drag on economic growth. The private infrastructure is poor enough – broadband speeds lag behind other countries and mobile coverage is spotty. But much of the public infrastructure is unfit, a fact that was becoming clear even before Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans and a Minneapolis bridge collapsed during rush hour last year.

    Second, it presents an awful image of the US to investors and other visitors. The state of transport and communications infrastructure is a symbol of a nation’s economic development and the US is starting to look like a third world country. In fact, scratch that. Many developing countries look and feel better.

    Of course, they are in a different phase of development. The US invested 10 per cent of its federal non-military budget in infrastructure in the 1950s and 1960s as it built the interstate highway system – at the time, the envy of the world. While US investment has fallen to less than 1 per cent of gross domestic product, China has been matching its double-digit postwar record.

    The bigger problem is that, unlike European countries including the UK, the US shows little sign of finding the will or the funding mechanisms to maintain what it has or to build anew. Mr Schwarzenegger spoke enviously of public-private partnerships in both Canada and the UK that have enabled these countries to start redressing their inadequacies.

    In the US, the Highway Trust Fund is likely to run out of money next year and the voters’ tolerance for tax rises is strained. They have seen spending overruns and delays on projects such as Boston’s $20bn “big dig” and the “bridge to nowhere” – a dubious Alaskan project to which federal funds were allocated.

    Meanwhile, people are finding it hard to accept that if they do not pay for roads and rail links through taxes, they will have to stump up in other ways. Indiana’s politicians ran into a backlash after Macquarie-Cintra, an Australian-Spanish consortium, took control of a state highway and raised the tolls on those using it.

    But cutting taxes, balking at tolls and, in the case of California’s public sector unions, opposing public-private partnerships on principle will not get the job done. The bill will have to be met, whether through increases in federal and state spending (in a more lucid moment, Mrs Clinton suggested issuing infrastructure bonds) or higher user fees and tolls.

    Americans may not like the sound of that, but they cannot expect the US to maintain the economic dynamism of the late 20th century in the 21st unless they buckle down. Sooner or later, wishful thinking is going to crash into financial reality.
    • gdehms, on 05/11/2008, -7/+5Did you have this comment saved up.. or did you really just spend half an hour writing it?
    • dcshiderly, on 05/12/2008, -2/+0These problems only seem to manifest in the northern States. D/FW International, while sprawling, is clean, efficient, and handles ridiculous traffic. The roads here are generally well maintained, and we just finished major renovations of the largest interchange and busiest roads in Dallas, the High Five interchange and North Central Expressway. Both projects came in ahead of schedule and under budget. What's even more amazing is there's no income tax here, and we still managed to get it done.
      One quick point about the "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska: That island has an airport, and it's currently only served by ferry every half-hour. Ketchikan International fields about 100 flights daily, and the bridge would have been a useful investment, hardly the "dubious" federal earmark you claim. It's nothing compared to Boston's utter disaster; by the way, are they done with that yet? It's been quite a while since they started...
  • JasonCox, on 05/11/2008, -0/+2I see your orange barrels are in bloom too.
  • catchneyez, on 05/11/2008, -1/+30Sorry guys. We engineers are trying hard to fix our deteriorating infrastructure. Problem is, guys like us who actually press the issue and try to get it done, and the guys on the heavy equipment doing the work, can't get the politicians to stop feeding their own piggy banks and giving everyone's money to their friends. By everyone I mean you. We work hard, we work long hours, and we get paid about 1/4 of what the guys who do nothing but argue with each other about how to spend your money. Just last week we had a design sent back from some city officials because they changed their minds. That 8 months of design and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent went down the drain just days before construction should have started. I'd say contact your local congressman and let them know how you feel, but I'm not sure what it would help. Sorry America.
    • TheSuperunknown, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2Here in America, we've escaped the rule of an elite-class.*

      *not really
      • WiredLain, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Never mind the Federal Government. I've just about given up hope there. instead focus on county, city and state government to get things done. They are more accountable than the federal government to the will of the citizens.
    • HeroicLife, on 05/12/2008, -1/+2The solution to road socialism hell is to private the transportation system. For one potential scenario, read my post: http://www.rationalmind.net/2005/01/05/private-roa ...

      There are many innovations that might exist in a free market for transportation. I would not take even traffic lights for granted. One thing you see in other countries is a timer or progress bar on lights, so you know how many seconds you have until the next light. Perhaps it's preferable to use a traffic circle, more underpasses, or a totally different convention. There is also the opportunity to apply artificial intelligence to predictive traffic monitoring, so cars never get red lights. Adding special roads for computer-driven cars would eliminate lights entirely. All this is off the top of my head - we really have no idea what entrepreneurs could come up with.
  • skoles, on 05/11/2008, -0/+8What could help the most is if cities and towns didn't skimp on the paving in the first place. I read that most roads should be 6-8 inches thick when in reality many are are only 4 inches thick. This makes them more prone to frost heaves, cracking and trenching from heavy trucks warping the asphalt in hot Summers.

    Piss poor management and planning hurts too. I've seen one half of a road torn up, left untouched for months and then quickly repaved unevenly. Only then to have it torn up less than a year later because of work on the other side.
    • codyg1985, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2Many roads were only designed to handle light automobile traffic, and now they are handling heavier auto and truck traffic with the same design. Not only are these farm-to-market and county roads more congested, but they are also experiencing pavement failure more frequently as you mention. Widening projects can address the problem, but more often than not pavement rehab isn't included because it is cheaper to just add the lanes and put a new wearing surface on the top.
      • WiredLain, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2Yeah, cheaper in the short term wich is the problem with far to many in government and business. Thinking only in the short term rather than long term costs, sustainability, and possible future scenarios.
  • Donwangugi, on 05/11/2008, -2/+9Yes the article is badly written but I believe he is right. Basically, our infrastructure could use a little work, and it would be a boon to our economy. Right now we may be in a recession. Instead of using tax rebate checks (I'll spend mine on a new TV and gas. Like Samsung and Exxon were in any trouble). We would need a bit of money. Perhaps taking a chapter outta FDR's book would help. We could increase taxes to create jobs with construction on infrastructure, like FDR did during the Great Depression or withdraw from Iraq, and decrease military spending to stimulate the economy. Either way would also put some more weight under the dollar by creating some black in the governments balance sheets. Freeing up the telecom's and Cable company's choke hold on the Internet and cellphones, would certainly help out also.
    • heystoopid, on 05/11/2008, -1/+1Forgotten much what happened in 1937 I see !
    • kuzotz, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2What I find ***** up is when you mention decrease military spending to any republican supporter. They say that you are against the troops, and you are not for America being safe. When we are ***** safe right now. We don't even have to decrease military spending by a lot to fix our infrastructures, but the current status quo isn't about moving an inch from their position because then it will make them seem weak. It is no longer about bettering America. It's all about saving face.
      • WiredLain, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1And feathering their own nests by kissing up to big business.
  • louiebaur, on 05/11/2008, -1/+2Yes this is a problem for sure!
    • brettg102, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Seriously...why even spend the time to comment if you are going to type something that thoughtless. These type of comments on digg need to stop.
  • ArachnidDude, on 05/11/2008, -5/+5How do we draw sweeping conclusions about our national infrastructure based entirely on the brooklyn queens expressway? How ridiulous. All you diggers that buy into this crap are foolish, uneducated, embiciles. The solution is simple, spend transportation tax revenue on transportation maintenance and infrastructure. Possibly raise the gas tax 'a little', like 10 cent federal, and 10 cent state. Done.
    • TheSuperunknown, on 05/12/2008, -1/+3How about that bridge that collapsed out in Minnesota? You might have heard about that.
      • ArachnidDude, on 05/12/2008, -0/+0big f'in deal! it's one friggin bridge!
    • kuzotz, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2arach. As someone that lives in Oklahoma. Trust me our infrastructure needs work, and needs to be updated. My god I've travelled through Europe, and Japan, and S.Korea, and even a few developing countries like Turkey. The US is starting to fall behind and we are ignoring some of the most basic, and vital proponents of our civilization.
      • ArachnidDude, on 05/12/2008, -0/+0fall behind what?? a paving contest? sure our infrastructure could use improvement, but it's not in a state of crisis, and it still buries the rest of the world in terms of cost, efficiency and maturity. Especially cost to the user.
  • philwalsh, on 05/11/2008, -0/+3Obviously the writer has never lived in São Paulo.
  • MrESaulved, on 05/11/2008, -4/+8We could fix the Eisenhower Interstate System with a Roosevelt style Works Progress Administration.

    The 'Newest' deal. We could even allow undocumented workers to work on it, and when they finish..after 15-20 years...citizenship.

    At least we can agree there needs to be a new deal, the deck is stacked in favor of the house right now.
    • 380ppm, on 05/12/2008, -2/+4i dont agree. it is a lame idea. Heres a better one: quit ***** spending money that we dont have on ***** we dont need.
      • MrESaulved, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3I agree with you: so we have enough money to spend on our infrastructure.

        You can't be against me if you agree with me.
  • ArachnidDude, on 05/11/2008, -5/+2"But cutting taxes, balking at tolls and, in the case of California’s public sector unions, opposing public-private partnerships on principle will not get the job done. The bill will have to be met, whether through increases in federal and state spending (in a more lucid moment, Mrs Clinton suggested issuing infrastructure bonds) or higher user fees and tolls.

    Americans may not like the sound of that, but they cannot expect the US to maintain the economic dynamism of the late 20th century in the 21st unless they buckle down. Sooner or later, wishful thinking is going to crash into financial reality."

    Just a bald faced, flat out lie. And, 'dynamism'? Who the hell is this idiot? The US is the most powerful nation on earth because of its open system of roads. This is just one of those articles promoted by the opportunistic group of politicians and media organizations who are foaming at the mouth at the potential of public/private partnership tolling as a cash cow. Period. Yes, a loose conspiracy, indeed.
  • LZeppelinJ0, on 05/11/2008, -1/+5Fix the pothole on my street first
    • Serial0Hacker, on 05/12/2008, -2/+0Call your City, Don't expect me to pay for that.
  • sfacets, on 05/11/2008, -0/+3"He recalled a recent visit to France during which he travelled with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, on the country’s new high-speed train. “I could not believe we were going at 350km an hour,” the erstwhile film action hero marveled." - ummm those trains never go that fast... know why? No infrastructure maintenance. hey used to be able to go that fast, but the French authorities haven't kept the rails in good enough shape.
    • jsebrech, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1I'm curious to know what you base this on. I've found no mention of poor maintenance of TGV tracks anywhere, and as far as I know the cruise speed remains 200 mph (320 kph). I've taken the antwerp / paris link twice now, and the high-speed parts of the journey are indeed very fast and very smooth.

      To the french the TGV is a prestige project. The name TGV literally means "high-speed train". It doesn't matter to them if it isn't profitable (some parts of the network aren't, and never will be), just as long as they can boast about the quality and speed of the connections. This is why they're already designing the successor, the AGV, which will boost cruising speeds to 220 mph and increase train capacity.

  • dildoolielly, on 05/11/2008, -7/+21Five thousand dollars a second is what it cost us to be in Iraq.

    Never forget who supported this failure, don't let them distance themselves from him. Whining about Libs and Dems and Clinton and Obama's pastor and gay sex, while offering nothing of substance - and most notably - no defense for the lying little sack of ***** from Texas they shackled us with!

    America's enemy is the idiot who IGNORED that Bush lied to us about Iraq, IGNORED that Bush defends treason, IGNORED that Bush was asleep at the wheel on 9/11, IGNORED that Bush had already blundered our war effort in Iraq, IGNORED that Bush still tries to link Iraq and 911, IGNORED that Bush was going to run amok with our Constitution, IGNORED his continued policy that fuels extremist groups and floods intelligence agencies with "false positives" from illegal wiretapping operations—among other things and still voted to re-elect this miserable failure.

    The enemy from within has perpetuated this death and devastation. Don't forget it.

    It is because of a Bush voting idiot that the country is in the atrocious position it is in today.
    • scamper22, on 05/12/2008, -10/+1yes, george bush's 8 year reign caused extreme amounts of acid rain to fall from the heaven and caused devastation to your roads/infrastructure.

      before that, all politicians took great care of our roads.

      //sarcasm
    • brettg102, on 05/12/2008, -12/+3My life sure is atrocious right now. Ligthen up...your life wouldn't suck so bad. If this ***** is so important to you, you should probably go out and campaign for Obama or whatever Democrat it is you are supporting...because unfortunately McCain as of today wins the general election...ouch.
      • StaticThunder, on 05/12/2008, -0/+9Thats fine, If the U.S. votes democratically to spend itself into bankruptcy, I intend to leave when the dollar becomes so worthless that I can't afford to work here anymore.

        I hope you realize in your arrogance that that is what you are planning. You may gloat over winning elections, but you are continuing policies that are bankrupting your nation.
    • ChefGroovy, on 05/12/2008, -2/+4Everything was roses and candy lanes until the Bush seized power and brought everything down to a potholed filled wasteland.
      e1
      Just this morning I saw Geroge W Bush (cleverly disguised as a mexican with a guatamalin mullet ) with a jackhammer, busting up the road in front of my house for no reason. He giggled and drove away in a 1981 orange honda civic. He HATES roads almost as much as he hates the blacks. A very evil man.
    • elam82, on 05/12/2008, -3/+1My God, (my pretend for the atheists) I believe that was a little dramatic... Do you do this on every article on Digg?
      Article: Nude girl waxes motorcycle!!!
      You: *****!!!!! BUSH KILLED MLK JR.!!!! BUSH RAPED MOTHER TERESA!!! BUSH SHAT IN MY CEREAL!!!!
      Chill the ***** out man.
    • methos75, on 05/12/2008, -2/+3Our roads were crap 10 years ago, Bush has nothing to do with it, they have always been a low piority. And please, I beg you, how was Bush asleep at the Wheel during 911. Its not like he had some palm reader telling him the attack was coming, no one could of predicted what happen. And seriously, if Clinton wouldn't of been asleep at the wheel and went after Osama after all the attacks he and his followers performed in his presidency, just maybe 911 would of never happened. You know who the real enemy to the US is, its guys like Diddoolielly who try to place all the blame on one guy or one political party, instead of actually looking at the issues and what truly caused them. News flash, but this countru was well on its way to a crash before Bush, he just happened to be in the driver seat when it begun the final spiral down. Were any of you alive 15 years ago, its not like things were better under Clinton.
      • StaticThunder, on 05/13/2008, -0/+3Actually, I was most definitely alive under Clinton, and he was a far better President than Bush for all his faults: Clinton was not a ***** moron.
  • heystoopid, on 05/11/2008, -0/+1Who would have thought that what seemed a good idea at the time from Chairman Ronnie's time asleep at the wheel have now come back to bite the hand that feeds them .
  • ehal256, on 05/11/2008, -1/+4USA USA USA USA USA
  • justsomedigger, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3i travel that road on a daily basis.. its been the same ***** road forever.. the road that the article speaks of is actually one of the most traveled on roads in the country... anyone who knows the area knows how hard it would be to close that road for repairs.. btw. . i own an asphalt maintenance company.. and the last 2 years have actually been surprisingly great for my business..
    • kuzotz, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1you should think about buying some land in Sulphur, Oklahoma. IT still has a lot of new oil, and at the same rate there are a lot of asphalt deposits.
  • londubh, on 05/12/2008, -2/+6This is why we need higher gasoline taxes. By raising gasoline taxes to double or even triple it would raise more money for highway funds. Not only that by actually forcing down demand the price of oil will drop. I know it's counterintuitive. Then gasoline will be no more expensive than it is today for a few years anyway.

    Eventually gasoline will reach $10/gal. So where do you want to see the extra profit going to maintain the roads or into the oil companies pockets?
    • ChefGroovy, on 05/12/2008, -1/+2It's supply and demand. If I have a product and can get $100 a piece for them, why would I change $50?

      They are the ones taking the risk, they are the ones pulling the ***** out of the ground and dealing with those nutjobs in the middle east. They should get what the can we should be happy to pay it. if it wasn't oil, we would be in horse and buggies and who do you think we would be buying the hay from? Exxon Hay & Feed company.

      It's life, get used to it.
      • jsebrech, on 05/12/2008, -0/+0You do realize that corporations aren't people, right? This is not some magical entity that bestows the scraps it can spare on us. It is a group of people that associated themselves because they thought they could more efficiently conduct business that way, who then lost control of the behemoth they created.

        Corporations are tools, their operation and profits exist to serve society. I'm not saying we should take away corporate profits, because those profits exist to incentivize investment, but rather that we should not humanize corporations and see their income as an entitlement that they have a right to.
    • codyg1985, on 05/12/2008, -1/+4We do need a higher gasoline tax in order to fund roadway improvement, but you know just as well as I do that a candidate that suggested such a thing would be committing political suicide right now. The gas tax has not kept up with inflation or the cost of materials and labor. New roads are going to be built with tolls and other "innovative financing" options in the future. Here in Alabama many new projects are being considered as toll facilities because otherwise it may take decades to build them.
      • londubh, on 05/12/2008, -0/+4I'm not crazy about toll roads. We have tons of them in Oklahoma and they do not pay for themselves. Only the Turner and Will Rogers Turnpikes do and they subsidize all the others. What we really need is more public transport and a return to trains. Trains especially electrics can reduce our dependency on foreign oil. As for buses I think following Curitiba's model would be the way to go. http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/fellows/brazil12 ...
      • WiredLain, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2We don't need more or higher taxes. What we need to do is stop wasting tax money on things like the Iraq War, etc. and spend it were it will do the most good like Infrastructure, education, job training programs. etc.
  • NelsonR, on 05/12/2008, -2/+1Why not attack and destroy more nations and then rebuild them with our money while they save their revenue's for their own future use. It's called Republican diplomacy.
    I don't know who to blame, the idiot Bush, the electorate or should I say Iran for being the beneficiary for all policies set forth under an American imbecile.
    Did you all know that foreign companies including Iran achieve more rebuilding money within Iraq, paid for with U.S. phony money, rather then American entities? Now I call that stupid yet your supreme leader and his crony's accept and promote it while our infrastructure goes to hell. Unbelievable.
  • divfarms, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2During the last few years hurricanes have destroyed major bridges on interstate 10 and US highways 90 and 98 along the Gulf coast from Pensacola
    Fl. to New Orleans LA. Replacement of these damaged bridges by new modern wide expensive bridges has been very quick. I would commend all responsible.
    • codyg1985, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1There is contingency funding that are in place for emergency replacement for bridges and roads that are destroyed in storms or other natural disasters . That is different from funds that are used for new construction and expansion.
  • agambino, on 05/12/2008, -0/+8wow, some potholes

    Anyone who lives in the north knows why we have torn up roads; especially in high traffic areas:

    1) Salt used to melt ice and the repetitive freeze/thaw cycle that happens in the winter.
    2) People get pissed off when you close high traffic areas to make repairs.

    I'm from Cleveland and can vouch for how quickly our roads get torn up from the above. I don't think it has anything to do with the US being a third world country...at least we HAVE paved roads. Think about Europe for example; They have some roads that have been around forever and were built with brick or stone and naturally deal better with the elements. We used to have brick roads until people complained because the ruin your suspension and bounce you around. Its all give and take. We could have perfect highways like they do in Texas but we would have to put up with the closings and pay for it.

    So think about it, you fly into (one of) the busiest airports in the world, and try and drive into one of the busiest cities in the world; one that "never sleeps" remember? What do you expect? Get over it.
  • AsylumAleikum, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3Only an imbecile would complain about potholes on the BQE, and simultaneously praise Bloomberg.
  • exomni, on 05/12/2008, -1/+5Would have been nice if we'd have fixed the crumbling and dilapidating infrastructure at home before dropping millions of dollars in bombs on Iraq's infrastructure, just to pour more money into our Vice President's pockets to overpay his company to rebuild the country he destroyed himself.
  • solid12345, on 05/12/2008, -0/+3Am I the only one who thinks how unfair it is to compare the first major industrialized super power after the UK & France to emerging nations who have a chance to learn from our mistakes that we have made over the last century?

    Anything newer is going to be better generally.
    • kuzotz, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2no its fair in my opinion because even though we are losing super power status. We are also becoming stagnant in fixing a lot of our domestic issues. We too can learn from our own mistakes, but we still choose to have our heads in the sand chanting that everything in American is #1.
  • FearFactory, on 05/12/2008, -1/+1When a forest grows too wild, a purging fire is inevitable and natural.
  • herriojr, on 05/12/2008, -0/+4I think the real issue is the fact that public transportation infrastructure sucks in most parts of the country. In California, it is OK, but not great. I grew up in Ohio, and you couldn't get anywhere without a car. If you wanted to go anywhere, you'd have to have your parents' drive you if you were under driving age.

    One of the real problems is our citizens negative perception on public transportation. I don't currently know how you can really go about changing this.

    The other problem is the current cost/time. With a car that is advertised at 36mi/gal with a tank capacity of 11gal, I fill up twice a week, which means I spend a little less than $320 per month if I were to drive to work, and I would get there within 30 minutes. If I were to solely take public transportation, it is only about a hundred dollars cheaper, but it would take me approximately 2 hours. Yes, I could take into consideration costs associated with repairs, but I don't think most people do that when making a decision to switch to public transportation (I did for myself, however). As you can see, the real killer would be the time for me. I could spend a total of 1 hour per day driving or a total of 4 hours taking public transportation.

    And yes, I switched to public transportation (partially). I drive to the caltrain station and take the rail up to work. Instead of it taking me 2 hours to get to work, it only takes 1 hour. The public transportation system either needs to find a way to cut back on transportation time or lower the cost. If they could somehow get rid of the negative perception, it would be really easy to lower commute times and costs.

    I would be much happier if I could tele-commute :)
    • dcshiderly, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Meanwhile in Dallas, we just finished a major reconstruction of the largest interchange in the city, the intersection of Interstate 635 and US 75, a project known as the High Five. (wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Five_Interchange ) Zachry Construction finished this project 13 months ahead of schedule and under budget. The interchange itself is a work of art, and even more impressive considering what it replaced and that it had to not interrupt traffic flow through the area. As far as modern infrastructure goes, us Texans can't really figure out what all you Yankee folk are up in arms about, can't you get good contractors ;)

      /srsly, sorry about your bridge in New York. You'd think that with all those taxes...
    • AquaJiva, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Public transportation in California?!?!!?! You either live in San Fransisco or you don't know what decent public transportation is.
      • fraziebr, on 05/12/2008, -0/+0Everything comes down to money, if it's cheaper and takes less time to drive their own cars, most people will. The Bay Area is a great example, it's not cheaper to go from, say, the East Bay to S.F. in time, parking fees, fuel, etc., therefore the system works. The powers that be are trying in Southern California however people are spread out over a far wider area. That said, there is hope.
    • bubbadoo989, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Why aren't more businesses backing tele-commute? With everyone focused on GREEN, eco-friendliness, it seems to me tele-commuting could solve our dependence on foreign oil, gas consumption, air polution and this is just for starters.
  • Feawen, on 05/12/2008, -0/+8Visiting the States is amazing when you get on the roads. It feels like you're gliding on them half the time. This is because Ireland has absolutely rubbish roads (improving thanks to the EU, they're not so bad now) but seriously, you have nothing to complain about. You know that lane of traffic among four going your way on the road? Imagine that one lane is a two way road. With parked cars on it. That's reality here.
  • joebme, on 05/12/2008, -0/+2If you want an honest opinion about our infrastructure, here ya go.
    http://www.asce.org/reportcard/2005/page.cfm?id=10 ...
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