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Old 01-05-2022, 05:40 AM
 
Location: Lawton,OK
388 posts, read 322,301 times
Reputation: 460

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We need civil engineers in full bloom. We need hard hats in full bloom. We need new roads, tunnels, bridges, dams, buildings, locks and levees and other needful construction projects.

Civil engineers pave the way to the future!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnnmHoy-anw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdvJSGc14xA

Last edited by JohnPBailey; 01-05-2022 at 06:01 AM..
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Old 01-05-2022, 07:50 AM
 
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,226 posts, read 80,405,058 times
Reputation: 57133
While I agree with your premise, in some areas there will not be the motivation or funding available to do these projects, with other priorities. Seattle for example has several old, even failing bridges. The current City government is anti-car, so the state highway projects will eventually get done but the city projects may just be shut down and abandoned. Dams are being removed in our state nd others to restore fish habitat, there is little chance of new ones being built despite water shortages in some areas. Overall, though, civil engineering is probably a good career choice for the foreseeable future.
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Old 01-05-2022, 09:35 AM
 
1,776 posts, read 871,547 times
Reputation: 2865
Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnPBailey View Post
We need civil engineers in full bloom. We need hard hats in full bloom. We need new roads, tunnels, bridges, dams, buildings, locks and levees and other needful construction projects.

Civil engineers pave the way to the future!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnnmHoy-anw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdvJSGc14xA

You gotta have money to do all that and the public bucket is dry. Vote the Chinese stool pigeons like Joe Biden and his ilk outta office and public confidence might come back. The public is tired of being fleeced by all this government infrastructure projects that are riddled with graft, corruption and kickbacks.
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Old 01-05-2022, 10:44 AM
 
Location: On the Chesapeake
45,032 posts, read 60,050,709 times
Reputation: 60598
Quote:
Originally Posted by ketchikanite View Post
You gotta have money to do all that and the public bucket is dry. Vote the Chinese stool pigeons like Joe Biden and his ilk outta office and public confidence might come back. The public is tired of being fleeced by all this government infrastructure projects that are riddled with graft, corruption and kickbacks.
Not to mention 20% infrastructure and 80% social justice spending.
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Old 01-05-2022, 12:09 PM
 
Location: Lawton,OK
388 posts, read 322,301 times
Reputation: 460
Suffice it to say, the current state of infrastructure can't go on like this forever. When a bridge collapses and a loved one gets killled, maybe people will start to see the light. A bad infrastructure not only slows the economy down but it is a public safety menace to boot.

Europe and China seem to now have much more modern infrastructures. Those with wealth will have to be taxed to foot the bill for new roads, bridges and such. There's probably a lot of stupid govt. spending that can be cut too.

The roads are so shabby in some places it makes me embarrassed to be an American.

I'm tired of my arthritic older bones from rattling with all the jarring potholes in my SW Oklahoma town, Lawton, outside of Fort Sill. I have to slow way down often. My little 1995 Toyota Corolla is mechanically tough and reliable and cheap on gas but it, like so many older econoboxes, is no magic carpet for ride quality on under-maintained roads. Washboard highways are also common in northern Texas and southern Wyoming. I'm not going to drive a gas-guzzling boat with airbag suspension just because local politicians won't smooth out local streets. They seem to spend a ton of our tax dollars on all those police cars here. Bad infrastructure raises the prices up on consumer goods due to increased transportation costs and road delays in trucking. Bad roads lead to expensive vehicle repairs and traffic injury deaths.

You say we can't afford to update our national infrastructure? Ask yourself if we can afford not to and for how much longer? America is supposed to be the richest nation in the world. She needs badly to start looking the part of a First World Nation.

Last edited by JohnPBailey; 01-05-2022 at 12:18 PM..
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Old 01-05-2022, 12:36 PM
 
Location: Lawton,OK
388 posts, read 322,301 times
Reputation: 460
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hemlock140 View Post
While I agree with your premise, in some areas there will not be the motivation or funding available to do these projects, with other priorities. Seattle for example has several old, even failing bridges. The current City government is anti-car, so the state highway projects will eventually get done but the city projects may just be shut down and abandoned. Dams are being removed in our state nd others to restore fish habitat, there is little chance of new ones being built despite water shortages in some areas. Overall, though, civil engineering is probably a good career choice for the foreseeable future.

What has priority over safe and economically-efficient-for-commerce roads, highways, city streets, locks, airports, levees, dams, water treatment facilities, sewage systems, railroads, harbors, canals, docks, buildings, tunnels, commercial vehicle parking facilities and bridges? Another Anne Frank memorial downtown?

Dams produce cheap electricity, collect fresh water for household consumption and control flooding.
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Old 01-05-2022, 12:58 PM
 
663 posts, read 301,073 times
Reputation: 437
Is this about the fall of the USA kind of thread? I mean, I see no bridges collapsing all over this land. The few in history that did. Generally had design flaws also found. I can travel and see sone parts of roads that definitely use a repaving. Still if I travel there in a couple years again. I generally attention given to it and a fix. My state seems as if it has been addressing more. A new highway added is also half complete with a year or two yet for that connection of highways. I live in the Northeastern US currently retiring to my hometown region.

News on all more crumbling across the land is a bit dramatic. Still, as long as we keep our car culture and in rural aras little choice otherwise. This WILL have to get addressed.

More you build the more you will have to maintain. We are a huge Nation of a Migrating population that a smaller country will never see. We have had cities in mills and factories abandoned in our past. Suburbs boom way past their cities in population and still ongoing. A region booming by migrations vs another.

All this leads to constantly building new one place and still having to maintain what already is in another that may be lossing people.

Point is. You cannot paint the USA in one crashing infrastructure fail. It is far from there yet. Politically, clearly there are severe issues. Infrastructure still had a bill passed for money toward more. Still, states will need to keep rebuilding existing infrastructure or removing it. Plenty of new being built in migration regions that also have a need for more.

Makes a large Nation very unique as new booming cities vs slow growth ones have varied issues on aging era and rebuilding it vs newer fast-growing ones needing new added infrastructure.

The US is not a couple grand cities Nation that have been their key cities to rebuild for many many centuries. We have some who can now double in size vs those in slow growth who boomed many decades ago.

Maybe this is a solutions for the USA type thread? Perhaps move to transit much more and bike culture? Still, culturally unlikely changes as such will be government implemented anytime soon. Much for transit and clean energy was cut from the lastest infrastructure federal spending supposedly toward fixing more infrastructure. Time will tell how well it takes a bite in the Big Fix. Add not all the money will ever make it there till gone. States are really responsible for thier own infrastructure needs.
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Old 01-05-2022, 04:26 PM
 
Location: Lawton,OK
388 posts, read 322,301 times
Reputation: 460
I'm a person with disabilities. I rely on my car heavily as if it were a power chair. Bad roads literally cause pain inside my body. It is a medical concern. I would say overpopulation and lack of a check on immigration is even a bigger issue. The infrastructure was overtaxed and worn down because of too many damn people in the first place. My brother was considering becoming truck driver but he doesn't want to live with a crappy road system on the job. A crappy infrastructure makes a truck driver's job dangerous and unpleasant. Infrastructure is the gears, clockwork and machinery that makes local and interstate commerce even tick. It's all about the economy, stupid! The national infrastructure is like the circulatory system inside the human body. When arteries are clogged, blood stops flowing and people die.

My grandfather was a union operating engineer. IUOE Local 3 San Francisco. He did excavation and road construction. Hard hat on caterpillar tractors and such. The Gradall machine was his specialty. He had a hand in building that beautiful scenic I-280 along the San Mateo/Santa Clara County/SF Peninsula skyline that opened in 1972. It was so smooth it was like driving on a sheet of glass. 50 years ago, roads really did matter.

Last edited by JohnPBailey; 01-05-2022 at 04:36 PM..
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Old 01-06-2022, 06:07 AM
 
464 posts, read 175,550 times
Reputation: 248
US infrastructure is bad, because of being overbuilt and oversized. For instance, roads are too plenty and too wide. Grids are too large.

According to this study, the US had 83,881 km2 of constructed impervious surface area (ISA) and a population of 282,575,328 in 2004. This means 296.8 m2 ISA (!) per capita (!). Almost three times the amount of ISA per capita than Germany (103.1 m2 ISA per capita).

It costs too much money to build and maintain overbuilt and oversized infrastructure. As a result, the infrastructure is built cheaply in the first place and not maintained regularly enough after it was constructed. The best conditions for a breakdown, which sometimes ends deadly.

In order to solve its infrastructure crisis, the US urgently needs to build smaller and less. It has to build compact cities, which require less infrastructure spending. Smaller cars, smaller homes can help to reduce the size of the built environment. These things need to happen. While there is a trend towards more compact cities in the US, there is also a trend towards bigger cars, not good. Big cars take up more road space, which requires more road space to be constructed and maintained.

Other countries spend less money on infrastructure and yet have better roads, bridges, sewage systems, railways, airports etc. No stimulus package in the world will override the economic laws. Economic resources are naturally limited, including those of the United States. If more money is printed in the hope of modernizing and maintaining overbuilt and oversized infrastructure, it will not work (see labor shortage etc) and will only lead to higher inflation.
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Old 01-06-2022, 06:44 AM
 
12,657 posts, read 8,875,450 times
Reputation: 34610
Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnPBailey View Post
What has priority over safe and economically-efficient-for-commerce roads, highways, city streets, locks, airports, levees, dams, water treatment facilities, sewage systems, railroads, harbors, canals, docks, buildings, tunnels, commercial vehicle parking facilities and bridges? Another Anne Frank memorial downtown?

Dams produce cheap electricity, collect fresh water for household consumption and control flooding.
Why buying votes using various forms of welfare. Roads and infrastructure support commerce and industry and people who work.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stadthaus View Post
US infrastructure is bad, because of being overbuilt and oversized. For instance, roads are too plenty and too wide. Grids are too large.

According to this study, the US had 83,881 km2 of constructed impervious surface area (ISA) and a population of 282,575,328 in 2004. This means 296.8 m2 ISA (!) per capita (!). Almost three times the amount of ISA per capita than Germany (103.1 m2 ISA per capita).

It costs too much money to build and maintain overbuilt and oversized infrastructure. As a result, the infrastructure is built cheaply in the first place and not maintained regularly enough after it was constructed. The best conditions for a breakdown, which sometimes ends deadly.

In order to solve its infrastructure crisis, the US urgently needs to build smaller and less. It has to build compact cities, which require less infrastructure spending. Smaller cars, smaller homes can help to reduce the size of the built environment. These things need to happen. While there is a trend towards more compact cities in the US, there is also a trend towards bigger cars, not good. Big cars take up more road space, which requires more road space to be constructed and maintained.

Other countries spend less money on infrastructure and yet have better roads, bridges, sewage systems, railways, airports etc. No stimulus package in the world will override the economic laws. Economic resources are naturally limited, including those of the United States. If more money is printed in the hope of modernizing and maintaining overbuilt and oversized infrastructure, it will not work (see labor shortage etc) and will only lead to higher inflation.
No, we don't need to live cramped like in Europe. Our ancestors left Europe. We need elbow room.
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