Bridges need to be fixed and yes, it will cost money
Responding to the monumental problem of our deteriorating infrastructure, highlighted by the Minneapolis bridge collapse on Aug. 1, Republican presidential candidates present a united front of profiles in cowardice. They unanimously reject higher gas taxes to pay for the long-delayed repair of thousands of corroded, structurally weakened bridges, neglected for decades because of continually decreasing gas taxes.
Displaying the problem lawyers have with even simple arithmetic, candidate Rudy Giuliani even warned that a gas tax increase could reduce tax revenues -- that is, a doubled gas tax could cut consumption by more than 50 percent.
Corrected for construction cost inflation, today's 18.4-cent federal gas tax is only one-third of the 4-cent tax in 1956, when the interstate highway system was initiated. To fund reconstruction at the original 1956 rate would require a tripling of the federal gas tax -- an additional 37 cents, for a total 55 cents per gallon.
You can argue that maintenance, repair and reconstruction of the existing bridges is less costly than the original 1956 construction cost. But the dismal condition of the nation's bridges, documented by the American Society of Civil Engineers for two decades, rebuts this argument. Large increases, both state and federal, are required to restore the bridges to their pristine safety.
STAR-BULLETIN / 2006
Workers toil on the Haleiwa Bridge, which was closed last October for repairs.
Bridges pose uniquely severe structural problems. Protected from weather, building structures often have service lives of a full century. But bridges' service lives are much shorter. They are exposed to fatigue stress from repetitive impact loads from heavier vehicles, to extreme thermal expansion and contraction, to concrete shrinkage and spalling that exposes reinforcing bars to rust, and to concentrated stresses in welded steel truss connections. Failure of just one joint in a steel bridge truss can cause total collapse. Nearly 80,000 bridges throughout the United States are entering a hazardous middle age or decrepit old age.
Another serious bridge collapse, perhaps a major one killing dozens of motorists, might get the politicians' attention. With the current neglect, we might not need to wait long. Like the 40-year-old Minneapolis bridge, thousands of bridges were built in the early years of the interstate program.
But don't expect presidential candidates to lead when it is so easy to follow. Better ignore the corroding bridges, threatened dams and weakening water and sewer pipes. Courage is for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cowardice wins the prizes in politics.
C.W. Griffin is a retired consulting engineer who lives in Honolulu.