Throughout history, infrastructure investments in the U.S. have indeed been awe-inspiring and a testament to its ‘can-do’ spirit despite the odds stacked against it.
America started building the Hoover Dam at the start of the Great Depression in the 1930s. When they completed it in 1935, the 726 feet dam was then the tallest in the world. Today, the 90-year-old dam still provides millions of Americans access to water and power.
But in the last decade, its deteriorating roads, bridges, rails, and water systems have become a crisis on its own, impacting the daily lives of its citizens and costing its economy.
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has historically delivered a yearly poor rating of the country’s infrastructure. From 2001 to 2017, ASCE has given the U.S. infrastructure a failing grade between a D and D+.
This year, 2021, the country’s infrastructure rating from ASCE’s slightly improved to a C-. ASCE also estimated the country’s infrastructure gap to reach US$5.6 Trillion, resulting from years of underinvestment.
The Hill article “Infrastructure gap reaches $5.6 trillion: Trade group” says:
ASCE Executive Director Tom Smith warns that we pay the price when we fail to invest in our infrastructure. The price includes the potential loss of 3 million jobs over two decades. By 2039 the lack of infrastructure would lead to $10 Trillion GDP losses and $23 trillion productivity losses, and $626 billion in trade deficit,
Fortune’s “The infrastructure bill is vital to America’s economic future” article explains why infrastructure investment is vital to the U.S. economic future.
According to the article:
- The infrastructure bill approved by the Senate on August 2021 and is now moving along in the House will set off a new chapter of infrastructure building in the country’s history.
- The US$1 trillion infrastructure bill will create jobs, upgrade existing infrastructure to serve today’s and future generations, address a major infrastructure gap, climate-proof infrastructure to address climate change threats, boost the transition to renewable energy and electrification of transportation.
- Modern infrastructure will also benefit businesses by strengthening their operations, helping their employees, and future hires, and the supply chain. Also, studies show that every dollar invested in infrastructure will generate $4 in economic growth.
But the massive infrastructure investments that will soon take place in the U.S. come with a couple of responsibilities.
The first is “to develop the fortitude not to be overwhelmed by the job of just maintaining what we’ve been given.”
Second, “to build what is necessary to meet future challenges while also reinventing our inherited physical infrastructure so that future generations benefit from it as much as we have.”
The practice of Infrastructure Asset Management can help governments to meet these responsibilities.
Strategic asset management can help with the long-term maintenance and operations of assets.
This approach can visualize asset management needs today and up to several decades into the future. It also integrates financial planning to demonstrate how today’s decisions can affect infrastructure and facilities in the future.
Leave a Reply