This first set of facts about America's decaying infrastructure was compiled from a fact sheet entitled "The Case For U.S. Infrastructure Investment" by an organization called Building America's Future....
#1 One-third of America's major roads are in poor or mediocre condition.
#2 Traffic on more than half the miles of interstate highway exceeds 70 percent of capacity, and nearly 25 percent of the miles are strained at more than 95 percent of capacity.
#3 Americans waste 4.2 billion hours and 2.8 billion gallons fuel a year sitting in traffic – equal to nearly one full work week and three weeks’ worth of gas for every traveler.
#4 Over the next 30 years, our nation is expected to grow by 100 million and highway traffic will double again. Even if highway capacity grows no faster than in the last 25 years, Americans can expect to spend 160 hours – 4 work weeks – each year in traffic by 2035.
#5 Nearly a third of all highway fatalities are due to substandard road conditions, obsolete road designs, or roadside hazards.
#6 Over 4,095 dams are "unsafe" and have deficiencies that leave them more susceptible to failure, especially during large flood events or earthquakes.
#7 Rolling blackouts and inefficiencies in the U.S. electrical grid cost an estimated $80 billion a year.
#8 By 2020, every major U.S. container port is projected to at least double the volume of cargo it was designed to handle. Some East Coast ports will triple in volume, and some West Coast ports will quadruple.
#9 Other countries are leapfrogging past us by investing in world-class ports. China is investing $6.9 billion; the port of Shanghai now has almost as much container capacity as all U.S. ports combined.
#10 By 2020, China plans to build 55,000 miles of highways, more than the total length of the U.S. interstate system.
Read more:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/everything-is-falling-apart-20-facts-that-you-will-not-want-to-read-if-you-still-want-to-feel-good-about-americas-decaying-infrastructure
No comments:
Post a Comment