The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) on September 4 called for establishment of a presidential commission on infrastructure to address the deteriorating conditions of our nation’s roads, bridges, drinking water systems, schools, and other public works. This call for action was announced as the group released its “2003 Progress Report for America’s Infrastructure.”

The report reveals that little has improved since the nation’s infrastructure received an overall “D+” on ASCE’s 2001 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, while the cost for infrastructure renewal has escalated from $1.3 trillion over a five-year period in 2001 to $1.6 trillion over a five-year period in 2003. In fact, the engineering organization says that little progress has been made since a Reagan-era commission on infrastructure first formed nearly 20 years ago. In the mid-80s, President Ronald Reagan’s commission, concluding that the state of America’s infrastructure was a “C” in their 1988 report, “Fragile Foundations: A Report on America’s Infrastructure,” fired the first public warnings that America’s infrastructure was in decline.

Schools not improving
Schools, the only building type called out in the study, earned a “D-” on the ASCE report card, not improving at all from the “D-” they earned in 2001. The report indicates that three-quarters of our nation’s school buildings remain inadequate to meet the needs of school children, due to aging, outdated facilities, severe overcrowding, and new mandated class sizes. The average cost of capital investment needed is $3,800 per student, more than half the average cost to educate a student for one year. Population growth is outpacing investment in our schools, and the engineers report that while school construction spending has increased, to remedy the situation will cost more than $127 billion.

Many school districts have mandated a lower student-to-teacher ratio in an effort to improve test scores. In Florida, a statewide constitutional amendment now limits class sizes causing the Hillsborough County school district to put a freeze on moving dilapidated portable classrooms from school property.

The ASCE report points out that there has been no new comprehensive needs assessment since the last report card, and although funding and attention on the schools issue has increased, the problems remain unsolved. Although funding is a state and local function, federal educational standards and mandates on classroom size do have costs, so ASCE believes that the federal government should do more to assist locals with school maintenance. They recommend enacting the America’s Better Classroom Act of 2003 (H.R. 930 & S. 856), which allows tax credits to pay the interest on school modernization bonds.

Coordinated approach needed
The current report indicates that “it’s clear that we must adopt a coordinated national approach to the development and maintenance of our infrastructure, and that the choices and decisions we must make will affect the health, safety, and prosperity of every citizen of this country,” according to ASCE President Thomas L. Jackson, PE, FASCE. “Just as President Reagan appointed the first national commission on infrastructure, I call on President Bush to consider demonstrating similar leadership through the appointment of a new federal commission to develop America’s infrastructure agenda for the 21st century.”

While solutions to repair our crumbling infrastructure can be addressed through a renewed partnership between citizens; the private sector; and local, state, and federal governments, the engineers say that a coordinated effort from the top-down is needed to resolve the nation’s infrastructure woes once and for all. In the interim, they are calling for reauthorization of the Transportation Equity Act of the 21st Century (TEA-21) and passage of the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act to provide critical funding to repair our aging and overburdened transportation and water infrastructure.

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