Maintaining and upgrading our transportation infrastructure is a costly proposition. The National Academies projects that the cost of maintaining the performance of our transportation infrastructure will be $95 billion per year for the next 20 years. Taking into account such innovations and the tens of billions of dollars invested annually by all levels of government on surface transportation, the federal government estimates that the current investment is not sufficient. In this activity, we will review a variety of forecasts on the maintenance and performance required of our transportation infrastructure.

First:

Review

From the booklet Critical Issues in Transportation, the sections

Congestion (pp. 2-3),

Infrastructure (pp. 4-5), and

Safety (pp. 8-9)

Read

The Governing Magazine article Six Ideas for Fixing the Nation's Infrastructure Problems

The Huffington Post article Infrastructure Problems in U.S. Go Far Beyond Dollars

The Washington Post article Failing U.S. transportation system will imperil prosperity, report finds

Refer to

The American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) 2013 Report Card for America's Infrastructure
Next, submit the following:

Complete the Science Toolkit (download template) for the Huffington Post and Washington Post articles, using the Transportation Research Board booklet and the ASCE Report Card as the scientific sources.

Answers to the following questions:

The Huffington Post and Washington Post articles are from 2009 and 2010, respectively. The ASCE Report Card is from 2013. Has the United States corrected the infrastructure funding problems reported four to five years ago?

The Governing Magazine article recommends making bridges smarter as one way of fixing the nation's infrastructure. Does the ASCE, the leading professional society for civil engineers, make the same recommendation? Do you agree with their recommendation, why or why not?

The two completed Toolkits and the above questions should be submitted together in one document. The Science Toolkit provided in this activity provides a template for all of these required pieces.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/q6vomkbhj18k6cq/critical_issues_in_transportatioin_0.rar?dl=0