January 29, 2013
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Trends in US Infrastructure Policy• Infrastructure investment lacks a nationalvision or champion• Infrastructure spending decreasing relative toother countries• State and local governments take anincreasing role
• Signs of progress: MAP-21 and potential
WRDA bill2

Recent focus on infrastructure“We have upgraded more than 6,000 miles of rail, enough to go coast to coast and back. We
have repaired or replaced more than 20,000 bridges. We have helped get tens of thousands ofconstruction workers back on the job. Because of these efforts, when the American Society ofEngineers put out their 2013 Report Card on our national and for structure, they gave it the best
overall grade in 12 years. That is the good news. The bad news is we went from a D to a D +.”3

ASCE’s Infrastructure Vision
Bold Leadership and aCompelling Vision
Sustainability andResilience
Prioritize, Plan,and Fund

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What is the “Report Card”?
16 Categories

Evaluation Criteria• Capacity andCondition• Funding andFuture Need• Safety• Resilience• Innovation
Evaluators• Practitioners• Academia• Policy Experts
5What are the Results?
NEGATIVE• Continued lack maintenanceand investment.
• Backlog of projects keepsgrowing.
• Two categories received agrade of “D-”: levees andinland waterways.
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What are the Results?
POSITIVE• Improvements in six sectors:- Roads- Bridges- Solid waste- Drinking Water- Wastewater- Railroads• Results of greater private
investment and targeted
efforts; ARRA funding.
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Infrastructure Funding Needs by 2020
Funding Needs• ASCE’s “Failureto Act” reports• IndustryProjections

Annual additional
investment neededto achieve a “B”

Current Funding
Funding Gap
89State Trends

What Happens Without Investment?

Money
Lost perFamily

Jobs
Lost in2020

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Report Card Findings

Highlights•Roads improved slightly due to pavement condition improvements and significant reductions inhighway fatalities.
•Forty-two percent of America’s major urban highways remain congested; costing the economy
an estimated $101 billion in wasted time and fuel annually.
•Current investment annually is still short of what is needed.
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Report Card Findings

Highlights•Commercial flights were about 33 million higher in number in 2011 than in 2000.
•The estimated cost of airport congestion and delays was about 22 billion in 2012.
•Major projects like NextGen promise to modernize our airport system, but they require fullfunding.
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Report Card Findings

Highlights•In total, one in nine of the nation’s bridges are rated as structurally deficient. However, theoverall number of structurally deficient bridges continuing to trend downward; resulting in a
grade improved to C+.
•The number in urban areas, which tend to carry the most traffic, is on the rise.
•Over two hundred million trips are taken daily across deficient bridges in the nation’s 102
largest metropolitan regions.
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Report Card Findings

Highlights•Forty-five percent of Americans still lack access to transit.
•Americans increased their ridership 9.1% in the past decade, and that trend is expected tocontinue.
•Deficient and deteriorating transit systems cost the U.S. economy $90 billion in 2010.

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Report Card Findings

Highlights•Our nation’s inland waterways and rivers carry the equivalent of about 51 million truck trips
each year.
•There are an average of 52 service interruptions a day throughout the system.
• There is a backlog of major projects to repair and replace aging locks and dredge channels withestimated schedules stretching out to the year 2090 under current funding levels.

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Report Card Findings

Highlights•The evaluation focused on the landside and water connections rather than terminal facilities.
•The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that more than 95% (by volume) of overseas trade
produced or consumed by the United States moves through our ports.
•While port authorities and their private sector partners have planned over $46 billion in capital
improvements from now until 2016, federal funding has declined for dredging and landsideconnections.
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Report Card Findings

Highlights•In 2012, Amtrak recorded its highest year of ridership with 31.2 million passengers, almost
doubling ridership since 2000.
•Both freight and passenger rail have been investing heavily in their tracks, bridges, and tunnels– estimated at about $75 billion since 2009.
•In 2010 alone, freight railroads renewed the rails on more than 3,100 miles of railroad track,equivalent to going coast to coast.
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Report Card Findings

Highlights•The average age of the 84,000 dams in the country is 52 years old.
•The overall number of high-hazard dams continues to increase, to nearly 14,000 in 2012.
•It is estimated an investment of $21 billion is needed to repair these aging, critical, high-hazard
dams.
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Report Card Findings

Highlights•The nation’s estimated 100,000 miles of levees can be found in all 50 states and DC.
•While the federal government has begun an inventory of levee conditions, it is not yet
complete.
•Nearly 85 percent of levees are locally owned and operated, making data collection difficult.
•There is no National Levee Safety Program.
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Report Card Findings

Highlights• Pipes represent the largest capital need, comprising three quarters of total needs.
• Capital investment needs are estimated to total $298 billion over the next 20 years.
• It is estimated that aging pipes and inadequate capacity result in the discharge of about 900
billion gallons of untreated sewage per year.

20Report Card Findings

Highlights• There are about 240,000 water main breaks per year in the US.
• While the quality of drinking water remains high, the pipes and mains are frequently morethan 100 years old and in need of replacement.
• The annual replacement rate of pipes is expected to reach up to 20,000 miles of pipe per yearby 2035 – we replace about 5,000 miles of pipe per year now.
• Investment needs will likely double from $13 billion a year today to almost $30 billion by 2040.
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Report Card Findings

Highlights• America relies on an aging electrical grid and pipeline distribution systems, some of which
originated in the 1880s.
• Investment in power transmission has increased since 2005; ongoing permitting delays,weather events, and limited maintenance contribute to an increasing number of failures andpower interruptions.
• While demand for electricity has remained level, the availability of energy will become agreater challenge after 2020 as the population increases.
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Advocacy and Outreach Metrics

23• 16 graded categories• 50 state profiles• 100+ infrastructure
success stories• Infrastructure news
• Category videos

WWW.INFRASTRUCTUREREPORTCARD.ORG

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