Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
5 Facts about infrastructure
5 Facts about infrastructure
Apr 4, 2025 4:48 AM

President Trump has designated this week as “Infrastructure Week,” a time dedicated to “addressing America’s crumbling infrastructure.” Here are five facts you should know about America’s infrastructure.

1. The Federal government has defined infrastructure as the framework of interdependent networks and prising identifiable industries, institutions (including people and procedures), and distribution capabilities that provide a reliable flow of products and services essential to the defense and economic security of the United States, the smooth functioning of governments at all levels, and society as a whole.

2. Critical Infrastructures are infrastructures that are so vital that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating impact on defense or economic security. The Presidential Policy Directive on Critical Infrastructure Security identifies sixteen categories of critical infrastructure sectors and the executive agency in charge of maintaining their secure functioning: Chemical sector (Homeland Security (DHS)), Commercial Facilities Sector (DHS), Communications Sector (DHS), Critical Manufacturing Sector (DHS), Dams Sector (DHS), Defense Industrial Base Sector (DoD), Emergency Services Sector (DHS), Energy Sector (Dept. of Energy), Financial Services Sector (Treasury), Food and Agriculture Sector (USDA, HHS), Government Facilities Sector (DHS), Healthcare and Public Health Sector (HHS), Information Technology Sector (DHS), Nuclear Reactors, Materials, and Waste Sector (DHS), Transportation Systems Sector (DHS, Dept. of Transportation), Water and Wastewater Systems Sector (EPA).

3. Every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) provides prehensive assessment of 16 major infrastructure categories in ASCE’s Infrastructure Report Card. Each category receives a letter grade from A to F. For 2017 the ASCE gave these grades: Aviation (D); Dams (D); Energy (D+); Inland Waterways (D); Ports (C+); Rail (B); Schools (D+); Solid Waste (C+); Bridges (C+); Drinking Water (D); Hazardous Waste (D+); Levees (D); Public Parks (D+); Roads (D); Transit (D-); and Wastewater (D+).

4. According to the Federal Highway Administration, there are currently 4.12 million miles of road in the United States. The core of the nation’s highway system is the 47,575 miles of Interstate Highways, prise just over one percent of highway mileage but carry one-quarter of all highway traffic. The Interstates plus another 179,650 miles of major prise the National Highway System, which carries most of the highway freight and traffic in the U.S. Most of the roads in the U.S., 2.94 million miles, are located in rural areas, with the remaining 1.18 million miles located in urban areas. Of the 4.07 million miles of road, about 2.68 million miles are paved, which includes most roads in urban areas. However, 1.39 million miles or more than one-third of all road miles in the U.S. are still unpaved gravel or dirt roads. These are largely local roads or minor collectors in rural areas of the country. Between 2000 and 2013, the U.S. built an average of 13,788 center-line miles of new roads per year. The U.S. also has 614,387 bridges, almost four in 10 of which are 50 years or older. According to ASCE, almost ten percent of the nation’s bridges were structurally deficient in 2016, and on average there were 188 million trips across a structurally deficient bridge each day.

5. Most funding for the construction of es from the federal Highway Trust Fund, a dedicated, user fee-funded source. The primary funding source for this fund is the federal motor fuels tax. According to the ASCE, the tax of 18.4 cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents for diesel has not been raised since 1993, and inflation has cut its purchasing power by 40 percent. In 2014, the federal government spent $43.5 billion on capital costs for highway infrastructure (including bridges) and state and local governments spent $48.3 billion. State and local governments are responsible for the operation and maintenance of all highways and roads not located on federal lands.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Value Creation for the Glory of God
The real estate crisis led to plenty of finger-pointing and blame-shifting, but for Phoenix real estate developer Walter Crutchfield, it led to self-examination and spiritual reflection. “The real estate crash brought me to a place of stepping back and evaluating,” Crutchfield says. “I could see where I lost sight of the individual intrinsic value of work, of individuals, munity…Rather than asking ‘is the demand reasonable?,’ we just serviced it, and now we had a chance to think about what we...
Should Christians Be Worried About Government Surveillance?
Ed Stetzter thinks so. In a Christianity Today article, Stetzer says our fundamental rights – rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights – are getting abused. He says alarm bells should be sounding among Christians, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Our Founding Fathers saw the Bill of Rights as providing barriers against government overreach and abuse. People (particularly people in governments with power) could not be trusted to have no checks on their power. Why? Well, some...
Immigration: Amnesty and the Rule of Law
It is a moral right of man to work. Pursuing a vocation not only allows an individual to provide for himself or his family, it also brings human dignity to the individual. Each person was created with unique talents, and the provision of an environment in which he can use those gifts is paramount. As C. Neal Johnson, business professor at Hope International University and proponent of “Business as Mission,” says, “God is an incredibly creative individual, and He said...
Work and the Political Economy of the Zombie Apocalypse
“Mmm…neoliberalism.” One of the more curious cultural movements in recent years has been the increasing interest in zombies, and in particular the dystopian visions of a world following the zombie apocalypse. Part of the fascination has to do, I think, with the value of thought experiments in speculation about such futures, however improbable. There may be something to be learned from gazing into a sort of fun house mirror, the distorted image of humanity as seen in zombies. But zombies...
Why social mobility matters—and income inequality does not
When es to household e, progressives tend to start with their intuitive understanding of fairness (i.e., some people have a lot more e than others), move to the solution (redistribution of e and wealth from those who have more to those who have less), and only then to develop a metric that justifies implementing their solution: e inequality. Because of this roundabout approach, you rarely hear progressives argue that e inequality is a problem since for them it just is...
If You Live Here, You’ll Never Amount To Anything
A study out of Harvard University focusing on tax credits and other tax expenditures has caused 24/7 Wall St. to declare that America has 10 cities where the poor just can’t get rich. Among the reasons that economic upward mobility is so minimal in these cities: horrible public education (leading to high dropout rates) and being raised in single-mother households. What these cities share is an economic segregation: two distinct classes of people, with virtually nothing mon. However, it seems...
What is Religious Freedom?
In its fullest and most robust sense, religion is the human person’s being in right relation to the divine, says Robert George, and all of us have a duty, in conscience, to seek the truth and to honor the freedom of all men and women everywhere to do the same: . . . the existential raising of religious questions, the honest identification of answers, and the fulfilling of what one sincerely believes to be one’s duties in the light of...
For Europe’s Youth, an Attitude Adjustment is Required
Humility is probably one of the most difficult human virtues to achieve. For me, as a Hungarian intern at the Acton Institute, listening to Samuel Gregg’s June lecture in Grand Rapids on his new book, ing Europe about the Old Continent’s crisis is instructive. Relations between the United States and major European powers have been testy from time to time, of course, but Europe seems to lack self-criticism. Aging Europe, an unsustainable social model, a two-speed Europe: these are some...
Which Metro Areas Have the Most/Least Economic Freedom?
The wide differences in economic freedom that we observe at the country level can exist at the subnational level as too (e.g., residents in Texas and Florida have greater economic freedom than those in California and New York). But until recently, there were no local parable to the national and global rankings. In a recently published study for the Journal of Regional Analysis & Policy, Dean Stansel, professor of economics at Florida Gulf Coast University, shows that greater economic freedom...
Federal Data Hub: Say Good-Bye To Your Privacy
Undoubtedly, we live in an era where personal privacy is difficult to maintain. Even if you choose not to have a Facebook account or Tweet madly, you still know that your medical records are on-line somewhere, that your bank account is only a hack away from being emptied, and that cell phone records are now apparently government domain. But it gets worse. Enter the Federal Data Hub, which will give the government access to “reams of personal piled by federal...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved