'Building Canada' With a Vision We Should Emulate

2008-06-23T10:00:00-04:00

I recently participated in the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering's annual conference in Quebec City. I had the pleasure of sitting at dinner one night with Carol Beall, assistant deputy minister for program operations for Infrastructure Canada. She described to me their current program entitled "Building Canada -- Modern Infrastructure for a Strong Canada, Stronger, Safer, Better."

The Ministry of Transport Infrastructure in Communities recently developed a vision for Canada's infrastructure for the next seven years through 2014. Their vision statement can be found at www.buildingcanada.gc.ca. They are also providing a federal investment of $33 billion over these years, which represents the single largest federal commitment to public infrastructure of this type. For Canada, this is an investment that would compare to the United States of between $500 and $750 billion dollars. Their focus is not just on building a stronger economy, but also building a cleaner environment and better communities. The funding for this effort comes from multiple sources, including a gas tax fund, general revenue, public/private partnership fund, and a gateways and border crossing fund.

It was very interesting to learn that our neighbors to the north have developed a balanced program to make significant investment in their future infrastructure. I urge all of you to go to their Web site and read their vision document. This clearly is the kind of visioning effort that we hope our federal government will undertake through the proposed Federal Infrastructure Commission legislation.

Bridge Safety by the Numbers

2008-03-10T11:01:55-04:00

MSNBC.com recently posted a two-part article dealing with late or incomplete bridge inspections. The article claimed that more than 1,400 bridges on interstate highways have missed the two-year inspection cycle. The article cites the fact that significant percentages of the bridges in more than half of our states have not undergone safety inspections every two years as required by federal regulations. Each state has the responsibility to make sure its bridges are inspected on time. While the Federal Highway Administration has the power to withhold funds, this has not happened in the past 15 years.

MSNBC dug deep into the records of the inspection of bridges in various states. A number of states said that their bridges were inspected, but the data simply wasn't entered into the system before the deadline. State departments of transportation said that many of these overdue bridges were not their responsibility, as they are owned by cities, towns or counties. However, according to federal regulations, even though states can delegate the task of bridge inspection to local governments, they cannot delegate responsibility.

There is a loophole in federal regulations that allows extending scheduled bridge inspections to every four years instead of every two years. Nationally, 30,000 bridges are listed in the delayed inspection schedule and there may be bridges in poor condition among them. MSNBC found records showing 622 of "fracture-critical" bridges on four-year inspection timetables. Most states do not use this loophole and keep all bridges on a two-year schedule. Only 16 states recorded more than a handful of bridges on long schedules.

MSNBC was not critical of the inspection process and procedures used by the states and mandated by the federal government. The concern is the fact that bridges are not being inspected every two years. Should ASCE also offer its concern, and if so how?

President's Blog

'Building Canada' With a Vision We Should Emulate

Bridge Safety by the Numbers