Magazine says 10 pieces of U.S. infrastructure need fixing right now

Chicago's Circle Interchange, shown here, is one of Popular Mechanics' must fix now projects.

The Trucker News Services

6/26/2008

Popular Mechanics magazine rates the top 10 pieces of American infrastructure that must be fixed right away, including a traffic artery in Seattle, a Chicago interchange, the Brooklyn Bridge and Idaho’s Dover Bridge, according to MSN.com.

Here are their top must-fixes and why:

Chicago’s Circle Interchange

After years of being ranked two of the worst traffic bottlenecks in the country by groups like the American Highway Users Alliance, both the U.S. 101 at the I-405 Interchange in Los Angeles and the I-610 and I-10 Interchange in Houston are being revamped. But, the magazine says, the third-worst spot for highway congestion, Chicago's Circle Interchange, is “going nowhere.” One parkway and three expressways intersect there, and an estimated 300,000 vehicles a day are forced to slow down to make their way through a series of tightly curved ramps, resulting in an estimated 25 million hours in delays per year. A $975 million expansion project might relieve traffic on one of the expressways, but, the article states, “no plans have been announced to address the congested interchange itself.”

Brooklyn Bridge, N.Y.

This structure is the oldest suspension bridge still being used in the country, and it is considered "structurally deficient" under the federal government’s rating system. Officials aren’t worried about the icon’s collapse because the main span apparently is sound. However, approaches to the bridge have rusted steel and deteriorating road decks, and restoration of those areas aren’t to begin until 2010. “If the country wants to signal that it's serious about infrastructure, it has to take care of its national icons,” the article maintained.

Canal Lock, New Orleans
Although the Industrial Canal Lock in New Orleans carries up to 20 million tons of cargo a year between the Mississippi River and the city's Industrial Canal, which leads to the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, the city's infrastructure is barely up to the task, notes Popular Mechanics. The 87-year-old lock is undersized, and vessels sometimes wait up to 36 hours. Congress first authorized new locks in 1956. The Army Corps of Engineers finally began the work in 2002 but a judge ruled it had failed to prepare the proper environmental impact study. Construction is expected to take 12 years and cost nearly $800 million, but 50 years after work could have begun, no completion date has been set.

Water System, Atlanta
When Georgia residents faced drought last year, Atlanta’s citizens pitched in to reduce their consumption, but, the magazine stated, as much as 18 percent of the city's water was being lost through leaking pipes. A similar situation is found throughout the country as municipal lines beneath the streets lose massive volumes of water, as do privately owned pipes.

Alaskan Way Viaduct, Seattle
After an earthquake in 2001 damaged the Alaskan Way Viaduct, a traffic artery in Seattle, supports had subsided 5 inches, weakening the structure. Options included fixing the elevated roadway and replacing it with a tunnel or improved surface roads but still no decision has been made. Meanwhile, as many as 110,000 vehicles travel over the Viaduct each day.

Lake Okeechobee, Fla.
In 2006, engineering experts calculated that in any given year there is a 1-in-6 chance that the Herbert Hoover Dike will fail, releasing waters from Lake Okeechobee. If that happened, South Florida's water supply could be contaminated, and 40,000 lakeside residents could be threatened by flooding. The Army Corps of Engineers has been working on improvements, but funding is limited -- for the 2009 budget year, the government allotted about half of the requested money. In February 2008, a 1000-ft.-long stretch of dangerously eroded land was found near state-owned floodgates north of the lake.

Dover Bridge, Bonner County, Idaho
Idaho's Dover Bridge sees about 5,000 vehicles per day, even though the bridge scored a "sufficiency rating" of 2 out of 100 in the National Bridge Inventory. Last year, a 30- by 30-inch piece of the deck was found hanging by its rebar. Replacing the bridge would cost an estimated $25 million and funding has not been found.

Wolf Creek Dam, Kentucky

Fixing the 5,736-foot-long Wolf Creek Dam in Kentucky is one of the highest priorities for the Army Corps of Engineers because its limestone foundation has been dissolving at an increasingly alarming rate. The problem was first detected in 1968, 16 years after construction was completed. When the problem gained attention again in 2005, the Corps lowered Lake Cumberland and began repairs. But despite the ongoing construction on the bridge, the danger of collapse hasn't been significantly reduced, according to the article, and the earliest possible completion date for repairs is set for 2012. Until then, downstream communities, including Nashville, Tenn., are at risk.

Sacramento River Levees, California
Last year, the Army Corps listed 122 levees in the country "at risk of failure." Of these, 19 were on California's Sacramento River. To pick just one, if the Natomas Levee were to fail, floodwaters surging from the Sacramento River could endanger many of the 70,000 area residents and put Sacramento International Airport and the ARCO Arena, home to the NBA's Sacramento Kings, under as much as 20 feet of water. The Corps’ ongoing efforts to repair the levees have been opposed by local officials, who doubt the Engineers’ analysis.

O'Hare International Airport, Chicago
O-Hare, according to Popular Mechanics, had the country's worst record of on-time departures in the first half of 2007 (fewer than 65 percent), based on Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) figures. The airport also rates among the worst in terms of near-misses on the runway, the article stated: O’Hare saw 68 runway incursions between 2001 and 2006, with three close calls in March 2006. New radar designed to help prevent such incursions has been criticized by air traffic controllers, who maintain that snow and rain can virtually “blind” the system.