Major Impacts Associated with Mismangement of Physical Infrastructure

Unfortunately it is a present fact that Capitol Hill has let the Country down. Republicans, Democrats… it doesn’t matter…  the sole clear focus of the Senate and Congress is upon self interest, party politics vs. doing their duty… serving the Country and the People.

One of the several roles of government is to maintain, preserve, and help to manage our buildings, roadways, bridges, and utility systems.    Due to the shear scope involved, Federal, State, County, and Local Governments must collaborate to simply plan for  and fund the immense costs of managing the built environment.

It likely that more that 2.2 trillion dollars (American Society of Civil Engineers reports) is needed to bring current infrastructure up to date… and this figure is likely understated.   What better way is there to actually grow our economy and secure our future than to invest here?   Furthermore the costs of not doing this work range from nearly $100 billion dollars in increase motor vehicle costs due to poor roadway systems, continued pollution and energy depletion from outdated building systems.

Unless we act now to make the investments we need, jobs and wealth will move away from the United States at an ever-increasing pace, wages here will be depressed at an even greater rate, and the social strain on families and communities will increase.  Furthermore, from a global competitiveness perspective, virtually every other nation is moving faster than the U.S. relative to infrastructure investment.

On the other side of the equation, our construction sector remains unproductive and rampant with waste due to antagonistic and out dated construction project delivery methods.   Design-bid-build does little but fund greed and fill our courtrooms.  Even “newer methods” such as design-build, are only partial solutions.

Integrated project delivery (IPD) and job order contracting (JOC) are examples of proven construction delivery methods that focus upon collaboration, transparency, and performance.   These types of processes should be mandated and enhanced.

 

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