Every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) releases its assessment of the current condition and needs of United States infrastructure. The Report Card for America’s Infrastructure takes the form of a school report card, with grades designated from A to F, as an easily identifiable (and modestly tongue-in-cheek) depiction of where our nation’s infrastructure stands in relation to our public safety, health, economic, and security goals.
This year, America ranked just below average at a C- overall. This is up from a D+ in 2017 and marks the first time that American infrastructure has ranked above the D range in two decades, indicating incremental progress in infrastructure restoration. According to Ruwanka Purasinghe, EIT, A.M.ASCE, a member of the committee that determines the quadrennial grade, “the overall grade of a C- shows that we’re on the right track but have a ways to go.”
The Infrastructure Report Card overall grade is derived from the assessment of seventeen individual categories—aviation, drinking water, energy, public parks, schools, stormwater, and transit, to name a few. Like nearly every other aspect of American societal life, all seventeen categories have faced heightened strain throughout the pandemic as COVID-19 continues to impact revenue streams intended for infrastructure. At the same time, climate change tests the limits of our existing structures, and related severe weather events impede potential restoration efforts. Now more than ever, infrastructure networks require attention and investment in order to overcome the obstacles before them.
The ASCE cites three significant trends that contribute to reporting results for all assessed sectors. Firstly, the society highlights maintenance backlogs, a persistent issue also featured in the 2017 Report Card, as a cause of poor system performance. Nonetheless, the ASCE notes that new technology and appropriate asset management are helping to bridge the gap between limited funds and necessary maintenance. Secondly, in the last four years, federal, state, and local governments have made positive impacts on sectors through financial and human investment. For example, more than 25 major cities and states have now appointed chief resilience officers in order to promote resilience building at the state and local levels. Lastly, the ASCE notes that some infrastructure sectors suffer from a scarcity of condition information and reliable data. When it comes to stormwater, for example, a dearth of updated asset records prevents accurate estimations for the lifespans of stormwater conveyance systems across the country.
When the ASCE unveiled the 2021 report at a virtual news conference last week, representatives from all corners of industry and politics voiced the need for bipartisan support on infrastructure investment. With a mounting annual investment gap of nearly $260 billion, America’s infrastructure can wait no longer. Infrastructure shortcomings demand resolutions—our collective economic foundation and quality of life depend on it.
To read the ASCE’s 2021 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, click here.
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