Infrastructure: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) 

Whatever made you think the USA is a "developed" country-at least, compared to yours? As for incorporating Climate Change into our maintenance plans (such as they are), try getting the Republicans in our House and Senate to even acknowledge that it's a "problem".

Ahhh. To be Dutch...for my dollar, the most practical citizenry anywhere!

Well, Ned is a good country.

America being a developed country is a myth believed only by children and orange faced buffoons

@JotjeJ Welcome to the wild-fucking-west buddy. If this surprises you, check out our schools, gun laws, segregation, tax nightmares, healthcare system.. or politics in general. Hell, we here don't even believe that climate change is real, and you think anybody worries about some shit bridges and roads? You must be smoking something odd...

So you know that bridge? Yeah It’s gone What do you mean it’s gone? It was swallowed by the river it crossed … Are you there? … Sir? Crap

@@WalterTheWalrus we live in an area that floods badly each spring, so they just told me to go back in a month when the water went down. They were surprisingly calm lol. Bridge was fine. The inspection photos from the first try were hilarious

That sounds just amazing. Just, amaizing 🤣. Thank you for sharing that anecdote with us!

@@YandereDay makes me think of a flood plane near my house that we nicknamed Lake (Small Town Name) because it floods every few years when we get a TON of rain and the creek that runs through it jumps it’s banks. (This is likely a problem that arose or was worsened by the dam further down the creek, but it’s been around far longer than I have so I’m just theorizing) There’s a “sub-main” road that runs through it; it connects the few towns that it runs through to a main roadway through the city they’re all satellites to. I also recently noticed that there’s plenty built AROUND the flood plane, but the plane itself is just wilderness and a road. There’s almost a clear line on either side where buildings begin again, and it took me a long time to realize “oh, duh, that’s where the flood plane ends, and nothing is built down here except a road because it floods often enough that it’s not worth it.” When the flood waters recede and the road is accessible again, you can see just how high the water got by the mud left on the trees. It’s probably anywhere from 10-20 feet deep. Last time it flooded in 2018, someone caught a video of some guy down there kayaking on the temporary lake 😂😂

I really don't want to hear about how bad the infastructure is from a college intern. so you can go back to college and add to the student loan debt you idiot.

💔💝

I was thinking the same thing. Get people excited. 😂 Just like how kids will do anything for a plastic trophy.

Or cut ribbons for the Grand Re-Opening of the bridge, celebrating the improved safety.

Instead of scissors, they'd use a seam ripper. A giant seam ripper.

You could always make cutting ceremony after you reopening closed parts.

Sandvich

@@WalterTheWalrus Make me strong!

In canada right now the gas is 97 cents per liter.

+Jan Sten Adámek I am not sure what is he talking about? He complains about inflation affecting the highway trust fund, but hasn't the inflation also affected the fuel prices, hence increasing total amount of $$$ collected from gas tax? The base sum is rising hence the %%% from it rises by the same proportion. And we are also forgetting the rise in consumption. I believe the issue is burried elsewhere...

mrcsanton Gas tax has fixed amount per liter, not percentage so it does not change with fuel prices

+Jan Sten Adámek yes, with VAT over it. This is EU after all. YOu also pay VAT everywhere and that is calculated as % from base fuel price AND gas tax together.

mrcsanton VAT is not gas tax, it's a general tax that is not limited for (and most of it is not used for) infrastructure funds.

Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when the bridge fell...

rip u dip

Where were you when they built the Bridge to Heaven?

***** Coffee cup's last phone call with his family: "Making my way downtown..."

I cri evritime

njoid

Chris Haupt You misspelled me!

.... >_>

I'm glad that you and your collegues are aware of your importance to society :)

Yeah, same here

🙌🙌🙌 true!

No pressure

Dude that's great point but as a person who is doing his bachelor's in medicine and surgery I would like to say doctors are epidemiologists too it takes one or two mistake to cause a pandemic.

good question but you do know that more bridges means more structures that no one looks at and will eventually crumble down throwing cups of coffee into the water right? :P

Then why isn't the cups of coffe industry not lobbying for more bridges?

Yago Siebenmorgen Portomeñe okay guess you got me there!

Its because their relationship with the Department of Transportation is a bit rocky.

as rocky as the roads? ;)

YOUR TRANSVERSE GIRDER MEMBERS NO LONGER HAVE THE STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY TO SUPPORT THIS LOAD! YOU DONKEY!!!

Whoa......That's an Aha moment!

The Royal Spoon NOW YOU BETTER SHOW SOME PASSION FOR BEING AN ENGINEER, OR I'LL PAY YOUR FUCKING TRIP BACK TO AUSTRALIA

they had a show similar to that a few years ago on discovery or similar that i was really excited about, however it turned out to just be a guy going around hitting old bridges and tunnels with a hammer saying "look at that concrete chipping away!" ... I'm not sure how many episodes that lasted, i cant even find it via google, but I dont think it had nearly the success of kitchen nightmares

Austin Reese Calling something bad doesn't deserve praise. Fixing it, now that's the stuff that's interesting.

Would love to hear your thoughts on Solar Roadways, from an engineer's perspective. Roads that generate revenue make a lot of sense to me. The heating aspect sounds very neat, too, no need to salt or plow the roads.

Andy VelwestEnergy Solar Roadways would be a good idea if they are made from the right materials and if they required less maintenance than asphalt but as it sits now that's not the case. With Solar Roadways the question is how do we maintain all those wires under the streets, and who gets the electricity/ where does it go? Probably the best idea is to have the electricity charge large stationary batteries across town that are connected to charging parking spaces for electric cars that have a meter on them, so only electric cars may park there, if an electric car is parked there it must pay the meter like other similar parking spaces and that car gets to charge while it is parked there.

I'm ME, and I approve also. I've actually seen people trying to put PVC instead of CPVC on more than one occasion.

J. Moonstorm Mariano This is just like any other distributed generation. How to integrate distributed electric generation into the grid is a hard problem that is being figured out as we speak (the harder part is how to get Utilities to change their business model). We're not going to figure it all out on this forum, but this approach has promise. Of course it depends on the financials, but costs will be driven down as it scales up, and PV tech will continue to improve. This is a huge undertaking that will happen over generations. And we may find better solutions along the way. But we have to try new things, when the old things have so many problems (primarily environmental damage that drives up the cost of food, water and medical care).

As a civil engineer I would expect more form you.

I'm playing right now while watching this on my phone. Just choosing names for my buildings. Like my hospital "Dr James' Horrortorium" and the crematorium "Jim's Bar and Grill" If citizens say my infrastructure isn't sexy or complain about sewage in their bathroom, then their house is getting bulldozed.

This. So much this

And transport fever as well^^

No cities skylines sucks, full of bugs, with updates breaking saves, mods that keep breaking, tiny building area, natural disasters are a joke, and very few options for anything (bridge types, traffic controls, building textures).

@@donkey7921 what similar game in the genera do you consider BETTER than cities skylines? Most online reviews praise this game even stating it's the best sim city game... that's not even a sim city game! If your games crashing and corrupting maybe choose your mods better, or don't update, updating fixes issues that may affect the way you've built (not meant for you but for other readers, I'm guessing YOU already know that about updates) cities skylines has never posed a problem for me other than traffic jams after my cities get to a certain size. If you're experiencing this many issues over a highly praised game you must have played this game continually since it was released playing everyday for 8 hours at least, doing EVERYTHING you could possibly do to experience EVERYTHING about this game.

Chase Blakeley it is.. Some of his topics are quite sad (abortion, death penalty, sex education, refugees, translators.... I cried) but informative..

Absolutely

for about a week straight

Of course some of his topic are depressing. His full name is John "buzzkill" oliver.

For sure: His satire just slays me.

It's probably the 100 people who called in to say no to the gas tax, their 895 collective family and friends... and 5 douchebags.

Probably teens who want to watch fake prank videos and internet drama they call "news".

Maybe they don't like sausage sandwiches?

Probably because he dissed Trump

Because we have these creatures called Libertarians, who don't care about infrastructure/government/taxes etc. and want the private sector to run rampant and people to walk the streets with guns and "Oppression and discrimination is your problem not mine why should I care get over it" Pretty much they just want to white men to do whatever they want and if you have a problem then too bad.

***** except when the funding goes to actual soldiers or veterans. then they have no problem cutting spending.

Great idea. As long as it doesn't result in having to pay even higher taxes.

***** Little handy tip for life: If you can replace one noun in your sentence and it becomes shockingly offensive while still making complete grammatical sense, the odds are what you're saying is really fucking stupid and shockingly offensive. For example: "Chinese people are so obsessed with military control that there would be no way to cut any spending in that sector."

It's actually because most roads (or there about, in the aged ones) are military expenditures. Those were sold (at their creation) with the sense that "hey, we could land planes here, there, transport troops here, there". Sigh.

aserta that is actually a misconception. They were sold as a way to get people out of cities in mass relatively quickly. You are right that it was a military expenditure, just not quite for the right reason. Common misconception

Also known as Mitch McConnell & Co.

+matt kokowski It was even done intentionally! It didn't just all fall onto the second bridge.

+matt kokowski Yinz redded up your bridge.

what about the idea of a movie just watching and showing off the country as it rolls now; following a family very loose (no direct story or stuff) and you watch the falling apart of the infrastructure and the chaos caused. Could be really interesting , no that it would be fun seeing america trip about their own dumb mistakes :)

Brazil - A science fiction dystopia comedy/drama in which the main enemy is incompetence, idiocy, bureaucracy and break down of infrastructure.

City of Ember (or something like that) starts with that more or less, but it's a kids movie

Lars Willighagen True. I did read the book, and I thought of it when writing my comment.

There is something like that, it's called "Life After People",

Good your train unions first.

@@IndogaKirai Claus Weselsky is the Boss! :))

I know. He nailed it! Oliver said screw that! Nerves on steel!

Renard Leblanc take my like and leave.

@V B lol don't worry about enjoying this years later, you and I will still be watching these 20 years from now... prolly. =P

Dam - that joke doesn't hold water

As a civil engineering student, this line of comments strains me to the point of yield.

A shit ton of legitimate engineers would probably agree with that

It had a great cast! Netflix should pick it up.

You know it! ;) #mcaslan

I would legitimately watch a movie about civil infrastructure. I'm not even joking.

I was just gonna post a comment about whether I was the only one who actually thinks that movie could work. It'd be a fresh breeze, if nothing else.

I was waiting for him to say "hashtag feminism, hashtag ass-phalt" after that line!

God dam*it!

Koan Sound Album cover ey? good Artist choice, you have good taste.

You should make it ryme more, "here I am to inspect this dam".

Underrated line XD

genius

Right!

Here in Brazil they give a new paint to a public school and call it "reinauguration".

VivaToddVegas Or they can fix the old ribbon and cut it again.

@@homeofthemad3044 lol

They do sometimes... but there is always a backlash.

The problem, the idits fixed his computer too!

If your maintenance people are good, they look lazy. I knew an IT guy that would put off critical stuff, so they could swoop in and save the day. Justified the team more for it too... Politics are dumb.

Strangle WHICH guy?

“Nothing happened.” That’s how you know everyone did their job correctly.

In software we have the problem of firefighters. These are people who have got promoted due to putting out fires. When things are going smoothly they will make stupid changes to schedule or scope so as to create a fire. Then they can come in and pull off a heroic save and get their next promotion. The guy who plans properly, keeps to schedule and delivers on time doesnt get promotions. Maybe civil engineers need to learn from Software project managers.

I watched the news this morning and I thought: “Infrastructure - Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”!!! “I choose you!” (Poke ball pops open on the ground).

@@davidfuentes9957 I immediately thought exactly the same thing.

@@davidfuentes9957 ME TOO

+Evan Johnston (Jaeth The Furfag) What does it mean?

Because it's funny. There's... not much to it...

Evan Johnston I have difficulty in understanding English slang...That is a kind of mocking at Trump is that right? Thanks all the way

Oh my, the best way to #MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain I see...

+Johnathan Li So we get to call Donald Trump Drumpf? Can we call Caitlyn Bruce again too?

you dont understand just how much I appreciate this dad joke

13.1M now!

13 millions now

@@d-rock8372 are you ok?

*Dam* 😂

Good idea. Tweet that to the government.

elove japan I don't care, I'm not american, I'm canadian, and thats what our govt did, I'm enjoying our healthy economy and good infrastructure

MrMassivemeatlog That's a great idea mr massive meat log

thx

"invest in infrastructure" is a bit of an incorrect statement. The word "Invest" means that they will get something in return later on, but since most of the government is interested in money, rather than keeping the infrastructure in good condition, it is clear that it won't happen for a monetary revenue.

"If anything exciting happens, we've done it wrong." This quote might be not that on-spot, but you got what I mean.

No item Fox only

***** Oh, damn you're right. I can't believe it took three months for anyone to point that out.

sigh824 it's a movie about death coming for you. Not sure what what you watched

Anyway, Oliver was talking about blockbusters, so he was right on that. The fact that 3 months past till someone who actually knows Final Destination came accross should be explanation enough ^^

Was It The Bridge They Featured That Had The Bridge Under It?

I was covering the Fern Hollow Bridge collapse (the one you referenced) for a college news show when they lifted the bus off of the bridge. While it was breathtaking to watch a large bus dangling in the air, the condition of the bridge post-collapse was even more shocking. Bits of debris were strewn about and the bridge itself looked like a rock formation with a stiff peak and deep valley. I'll never forget all of the cars collected in the "valley" of the collapse, looking like a haphazardly-strewn collection of Hot Wheels a child was done playing with. The horrible thing about the entire situation was that city officials knew about the deteriorating condition of the bridge, but decided to do nothing with it. Luckily no one was injured, especially considering there was a walking trail and dog park underneath the bridge. Truly a scary situation.

Home Box Office hit!

I’d watch it 😊

Yeah... actually probably a fun show

always impressed by the casts Oliver is able to gather 👍

I would actually watch that movie

Predator drones.

Military spending.

Golf

War

More than half is consumed for the military. i.imgur.com/lWQ0DkE.png

Define tiny fraction. We currently spend $900 billion annually on defense spending, around $750 billion on military spending. The current infrastructure investment gap is $2 trillion. If you wanted to close that over 10 years, you'd need over $200 billion each year (over since there'd be more infrastructure expenses during that decade). That's over a fifth of defense sending and over a fourth of military spending. Now, don't get me wrong, that can be done, and our military could stand to lose $200 billion (or $300 . . . or $400), but 1/4 isn't a tiny fraction. Taking $200 billion out of the military every year would require careful consideration, and isn't the easy solution that most of my fellow progressives portray it to be. And remember, $2 trillion is just the infrastructure gap. Closing that would improve our infrastructure a lot, but other progressive projects like a green infrastructure program or a mass transit system would require trillions more.

@@curranfrank2854 I mean, if we took that much out of the military, we would still probably have the most expensive military in the world

@@lordoftheducks332 We would, the second largest is China and their military budget is only $266.4 billion, according to the ChinaPower Project: chinapower.csis.org/military-spending/ I'm not against military cuts, I do support us having the largest military but we could accomplish that with less than $300 billion annually. My point was that many progressives act like any plan could be paid for by just cutting the military, and that's not really true. Eric Reingardt's claim was that a tiny fraction of the military budget would pay for infrastructure reform, but it would take over 1/4 of the budget to just fix the infrastructure investment gap, and we'd probably need at least $1-2 trillion more for green infrastructure spending, resulting in over half of the budget being cut. Neither 1/4 nor 1/2 is a tiny fraction and it's not helpful to claim that it is.

@@curranfrank2854, you make a good point but would you agree that "tiny fraction" would have paid for ongoing maintenance if US hadn't been cutting infrastructure spendings? =) Also, why do you need the largest military in the world? You don't even do military parades, which are stupid but very fun in an innocently militaristic way

@@klas666 Yeah, I'd agree. But it's not accurate to claim a "tiny fraction" of the military budget could solve our current infrastructure deficit, or pay for infrastructure reform. As for having the largest military in the world, I feel that it's necessary because the next one up would be China, and they have enough influence as is. Our military's expensive because of our global reach, and that's necessary to restrain authoritarian countries like China or Russia. If our European allies increased their military budgets, I'd think it'd be less necessary for the US to have the largest, since the overall NATO budget would still be larger

Your name is Dave Jones and you appear to be a turtle-man wearing a suit.....I guess Davey Jones had to evolve at some point yea? :D

+Moon Light He's right though. A gas tax is something that affects the lower middle class and poor more than anyone else, and gas prices are already pretty steep. They could get the money from a fairer source

+Buck Shot The thing I take issue with in that statement are the words "super high prices". Here in Denmark we pay $8 US per US gallon. I've heard US Americans get depressive over a price of $3.50. I mean when US Americans complain over "high" gas prices, my sides go into orbit.

MrFalconfly 8 US$ a gallon? Hamlet was right, there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. It's too bad that gas is so expensive in your country, but things may not be as bad as you think. You need to remember driving in North America is a necessity. The cities are set up for cars, and transit systems are woefully less sophisticated than those in western Europe. Where nearly every day to day necessity can be found within each community in Europe, in N. America most people have to leave their neighbourhoods to go shopping. Not to mention that your country is very small compared to N America, where everything is so spread out that driving is important. Also, your average citizen is provided with lots of social services, services which Americans have to pay for out of their pockets. So, for poor Americans rising gas prices really do hurt. You could probably get away without driving in Denmark, or at least driving far less.

Buck Shot You may have a point there. Cars definitely aren't a life or death necessity here, and if you have to commute out of town there are usually reasonable bus and train coverage to get you to most places.

+Buck Shot Well, the much more sophisticated transit system is paid from that as well. You also need to consider that cars in Denmark (and Europe in general) are much more fuel efficient than in the US. So 8 US$ per gallon in Denmark will take about the same amount from your pocket as if it was 4 or 4.50 US$ and you drove an American car.

Well no, considering the best dam inspector of the fucking industry is in it.

LOL, I was gonna say the same. It got me all hyped up.

Not sad at all. I'd watch it too.

I wanna see it too!

Absolutely nothing wrong with that

Ain't that the fucking truth.... it's so sad but very real.

Reminds me of a quote from Naruto: "If you don't share someone's pain. You can never understand them." - Nagato.

That is the one downside to the rugged individualism of the American mythos...

Like Ebola

This is so true and even for the people that do care they don't care enough to actually do something about it.

Brandon Fesser It kind of begs the question, "Why didn't the Minnesota Department of Transportation replace it sooner?".

tharock220 For the reasons explained in the video...

+tharock220 "Kicking the Can down the Road".

We’ve known about climate change since at least 1896, and has hurt and/or killed more than 13 people, so why haven’t we addressed that yet?

blame the baby boomers. the generation of "im dying soon so i dont care."

And continue a war for no reason

And when there's money for infrastructure, its used for the Trumps border wall 😝

@@dimasakbar7668 that's crumbling too, it can pretty easily be taken out by the wind

@@darkmyro great, another new addition to crumbling infrastructure list 😂 At least when that one finally topple down, it wont endanger anyone, unlike those very important bridges and dams.

I agree

100% agree. All those people saing, "no, no new gas tax" would be shitting themselves if their local bridge failed and their friends died in the morning commute. You might rethink your fear of paying a couple bucks a week extra to get to work.

YUP! TELL'EM 👏👏

Sometimes when Im driving under a freeway overpass, I think about how Im not the slightest bit worried that it'll fall on my head. Thats what a well functioning society looks like to me.

I live in Malaysia, our infrastructure is better than USA. Wait... Our healthcare system too are better.

Wow, holy shit really, South Africa, Not Iran, Turkey or China...My mind can not take in this!!!

The point is: a picture of a decent railroad infrastructure is now more likely to be from a 2nd world country labeled as developing than 1st world USA labeled as developed. It was a surprise to me (European). Just to make sure :-)

FilipFifth yes, okay

Piriathy Wow, someone really uses Bing here

***** You are right. Thanks. I take 'electrified' railroads as advanced. More than planes. Planes are neat but transport on fossil fuels is... fossil :-)

..............okay.

.................okay

...............................................okay

......ok

.............................ok

Atopical... but true.

Just think of how many birds we could kill with THAT stone. :)

Maybe a few have been corrupt but not all are living the high life. Also, then I'm guessing you would want to tax only mega churches? I don't think things like that, whether mosque church Buddhist temple etc should be taxed

A lot of churches aren't like that though. It would end up damaging charities and non-profit organisations more than anything and would make practically nothing for the government that wouldn't have to be given back essentially. Even if they limited to these corrupt cases, there would hardly anything in it compared to corrupt businesses and the mightily rich.

F!@#Guilt That's what most churches DO though. Even the most business like churches I know put a lot of money into facilities that are then used for charity work. It would be a nightmare to try and control and there would no doubt be a means by which the most corrupt would still manage not to be taxed. It would be a lot of effort with a lot of backlash for hardly any money. Anti-corruption laws or inquiries would be more effective probably. Hence why it would be a stupid idea to try and fix a problem as huge a problem as failing infrastructure with a tax like that.

you aren't American, are you ? (^^") that would make perfect sense. Not mentioning (for instance) billions spent for uneffective airport security

injektileur Of course I'm not. It always takes Europeans to remind Americans of logical thinking. We pay way higher amounts of taxes here and still don't complain as long as they are used efficiently mostly. You would never see a dangerous bridge in Germany without some heads rolling afterwards.

Because Americans have a creepy obsession with guns and other forms of weaponry, so sadly that's not gonna happen.

Because Germans are always obsessed with quality and perfection. You heared that in Alabama they have 0 inspectors which means that they dont care about infrastructure till anything serious happens. It is like playing with an open fire, could work for 1000 times but once... In the end I would like to say that it is a good thing that nations pay attention to different details because it makes world perfect place to live in.

The thing is, every time we actually do cut back on military funds, it only effects the families so that whatever they're spending on weapons never changes. For example, children of veterans used to get aid for college, but not anymore. My friend, who lives on an army base in the south in the family housing, tells me about whenever it rains heavily they will have officers knocking on every door warning people to not drink the water because it's contaminated with human fecal matter.

Got to cut those ribbons.

I guess that's a solution.

@@throwawayaccount2103 To be fair, builing a new bridge is probably cheaper in the long run, especially if the structure had flaws from the beginning.

@@resileaf9501 True story for basically everything. It's probably a touch easier to repair bridges with open metal framework, but still depending on just how damaged it is at some point it's not worth whatever little it might save, it would just shift the stress points and the problem would crop back up in a few years anyway.

@dogboy1953 THAT!

If you are a republican. Stuff it. Republicans are the ones who voted against it .

I always chuckle when I see a sign erected to warn me about a rough road. Why not just fix the damned road rather than put up a sign? Our tax dollars at work . . .

when trump is president we will get a good show

+piehamcake1 Tonight on Political Nightmare: Watch Trump ignite the tentison between China and the USA, watch him try and do a religious crusade against all muslims in the country. And a speciall visit from the clearly failed border walls. watch him tank the econommy and blame the muslims, mexicans and liberals. Watch the latest uncencored but totally scripted episode from outisde of corupt America, or watch the free and great version in all 50 states... Unless your local infrastructure already went up in flames and you couldn't aford your medical bills.

svampebob007 sounds great, TRUMP 4 Infrastucture 2016!!

+svampebob007 Actaully he won't, we outsider had already prepared for his crazyness, and we can predicted what he would be using for his abusing words dictionarey. And what he can do is talking and do business with the others, so he won't even be hardly any worries then the other less famous polition figures.

Are you circumcised?

phresh242 Are you high?

Not yet. Are you circumcised?

phresh242 Are you?

I'm uncircumcised. How about you?

You wouldn't make enough off of taxing marijuana. Even in Colorado, where sales are inflated because of tourism, the state made roughly $50 million on taxing marijuana. That may sound like a lot, but when talking about infrastructure we need to be thinking in billions of dollars, not millions.

alec L'Amoreaux In that case, let's take it a step further and legalize all drugs. Perhaps it won't be enough, but it's a start. And if you bring up people dying, I'll once again bring up McDonald's as well as throwing the amount of Americans that die of heart disease and then, with all the snark in the world, ask why McDonald's never gets any police raids.

I agree, drug prohibition does more harm than good.

You must be high to post this comment

locutus94 I dislike how you said "all drugs". Drug is a rather broad term and everything from carrots to cyanide CAN be considered a drug. "A chemical substance, such as a narcotic or hallucinogen, that affects the central nervous system, causing changes in behavior and often addiction." -The Free Dictionary by Farlex

+Osayma Saad If the gas tax only went to what it was intended . . .

+Osayma Saad lol love that song.

|-/

Great song, Twenty One Pilots is the shit!

+Person Human PHANDOM!

The ASCE's other priorities conflict with its supposed interest in having infrastructure competently maintained. Their rhetoric is a little too in to having everything centrally planned. It also seems like their setup is more academian biased than other organizations that are more discipline focused.

ablongshape That's like saying a doctor has a conflict of interest by letting you know you have a treatable disease after a blood test.

mdiem Nah. We're talking about infrastructure projects that make or break the profit margins of major consulting engineering organizations and construction contractors, generally not minor maintenance projects. Any time an engineer lobbies the government for more money for their field they are walking a fine line between representing the public interest and the interest of their own accounts. The infrastructure report card is not entirely a conflict of interest, but it is being used to argue for hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure spending which is more of a "throw money at the problem" solution than a viable way to fix our infrastructure. I would look at this less like a doctor performing a blood test and saying you have a treatable disease and more like calling a roofing contractor over to your house for a leak in the ceiling and having him tell you to replace your entire roof when repair of the flashing will do. The ASCE is correct that the infrastructure in this country is deteriorating and in need of continued investment, however the execution of a temporary increase in infrastructure funding will lead primarily to the funding of high speed rail, interstate, and other high-visibility projects that are "shovel ready" to the exclusion of the infrastructure maintenance projects that are typically funded at the state or local level (and these major projects are sometimes a boondoggle with limited returns due to poor planning). Making real impacts on the infrastructure issues that concern your average citizen will require a permanent, gradual increase in funding, a major increase in participation and management of infrastructure assets by state and local governments (with access to federal funding, especially in poor or rural districts), and solid auditing & oversight efforts by the organizations directly responsible for their assets to make sure they aren't being hoodwinked by unscrupulous contractors. The ASCE does act in the public interest, but I would stop well short of saying they are altruistic. I don't mean to insult them with this (I'm a member of the organization myself), but our responsibility as engineers should be focused at calling attention to the scale and scope of these infrastructure issues and educating governments and the general public about our options and less focused at lobbying for massive increases in infrastructure funding.

ablongshape The disappointing thing about the "ASCE Report Card" is that it is such a narrow view. In real, ethical engineering, alternative solutions are always discussed including "no build". The popularity of the ASCE style view fits right in with an overall political attitude that considers rational economics too little. People don't even know that questioning whether all of this "crumbling infrastructure" should have existed in the first place is even an option. That combined with building more all the time means that it will just get harder and harder to keep paying for.

Really appreciate this lucid, informed discussion. Kind of rare on youtube. I had another thread going about Solar Roadways. While this is fledgling technology that may or may not be viable in the near future, I think the concept of energy production on the road system is a compelling one. It's a lot of public real estate that needs a reliable funding source. I've also seen work on solar thermal (fluid piped under asphalt road beds) being stored underground in summer and used to heat buildings in winter. Any thoughts on revenue production on roads?

welcome to flint michigan. guess what, still no funding for infrastructure. maybe in flint where the tragedy happened. everyone blames it on fracking and not putting any of the blame on the lack of infrastructure of old pipes/poor govt regulators/etc. but there is not enough going on to prevent it happening again somewhere else...

@@JoeMama-kc9lv Sadly, the disaster in Flint wasn't visually dramatic enough to move the needle. Kids with lead poisoning don't dominate the news the way millions of gallons of water hurtling down a valley or cars plummeting into a river would. If someone had suggested ramping up airline security on September 10th 2001, they would have been called alarmist.

Not Dave's Channel unfortunately, there's been several high-profile bridge collapses already, even one almost as severe as the one our Canadian friend has described. The one on the 1-35 in Minnesota some ten years ago springs immediately to mind, and yet...here we are, still no further along than when this video was posted.

@@Ennead13x I've no idea what sort of state the infrastructure here in the UK is, but given the general state of this country it probably isn't great. I'm sceptical about "league tables" for these things because you have to question the methodology and how valid a comparison you can really make based on data from multiple countries but we haven't had a major road bridge collapse or people drinking unsafe water that I'm aware of. Hammersmith Bridge in London is currently closed to vehicles until further notice while they figure out who pays for fixing it and how much it'll cost but at least they found the problem. We had a fire in public housing that killed a lot of people but that was down to cladding it in unsafe tiles. I'm not sure if public housing is included in infrastructure rankings. I think (hope) that maybe we're more positive towards taxpayer-funded solutions than the US is, but we still haven't recovered from the crash and Brexit isn't going to help. At least we don't have many dams. ETA Looks like I was wrong about 'not having many dams'. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-49196766

Pouncey sadly, two years later, that major tragedy happened. The bridge collapse in Milan killed 40+ last year.

Then you clearly haven't watched the Colbert Report

+Lorena Infante I still find "Abusive Cheeto dust-faced elephant in the room" one of my favorites.

William Bradford haha, who said that one? I missed it if it was John Oliver

+Lorena Infante John Stewart :). Talking about how in '12, the GOP confirmed they would never win again unless they broke free from the image of beng "rich out of touch white people alienating women and Hispanic voters"..... "I THINK you know where this going" And revels in the fact the the GOP is stuck between the fact that their registered voters are adoring everything about Trump, despite the fact it's clearly going to narrow their voting outreach MORE, not expand it.

Ha! I'll have to go back and watch that. I usually catch John Stewart when my roommates watch it, but I don't always have the chance to go back to each episode. But seriously, talk about a candidate being out of touch yet having the most fervid responses... Thanks, William Bradford!

Lol he turned it left in the movie

No shame in that.

Uhm.......okay?

It doesn't even always work that way

@no juice i experience in the netherlands it is often the other way

I'm very sorry to hear that.

I'm so sorry for you... are you entirely paralyzed from neck down or just parts of your body?

Richard - that is beyond horrible. I hope you're doing ok these days - as well as you can.

Or are yours just on par with his? #MindControl #Conspiracies

I do have to agree, but they do bring me to a chuckle.

"He's opinions"? Is it similar to "He's nuts"? Sorry, I'm new to the English language...

Lol, sorry for typo. His*

He makes great points on a lot of important matters that others overlook or just plain out ignore until it is too late to do anything. People should watch this, research what he talks about and make educated opinions. If they don't morons like Trump will become president....oh, wait.....that did happen.

she didnt deserve that imo, Oliver just wanted to do his Lumpy Space Princess impersonation

I am going to say it ....... Ok boomer

Boomers don't know LSP or Adventure Time

It's the reason I've been single in this country all my life.

he doesn't know SoCal locals. That much water at once, anywhere but the ocean, is an incredible sight. We tell legends of such things to our children, like the myth of Sky Water

scary accurate xD

yeah. let's forget bangladesh

The netherlands has the best infrastructure lmao

But of course the highest priority of the nation is to smack those dalits who dare to look at cows in a slightly weird way.

Dimas Akbar don’t be like that, if you had a goat you’d be pissed too if a high performance cow wants to steal your bread and ghee

There is too much controversy. A lot of money would come out of it, but many people are afraid of this change...

likenem it wouldnt be enough money coming in unless you charged 1,000 dollars a hit

sandflapjack Colorado got 52 million revenue. Its something better then nothing.

likenem think higher. think billions.

sandflapjack I wouldn't be surprised if it trillion to fix our infrastructure but how much do you think we spent because of the weed drug trade over the last couple of decades.

Exactly. Thank you. 😂😂👍

No you wouldn't

No one gives a dam about your opinions

your support is crumbling

Nah, too many plotholes. It could damage your suspension of disbelief.

That movie would have a lot of integrity.

I seen it happen damn crack head caught a bunch of plastic conduit on fire

@DynaMike Yes and no. The city was improperly storing fiberglass conduit under the overpass. Two crackheads couldn't have done it with just trash- it was a chemical fire hot enough to melt rebar. The decision to store combustible material insecurely, out in the open where it was approximate to critical infrastructure, was an infrastructural oversight.

@DynaMike ok. Cool. So nothing to worry about. Debt, war, drugs, guns, amazon & the poors of the great usa. Winning!!!!

@DynaMike recession proof Australia 🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺 and since u want to get into it. Nuclear waste, pollution, pet plastics, Flynt Michigan, prescription drugs, opioids, #1 murder country of the world, avarice, injustice, racism, birthplace of kkk. Lots to Love. I could keep going on & on but that might opem ur mind after u c with both eyes. 💋💋

@DynaMike poors is a John Stewart word. U should take in some of his observations. B4 the USA is 95% "POORS"

I did. All of the youtube chanel. And the show on HBO's streming service.

Without knowing the truth, this seems like a legitimate reason funding would stall, because they can't agree on where to cut.

“Stop for a sausage sandwich” sounds like a euphemism.

Omg that's so true thought the same thing like why would you stop under a bridge lol 😂🤣

Ikr. Can't stand some Americans

Andrew B I'm American and I live near Washington, so you might sy I'm the mist prone to patriotic crap. Believe me, I can't stand the arrogance of this country, either. Americans act so superior, as if they're the only country with cars and electricity. But, fear not, a few of us have overcome the quicksand of American propaganda.

Jason Fischer Oh I know there's plenty of great americans. Met them plenty of times in my hometown where quite a few live for work. So I meet a few of them at times in the local pubs. Always great and friendly people I get along with easily. So I am very aware of that fact.

Jason Fischer sometimes I want to move to either the UK or Japan... or Canada. Just a note, I didn't exactly have good first hand experiences in Canada, and neither did my parents from what they told me and my brother. when I was last there at least one restarunt returned food that had already reached the customer back with the other food behind the counter. Last I knew, standard health practice is to throw out any food that is returned after it reaches the customer. From my parents, in a French speaking part of Canada, a restaurant couldn't understand my mom ordering a salad.

Sales Kital That's your idea of a "bad experience in Canada"? That's just a bad restaurant experience! It's ignorant to judge a country based on a restaurant's business practices.

I know I'm dying with impatience. Uggghh just take my money!!!!!

I know right! I've been looking forward to this movie for like a year.

+Morgan Hunt I wonder when HBO will start working on it...

+Ian McKnight Take look at Megastructures movie series. It's not quite so exciting as as Infrastructure shold be, but also not bad not bad. And seriously, if someone know something I demand - say laud and clear

Germany has a bad infrastucture cdn1.spiegel.de/images/image-964760-galleryV9-czkk-964760.jpg this is a graphic showing what percentage of the bridges in germany have been rated E or worse

They didn't say it was good, they said it was interesting.

Sure the maintenance of our infrastructure is bad (especially of our bridges) but that we have those bridges and so many Autobahnen is a very good thing

Our infrastructure is decaying especially the ones that got privatized. Those companies don't give a frack about maintaining or even developing it further, it's just about money.

There is actually a reason why Berlin has such a good infrastructure....they kind of had to rebuild a lot in the last century.

+Lisa Gorman Well it's just so easy to do.

Yes, Sir!

I mean, that had the problem of a giant boat crashing into it

nah, need more bombs and planes to blow up hospitals in the middle east.

+trebacca9 but than how are we going to fight 13 year long wars based on lies and oil that no longer exist ?

guess what most of that money is for maintaining the military

+trebacca9 *dam

People see explosions in foreign countries and they think "results". People see construction getting done in their neighborhood and think "ugh, I have to drive through this?"

It seems we did nothing since this episode...

M Groh oh absolutely nothing, in Florida we’ve been working on i95 since I was a kid 14 years ago

Literally have done nothing at all, well we have actually watched a few bridges collapse, catalogued a few hundred dire/severe structural issues, and a couple of dam bursts, so I guess we did something

I think it flew over mine~~could you please explain about the bubble gum?

AvalonMorley Its from an old 80s movie called "They Live", it had plenty of cheesy lines one of which the main character says "I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass!". It makes a ton more sense if you watch the movie though lol

Jay Hill Thanks for that. I love the writers on this show ~~ just brilliant.

AvalonMorley No problem, this is definitely one of my favorite shows!

Jay Hill I was thinking Duke Nukem

To be fair, it's a really useful line to use so I can see why he uses it so often.

I'm sure it is his go to phrase. He's been using it for years on the Bugle podcast.

Listen for "I promise you this is true" as well. Many comedians have go to phrases that they use to great effect. ie Seinfeld "Didja ever notice...?"

+Ernst Stavro Blofeld Hell yes so would I.

Seriously, things like that exist in the USA? I'm pretty sure you wouldn't find any such sign anywhere in Europe (not even outside the EU, like Russia, Belorusia or Moldavia). But maybe I'm wrong.

@@andreasferenczi7613 I think russia has laws against people telling you a bridge is not safe....

Gawd !😬

Hey, sounds like great idea! Just put signs like "its your fault if anything happens" everywhere and you no longer need to make any maintenance - even if someone hurt you can say "i warned ya"

@@andreasferenczi7613 Yeah. USA might pretend other countries are shitholes but USA IS a shithole,

And... Youre my new best friend!!! I love that song. Its so true though...

It's best when you're sitting on a Harley Davidson Super Glide. The ride is smooth and you just stick to the road.

This was so funny😂. My state loves using that stupid tar patch on cracks that just gets torn up with the first run of plows. At this point, we drive on more patch than road. We even have communities ripping paved roads up because dirt is easier to maintain when republicans repeatedly vote down repair bills.

I totally get it! As a cyclist here in Winnipeg I was tickled pink (among other colors) when the repaved Pembina Ave, all of a sudden the bike route was smooooth, smooth like, like... like rich creamery butter P= not to mention when on busses now you arn't battered with the racket of the glass panes violently rocking back and forth. bus drivers are pretty dam happy with that route now.

Don’t look for that road in nyc. The surface is smooth but the manholes and drain covers will blow your tires off, To top it off, they just resurfaced a highway bridge section that used to have a huge puddle near an exit. All new, and that puddle is still there. These people are to dumb to drain a bridge.

There'd be enough money, if governments didn't use money identified for infrastructure, for other things.

That's assuming you can trust the government to spend the money where it's suppose too, and how many times have we really seen that to be the case?

Heatwave Much like how Social Security would have been fine if they hadn't kept skimming funds for other projects.

bill withers Eh not quite. Social Security has other problems. FICA and SECA revenue cannot be legally used for anything but Social Security; the money is kept in a special trust fund. The way the government gets its paws on the money anyway is to have all revenues in excess of expenditures invested in government bonds, essentially loaning the trust fund money out to the general fund. So in years when expenditures exceed revenues, the SSA has to cash in these bonds so they can pay beneficiaries. Well and good, but the problem with the system is that it's not even going to have enough money on paper, in bonds, to pay out everything it'll be obliged to pay over the next couple of decades. In numbers: In 2007, the trust fund surplus stood at $2.1 trillion. However, the SSA calculated an expected unfunded obligation of $15.1 trillion, based on demographic trends. Surely, part of the problem is that the taxes are regressive. It's a flat rate paid on all income of $117k or less. Anything you make over that amount is not taxed for social security AT ALL. But the other part of the problem is the demographic "hump" of the Baby Boomers, who are now retiring in droves. Since 2009, there have not been enough people working keep the fund in surplus, so it's been drawn down -- and that means, yes, the money is really coming out of the general fund since that's where it was all invested. If trends continue as expected, the trust fund will be empty by 2033.

The gas tax is not the answer and it never was. It's just a distraction to make you think it means something. Wake up people.