A pedestrian bridge collapsed and
crashed down onto traffic onto the
DC 295 in North East Washington DC.
At least five people were injured,
luckily no people died as a result
of this, but
it was a stark reminder of this
nation's crumbling infrastructure.
In fact, we do have a few videos to
show you of what happened and keep
in mind that, this is a bridge that
had some structural issues based on
some recent inspections that were
done.
And there are bridges like this all
across the country that have been
neglected that are in dire need of
repairs, dire need of federal
spending in order to repair them.
And in the meantime,
you have Congress
literally nickel-and-diming,
the kinds of projects that need to
be done through these negotiations
on Biden's infrastructure bill.
Now without further ado,
take a look at this dash cam video
of the bridge collapsing.
>> Whoa, my goodness,
my goodness, bro,
this cannot just be happening.
>> And ABC News did a pretty good
report detailing how this likely
happened and what the issues were
in its most recent inspection,
take a look.
>> Tonight authorities
are investigating this terrifying
scene, a pedestrian bridge
collapsing onto one of the busiest
highways in the nation's capital.
Officials believe this truck
slammed into the bridge,
sending it crashing down,
drivers trapped in their cars,
buried under the debris along I295.
>> We had a collision with the
bridge right here which separated
the bridge from its mooring,
result of that collision caused
multiple cars to be involved.
>> And Rachel everyone has
survived this and
you've learned more tonight about
a recent inspection of that bridge?
>> Yeah David, the mayor saying
tonight that this bridge
was inspected earlier this year and
that everything checked out.
>> I mean, we're so lucky that no
one was killed in this awful bridge
collapse, and just to give you some
more details about the inspection
that I've been referring to,
the bridge received a four or
poor rating after it was inspected
in February.
So it was inspected in February and
they realized,
it's a little compromised but,
we're still using the bridge.
Why hasn't the bridge been shut
down until they do the repairs at
least?
I mean, again we're lucky
that no one got killed.
It had declined on a national
scale that rates bridges from zero
to nine from February of 2019, when
the bridge had been given up five,
or a fair rating.
A rating of four is the threshold
that prompts a multi-year planning
process to replace the bridge.
I mean richest country in the world
Emma but, once you realize that
a bridge isn't structurally sound,
you need to trigger a multi-year
planning process before anything
gets done, that's America, great.
>> Yeah and
when you say that that's the kind
of bureaucracy that triggers
conservatives the government
can't get anything done, right?
I mean, that's the kind
of thing that they would say, but
the reality is, is that it's not
the government in and
of itself, is what
the government chooses to fund.
And the same conservatives that
would say that would be outraged if
we were to slashed the military
budget or adjust our national
priorities, about what kinds of
money we give out to things, right?
I mean, oil subsidies is another
good example,
it's not that much money,
our military budget is though.
And, if we just allocated or
reallocated a fraction of that
money, we couldn't inspect and
maintain those bridges at a much
quicker pace.
And that's not the only bridge
that's far from the only bridge
that has some of those structural
issues and implications.
And, the American Society for
civil engineers they do, I think,
every five years, some sort of
grading process for each country.
And or our country at the very
least in terms of the rate of
infrastructure and
what it is comparably to the rest
of the world, we upgraded from a D
plus to a C minus so.
>> Did we really?
>> Richest country in
the world, sorry?
>> Did we even do that?
I'm actually shocked that there was
any improvement.
[LAUGH] >> I'm surprised too but
I mean, some of these statistics
are shocking there's a water main
break every two minutes in
the United States.
43% of our public roadways
are in poor or mediocre condition.
>> Yeah. >> And we're really
a country that's terrible at being
proactive about anything, we're not
proactive about our health care.
We essentially wait for
an emergency to happen and
then okay don't worry,
you have to pay $30,000 in medical
bills because we don't
provide health insurance for you.
Even though it would
save the country a ton of money for
us to give you that upfront, you're
just going to have to pay for
it yourself.
We did this in Katrina, we do this
all the time we allow for disasters
to happen and then we say, well,
none of this could be prevented.
Well, if we were proactive and
we decided to shift our national
priorities in a way that
made sense, stuff wouldn't happen.
>> Yeah, no,
I absolutely agree with you,
we had a very similar mindset in
researching for the story.
Because I wanted to look into where
the United States stands relative
to other developed countries
regarding infrastructure and
the World Economic Forum, regularly
puts out its list of infrastructure
in the developed world.
And here's what we know, so
first off, if you look at the list
of total developed countries,
pertaining to infrastructure we're
all the way down at 13.
If you look at this graphic that
was put out by the OECD, and then
published by the Washington Post,
China actually spends a lot more
money on it's
infrastructure than we do.
About 5.5% of their GDP is invested
in infrastructure,
whereas in the United States is
a little more than half a percent
of our total GDP being invested in
infrastructure.
Transportation infrastructure
specifically so
I want to be clear about that.
But when you look
at the World Economic Forum, here's
what they know, for water and
electricity utility infrastructure,
the United States actually ranks
number 23rd in the forum scores.
On transportation, the forum score
takes into account eight measures
rating the United States number 12
globally.
The United States falls
behind on the railroad score,
the forum measured the number of
miles of railroad track per square
mile in each nation,
rating the country at number 48.
So to me, the most concerning is
our utility infrastructure I mean,
we're seeing how that's playing out
in a privatized deregulated model
in Texas.
Our water infrastructure is clearly
incredibly damaged to the point
where, not just Flint, Michigan,
but many municipalities throughout
the country have unsafe levels
of lead in their drinking water.
So, when we hear, members of
Congress and President Joe Biden
applaud themselves for
reaching a bipartisan deal on
the infrastructure bill.
That's nothing more than this
incredibly watered down,
really watered down piece of
legislation and we don't know all
the details of where all
the money's even going to go or
how the money is going to be spent.
Is this going to
be a public private project?
Is this going to be nothing more
than another way of redistributing
taxpayer money to private
corporations and developers who
inflate their prices and get rich
off of these government grants.
I want to know how it's going to be
carried out.
We don't know yet, but I do want to
provide a different perspective as
well because, it's important right?
So members help to make this show
happen, we read our members
comments and we take them to heart.
Stiff Upperlip writes in and says,
here's how I see it,
there are not enough progressives
in Congress I'm sorry,
but the numbers are not there.
I just do not think that Biden had
much of a choice about the
infrastructure build, meaning he
didn't have much of a choice, but
to essentially concede to what the
Republican senators were demanding.
Too many Republicans along with two
demos, we know who they are,
we're blocking any chance for
$2 billion bill to pass,
it's their fault not Biden's.
So that's certainly
a perspective that gets represented
quite a bit in corporate media and
also legacy media outlets like the
New York Times for instance, it's
important to share that perspective
here as well and talk about it.
Emma, do you want to weigh in on
that perspective?
Do you think that Biden really had
no choice but to just kind
of concede to Republicans here?
>> Well I mean, I think it's a fair
statement, I do think it's fair
because we don't necessarily know
how touchy Manchin and
Sinema are behind the scenes.
I mean Sinema is a psycho, Manchen
is that at the very least you
understand what he wants he wants
to appear like he's owning the libs
and being a renegade in and of
himself just to kind of carve out
a specific niche, in West Virginia.
But I don't agree, I think a lot of
what Biden does being a creature of
DC is, a bit masturbatory
not to be gross about it.
But I mean, this entire process,
as you say Ana,
of reaching a bipartisan consensus,
it's only meaningful because he
ascribes meaning to it, and
DC ascribes meaning to it.
Is it bipartisan
in how the American people view it?
No, I mean, the original
infrastructure package was around
80% in terms of approval.
I mean that's just not the reality,
it's bipartisan in the office
politics way, and why I say it's
masturbatory is that, we don't
really care about that though.
And the American people certainly
don't care about that,
the American people don't care
when things are bipartisan,
they just want things to improve.
And nobody's going to remember
anything about the bill being
bipartisan if our infrastructure
continues to crumble,
even though they heard wait,
I thought Biden passes massive
infrastructure package.
His legacy will be defined by
the content of the bills he passes,
not by the Senate processes that
are plaguing him in the moment.
>> No I don't know Emma,
I mean, I do see massive groups of
people discussing the importance
of maintaining the legislative
filibuster in the Senate.
I mean it's big water cooler
conversation these days, everyone's
really talking- >> Because what
would the Republicans do if you
took away I'm sorry, just really
quickly, what would they do if
you took away the filibuster?
All they care about passing
pertains to economic policy tax
cuts, they can already do that
through reconciliation.
So getting rid of the filibuster
does nothing for them what will
they do pass a bill saying critical
race theory is bad, who cares?
This is what we need to do,
it's urgent, and
I just had to put that out there
because they've exhausted all their
cards with the filibuster.