60 minutes rewind
there are a lot of people in the united states right now who think the country is falling apart
and at least in one respect they're correct our roads and bridges are crumbling our airports are
out of date and the vast majority of our seaports are in danger of becoming obsolete all the result
of decades of neglect none of this is really in dispute business leaders labor unions governors
mayors congressmen and presidents have complained about a lack of funding for years
but aside from a one-time cash infusion from the stimulus program nothing much has
changed there's still no consensus on how to solve the problem or where to get the massive
amounts of money needed to fix it just another example of political paralysis in washington
tens of millions of americans cross over bridges every day without giving it much thought
unless they hit a pothole but the infrastructure problem goes much deeper than pavement it goes to
crumbling concrete and corroded steel and the fact that nearly seventy thousand bridges in america
one out of every nine is now considered to be structurally deficient our infrastructure is on
life support right now that's what we're on few people are more aware of the situation than ray
lahood who was secretary of transportation during the first obama administration and before that a
seven-term republican congressman from illinois he is currently co-chairman of building america's
future a bipartisan coalition of current and former elected officials that is urgently pushing
for more spending on infrastructure according to the government there's 70 000 bridges that have
been deemed structurally deficient what does that mean it means that they're bridges that need to be
really either replaced or repaired in a very dramatic way they're dangerous i i don't want
to say they're unsafe but they're dangerous i would agree with that if you were going to
take me someplace any place in the country to illustrate the problem where would you take me
there's a lot of places we could go i mean you could go to any major city in america
and see roads and bridges and infrastructure that need to be fixed today they need to be fixed today
we decided to start in pittsburgh which may have the most serious problem in the country
our guide was andy herman a past president of the american society of civil engineers
from up here you can see why they call it the city of bridges between the highway and the railroad
bridges there's a many of them in most of the mold most of them all they're nearing the end
of their useful lives yeah there are more than four thousand bridges in metropolitan pittsburgh
and 20 percent of them are structurally deficient including one of the city's main arteries this
is the liberty bridge ahead yes an important bridge for pittsburgh a very important bridge
for pittsburgh a connection from the south to the city itself and then to the north it was built in
1928 when cars and trucks were much lighter it was designed to last 50 years that was 86 years ago
every day in pittsburgh five million people travel across bridges that either need to be replaced
or undergo major repairs one of these arch bridges actually has a structure built under it to catch
falling deck see that structure underneath it they actually built that to catch into the falling
concrete so it wouldn't have traffic underneath it that's amazing it all comes down to funding
right now they can't keep up with it 300 bridges become structurally deficient each year in the
state of pennsylvania that's one percent added to the already 23 percent they already have they
just can't fix them fast enough pennsylvania is one of the worst states in the country when it
comes to the condition of its infrastructure and philadelphia isn't any better off than pittsburgh
nine million people a day travel over 900 bridges classified as structurally deficient some of them
on a heavily traveled section of i-95 ed randell is a former democratic governor of pennsylvania
how critical is the stretch of i-95 to the country it's the nation's number one highway 22 miles of
it goes through the city of philadelphia there are 15 structurally deficient bridges in that 22-mile
stretch and to fix them would cost 7 billion dollars to fix all the roads and the structurally
deficient bridges in that 22 mile stretch rendell says no one knows where the money is going to come
from and this stretch of i-95 has already had one brush with disaster in 2008 two contractors from
the pennsylvania department of transportation stopped to get a sausage sandwich and parked
their cars under this bridge unfortunately they wanted that sausage sandwich because they saw one
of these piers with an eight-foot gash in it about five inches wide and all they knew automatically
that this bridge was in deep trouble the section of i-95 was immediately shut down and blocked off
while construction crews buttressed the column with steel girders it was closed for three days
creating havoc in philadelphia but the city was lucky i mean it was unbelievable it's so
fortuitous and if they hadn't watered a sausage sandwich there's a strong likelihood that bridge
would have collapsed these all are tragedies waiting to happen the i-95 bridges were built in
the early 1960s and are now more than 50 years old the same vintage is the i-35 bridge that collapsed
in minnesota back in 2007 killing 13 people and injuring 145. the antiquated skaget river bridge
in washington state that collapsed last may after a truck hit one of the trusses was even older
and it's not just bridges according to the american society of civil engineers 32 percent
of the major roads in america are now in poor condition and in need of major repairs yet the
major source of revenue the federal highway trust fund which gets its money from the federal gas tax
of 18 cents a gallon is almost insolvent former transportation secretary ray lahood says it will
go broke by next spring unless something is done that was the the pot of money that over 50 years
helped us create the best interstate system in the world which is now falling apart
why how did it get this way it's falling apart because we haven't made the investments we haven't
got the money the last time we raised the gas tax which is how we built the interstate system was
1993. what is the resistance been politicians in washington don't have the political courage to say
this is what we have to do that's what it takes they don't want to spend the money they don't want
to raise the taxes that's right they don't want to spend the money they don't want to raise the taxes
they don't really have a vision of america the way that other congresses have had a vision of america
lahood says public spending on infrastructure has fallen to its lowest level since 1947 in the u.s
which used to have the finest infrastructure in the world is now ranked 16th according
to the world economic forum behind iceland spain portugal and the united arab emirates
it's a fact that's not been lost on the most powerful economic and political lobbies in
the country who believe the inaction threatens the country's economic future big corporations
like caterpillar and ge say it's hurting their ability to compete abroad and at a senate hearing
earlier this year tom donahue president of the generally conservative u.s chamber of commerce
voiced strong business support for raising the gas tax for the first time in 20 years first let's
start by having some courage and the and showing some leadership for once let's do what's right
not what's politically expedient second let's educate the public and your fellow lawmakers
he was joined by richard trumka president of the afl-cio who said that every billion dollars
spent on transportation infrastructure would create 35 000 well-paying jobs
if business and labor can come before you united on this issue and we are united on this issue
despite our sharp disagreements on a variety of other matters i think that
should tell everybody something and tell them very loudly the story will continue after this
but it was not heard during the midterm elections where there was virtually no
public debate on infrastructure and that has barely changed in the weeks that have followed
we wanted to talk to pennsylvania congressman bill shuster the chairman of the house transportation
committee and made numerous requests over the last five months for an on-camera interview
all of them were declined we did the same with michigan congressman dave camp chairman of the
house waves and means committee which has to come up with the money to fund transportation projects
we met with the same result but we did talk with one of the committee members earl blumenauer a
nine-term oregon democrat he says the last time congress passed a major six-year transportation
bill was in 1997. since then there have been 21 short-term extensions i've actually been trying
now for 44 months to at least get a hearing on transportation finance on the highway trust fund
that is slowly going bankrupt and we've not had a single one why can't you get a hearing
it has to this point not raised uh to the level of um priority for the republican leadership although
in fairness when the democrats were in charge we had a few hearings but not not much action
so you see this as a bipartisan failure absolutely the bush administration they had two blue ribbon
commissions about infrastructure finance that recommended a lot more money and additionally the
gas tax being increased we couldn't get them to accept being able to move forward since president
obama's been in office there has been to be charitable a lack of enthusiasm for raising
the gas tax and the problems with transportation infrastructure go well beyond roads and bridges
and the gas tax there's aviation a shortage of airport runways and gates along with outloaded
air traffic control systems that made u.s air travel the most congested in the world
and then there are seaports when a new generation of big cargo ships began going through an
expanded panama canal in another year or so only two of the 14 major ports on the east coast
will be dredged deep enough to accommodate them there are more than 14 000 miles of
high-speed rail operating around the world but none in the united states
in chicago it can take a freight train nearly as long to go across the city as it would for
the same train to go from chicago to los angeles but perhaps the most glaring example of neglect
in an action may be this sad little railroad bridge over the hackensack river in new jersey
it was built 104 years ago and is according to amtrak president and ceo joe boardman
critical to the us economy this is the achilles heel that we have on the northeast corridor
how much traffic goes over it every day it's almost 500 trains a day it's the busiest
bridge in the western hemisphere for train traffic period and what kind of shape is it in
it's safe steve but it's not reliable and it's getting less reliable it's old it's
systems are breaking down there's an inability to make it work on a regular reliable basis
boardman says the portal bridge is based on a design from the 1840s and was already obsolete
shortly after it was completed in 1910. it's a swing bridge that needs to be opened several
times a week so barges can pass up and down the river it takes about a half an hour the problem
is it fails to lock back into place on a regular basis and what kind of problems does that cause
it causes trains to stack up on both sides and actually when a train stacks up here it can stack
up all the way down to washington and all the way back up to boston this is a single port of failure
that's one of the biggest worries we have on this corridor is the single points of failure amtrak's
president says the bridge has to be replaced the design work has already been completed and the
project which would cost just under a billion dollars is shovel ready if congress wants to do
something now build this bridge it's ready to be done it's been ready for two years build it
it's tangible evidence that they can really get something done it's less a case of wanting
to get something done than coming up with the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to do it
there's no shortage of ideas from democrats or republicans who suggested everything from raising
the gas tax to funding infrastructure through corporate tax reform but there is no consensus
and not much political support for any of the alternatives as andy herman told us last summer
when we were flying over pittsburgh you're sitting there at these committee meetings
they seem to agree with you yes we have to make investments in infrastructure yes we have to do
these things but then they come around and say well where are we going to get the money
and you sort of sit to yourself and say to yourself well we elected you to figure that out