It may be my imagination, but it seems to me I'm not hearing anything this campaign season about infrastructure. You know, keeping the country from literally falling apart? Paul Krugman asked why we no longer invest in the country; Charles P. Pierce took note of another example of completely avoidable waste. There was a rare story of something getting done - but bradams found that trying to tell people the truth about it was too controversial.
Too many Democrats have bought into the GOP framing that all government spending is bad/a waste/gets screwed up (except for wars - can't get enough of them.) Democrats are deathly afraid of being called "tax and spend" liberals - except taxing and spending used to be acceptable as an unquestioned thing governments were supposed to do, "for the common good" etc. etc. Not any more.
So things fall apart, the centre can not hold. No one dares talk about the critical need to invest in this country once more, to repair, renew and reimagine the vast shared commonwealth that is being run into the ground, privatized, and otherwise strip-mined like a corporation in a hostile takeover.
But there's one ticking time bomb that's going to send shockwaves too big to ignore if it's not addressed ASAP. More below the Orange Omnilepticon.
Not that long ago, I wrote up "Forget Christie and Bridgegate - Christie and the Tunnels Are an Even Bigger Mess". The vital railroad tunnels under the Hudson that serve thousands of commuters and the Northeast Corridor every day are in dire straits. Well, the latest from the National Association of Railroad Passengers is that things are even worse. The New Tunnel to Gotham: A Closer Examination of the Ticking Time Bomb Beneath the Hudson River lays it out, and it's not pretty.
The Structural Assessment of the Amtrak Under River Tunnels in NYC Inundated By Super Storm Sandy is a sobering document. After describing the physical characteristics of the tunnels, they clearly and vividly show how much water was in the tunnels during Super Storm Sandy. Thirteen million gallons of seawater flooded the two North River tunnels as well as two of the four East River tunnels. In the flooded East River tunnels, water reached the ceilings of the two tunnels, completely submerging them. The North River tunnels suffered less flooding, with water only reaching the level of the bench walls along the sides of the tunnel. While the water was pumped out of the tunnels in the days following the storm, deposits of chloride and sulfate remained in the concrete, setting the groundwork for further damage to the tunnel. Found in salt from seawater, the sulfates attack and weaken the concrete lining the inside of the tunnels. The chloride ions act as a catalyst to initiate the corrosion of the cast iron and reinforcing steel that is located inside the tunnel’s concrete walls.
emphasis added
At the minimum, the tunnels need urgent repairs just to avoid a potentially catastrophic failure.
...The recommendations included removing and replacing areas of damaged concrete, all electrical and mechanical systems and equipment, all bench walls and all ballast and rail in the tunnels. In addition, they recommend that the tunnels be pressure washed throughout the entire length in order to remove all chloride and sulfate deposits as well as sealing all leaks greater than 1/8 inch wide and patching any concrete holes that are greater than one inch deep.
Thousands of people use those tunnels every day; taking one tunnel out of service for the work would be a nightmare. Doing nothing is not an option; the situation only gets worse the longer work is delayed. The article estimates it could take a year for each tunnel, with three shifts working 24/7 at a cost of ~$689 million. The option recommended by NARP is bolder, but fully justified:
the Gateway Project. New tunnels would allow the old ones to be refurbished without throwing everything into chaos, would greatly improve rail access to NJ, NYC, and New England, would finally get the Moynihan/Penn Station project rolling, would be a much needed boost to the economy... AND would take advantage of the incredibly low costs of financing such a project while interest rates are so far down.
There's a huge amount of work that needs to be done, above and beyond the rail tunnels. New York City is taking steps to build more 'resiliency' as they get to work on the damaged infrastructure. The video at this link from the NY Times is a gripping look at how bad things were - and how big the job is.
And it's a job one political party refuses to even consider, while the other doesn't seem to want to talk about it, lest they be accused of "Big Government Spending".