Infrastructure here and there

CH ≠ US

The other day I tried out a car from Mobility, our local car-share, for the first time. I was a nervous wreck, sure I would not be able to figure out the on-board computer or would mess up in some way. My fears were not eased by the fact that the car was nearly new, bright and shiny and perfectly clean. The on-board computer turned out to be simplicity itself, the car behaved much like the one I just sold, and soon I was bumping along a country road on the way to my favorite walking area. I pulled up to the parking lot that is my preferred starting point and…..it was being paved over! In the woods, big enough for perhaps 8 cars, and formerly covered with fully-effective gravel, it was roped off and being subjected to road-working machines.

This was only the latest in a series of summertime construction aggravations. The bus to the next town is often late because it has to wait for access to the one-way half of the street that is not being repaved, and we all miss our train. A street with a few patches that anywhere else would be considered perfectly serviceable, but here must be made pristine. Pulling up to a large grocery store parking garage to stock up just before selling my car, I found the entire garage closed completely for renovation, and there is no parking on the street nearby. Part of the train line to the pilgrimage town of Einsiedeln was closed for a week, with buses filling in. This would have been fine had the buses not taken far longer to make the journey, so one arrived late for Vespers. There are plans afoot to renovate, at a cost of thousands of francs, the parking lot in my town that serves the high school and one of the churches. It is also covered with gravel at the moment – just what is wrong with a gravel surface?

There is a difference between grousing because one is inconvenienced, on the one hand, and complaining about the necessity or not of such infrastructure projects, on the other. I’m afraid I fall into both categories, as it seems to me that much construction in the Zurich area is more cosmetic than anything else. I am not the only resident here who feels this way, to be sure. There are periodic demonstrations against sizeable spending for construction in lieu of expanded social programs, for instance. To be inconvenienced by necessary repairs is unavoidable, but it seems to me that too much money is being spent on unnecessary projects, with the construction industry benefitting hugely and the results neat and new but often not offering substantial added value.

Now let’s jump across the pond and consider the situation in the States – and this is a shocker.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has created a report card for showing the condition and performance of various aspects of US infrastructure. The country is near flunking. Consider:  
- 42% percent of major urban highways are congested, while 45% of American households lack any access to public transit. Roads are given a grade of D. 
- State and local school construction funding is in decline. Experts estimate that $270 billion or more will be needed to bring school facilities up to snuff. Schools are given a grade of D.
- One in nine of the nation's bridges is rated as structurally deficient. Grade for bridges = C+

The list goes on, with overall GPA for all aspects of national infrastructure = D+. In another ranking, that of the World Economic Forum, the United States fell from 6th place in 2007-2008 to 16th place in 2011-2012.

I have a personal story to illustrate the US situation too. Taking a bus from Boston to northern Vermont a few years ago, I wandered into the bus station at the end of the first leg of the journey to wait for my connection, and just stopped and gaped. The station looked exactly as it had when we left the States 40 years earlier, and it was certainly not newly renovated then. Same cracked linoleum on the floor, same battered orange chairs: I felt as if I were on a movie set for a period film. This is a station at a major junction for the only long-distance transit in the area – there are no trains.

One asks why the enormous difference in the two countries, both among the world’s wealthiest. Expensive cosmetic cleanup in Switzerland, too little drastically-essential renewal in the States, never mind cosmetics. Difference in mentality, certainly. What else? Worth thinking about, as this is a question of much more than infrastructure.