{"id":6638,"date":"2014-01-20T09:00:52","date_gmt":"2014-01-20T14:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/?p=6638"},"modified":"2014-01-19T22:44:50","modified_gmt":"2014-01-20T03:44:50","slug":"civil-engineers-give-georgia-lousy-scores-for-infrastructure-roads-transit-bridges-water-etc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2014\/01\/20\/civil-engineers-give-georgia-lousy-scores-for-infrastructure-roads-transit-bridges-water-etc\/","title":{"rendered":"Civil engineers give Georgia lousy scores for infrastructure &#8212; roads, transit, bridges, water, etc."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"10\" style=\"float: right; margin:10px 0 10px 10px;\">\n<script async src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:300px;height:600px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-5595881567027133\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"8268618372\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<br \/>\nA really interesting piece by Mary Carr Mayle in Sunday&#8217;s Savannah Morning News: <a href=\"http:\/\/savannahnow.com\/exchange\/2014-01-18\/report-georgias-infrastructure-still-lacking\" target=\"_blank\">Report: Georgia&#8217;s infrastructure still lacking<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The piece talks about the recent &#8220;report card&#8221; released by the Georgia branch of the American Society of Civil Engineers.<\/p>\n<p>From the piece:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Category grades included: Bridges (C-), roads (C-), dams (D-), aviation (C+), drinking water (C+), energy (B), parks and recreation (D+), rail (B), ports (C+), schools (C+), storm water (D+), transit (D-), wastewater (C+), and solid waste (C+).<\/p>\n<p>Georgia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s growing population combined with cutbacks in infrastructure funding resulted in many of the low grades. For example:<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Georgia ranks 49th in the nation in per capita transportation funding.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Georgia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s state motor fuel excise tax, which funds surface transportation projects, is one of the lowest in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 Georgia is among the lowest in the country in transit spending per resident. Georgia spent just $0.63 per person in 2008, compared to $119.52 per person spent by New Jersey, $40.43 by Illinois and $7.94 by North Carolina in the same year, according to the American Public Transportation Association\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2010 Survey of State Funding for Public Transportation.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 MARTA \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Atlanta\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s public transit system \u00e2\u20ac\u201d is the largest transit agency in the country that does not receive state funding support for operations.<\/p>\n<p>Closer to home, the group stressed the importance of the Port of Savannah.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Now, I suppose one could say that an organization of engineers would have a bias toward new building and better maintenance of infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>But some of the data are still sobering, especially when it comes to transportation and transit. One reason I supported the failed T-SPLOST of 2012 was that Georgia is so far down the list in funding for those items &#8212; and we&#8217;re one of the fastest growing states.<\/p>\n<p>Clearly, the state&#8217;s economy has a stake in efficient transit in the Atlanta metro area, but we&#8217;ve allowed that region to balkanize when it comes to such a straightforward need. <\/p>\n<p>It will be interesting to see how bad some corridors are allowed to get before the general public feels they need to be addressed. Let&#8217;s hope that we don&#8217;t have any catastrophic failures that cost lives before we address issues like aging bridges and imperiled drinking water sources.<\/p>\n<div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"2\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:300px;height:250px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-5595881567027133\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"4374909701\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A really interesting piece by Mary Carr Mayle in Sunday&#8217;s Savannah Morning News: Report: Georgia&#8217;s infrastructure still lacking The piece talks about the recent &#8220;report card&#8221; released by the Georgia branch of the American Society of Civil Engineers. From the&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2014\/01\/20\/civil-engineers-give-georgia-lousy-scores-for-infrastructure-roads-transit-bridges-water-etc\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[8,1],"tags":[41],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1gN9R-1J4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6638"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}