Washington, D.C., has the country’s least safe bridges, with 63 percent of the district’s 245 bridges rated either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
In light of news like this, it is time to return to the idea that we need to get the “community” out of DC and into our communities. I’ve beaten this dead horse many times, as has Kent’s Imperative, but as with all such things no one in “leadership” bothers to think about such things until a bridge full of people falls into a river (something that, if it happened in DC, would effectively shut down large chunks of the government and impose perpetual gridlock for a year or more).
This goes beyond bridges per se (apparently no place in the country is safe from “structurally deficient” spans) and speaks to issues of survivability (or the latest term of art: “resilience”). Frankly, this country can live without the Department of Education or Housing and Urban Development, but lose or significantly degrade our intelligence capabilities and this war - while not stopped in its tracks - stops operating in the 4th generation and reverts back to the near the 2nd generation.
The talent hiring and retention problem, the contractor issue, reform and modernization issues: think about all these issues in a post-infrastructure-collapse situation that results in a standard 6 hour commute, hot desking for 12-hour shifts, and a budget devoid of training, travel, pro dev and bonus money.
