Road construction sign.jpg
The state Route 230 bridge on the Middletown/Londonderry Twp. border is due for reconstruction in 2015, PennDOT officials say. Bridge traffic will be reduced to one lane during that time, much like Linglestown traffic improvement work on Route 39 in 2010 shown here.
(Dan Gleiter, Patriot-News 2010)
Pennsylvania got a new report card on the current condition of its infrastructure Wednesday, and on the whole, it looks very much like the last set of grades received from the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Grades across 16 categories ranging from bridges to wastewater averaged out to a C- for the Keystone state, the same as in 2010.
But that is a tad better, for those keeping score, than ASCE's national average of D+.
Pennsylvania's highest marks were a B for freight rail facilities, and B minuses for hazardous waste management and management of state parks and forests.
The lowest grades are two Ds for public water supplies and mass transit systems, and D minuses for sewage treatment systems and roads and highways.
For a look at ASCE's latest national report card, click here.
The biggest problem facing Pennsylvania, according to Randy Over, president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, is quite simply the age of many of Pennsylvania's systems.
The state has, Over noted, some of the oldest cities and towns in the nation, and that also means some of the oldest underground pipes, dams, bridges and public transit systems.
Over said the best ways for Pennsylvania to improve its scores next time is to:
* Sustain the investment momentum started with the transportation funding package enacted last year, perhaps by now increasing funding for public water and sewer systems.
* Prioritize public safety by maintaining stringent and regular inspections of public facilities like dams and bridges, and holding to strict environmental standards in issues like stormwater management.
* Plan for an ongoing diet of repairs and renewals, to avoid crises that may well be more costly both in cost and convenience.
Civil engineers, as a class, stand to benefit from increased investment in public infrastructure projects.
But Over also said there is no better group to monitor the health of those systems. "If you want to know the state of the country's health system, you don't ask a forester," he said after Wednesday's release. "You ask a doctor."
Over said that ideally, the ASCE's report card structure feels public officials and authorities should be shooting for a B. That's would define a resilient infrastructure that is online at least 99 percent of the time, he said.