The future of Transportation?

The recent disaster that struck our country, this time in Minnesota, offers the opportunity to critically think about the direction of our transportation industry.

It is a fact that our roads and bridges are aging. We have a national average of one quarter of all bridges that are structurally deficient. Many of our roads, especially local/county roads, are in a condition of disrepair.

The cost of repairing the infrastructure for this mode of transportation will climb into the billions of dollars nationally. Is it wise to spend so much money on a form of transportation that is nearing the end of its useful life? Would it not make more sense to appropriate additional funding to upgrade our transportation system for the future that is quickly becoming our present?

I am not refuting the fact that the safety of our commuting public should be priority one of this issue. However, when one thinks about the two concurrent problems in which we face, then, one must also look at this crumbling transportation infrastructure as a basis to promote progressive change nationally.

The two concurrent problems that I speak of are obviously, 1) The stranglehold of imported oil, and 2) The damage that burning said fossil fuel is doing to our environment. We currently have an two alternatives. We can continue living in a myopic present and try to throw money at the present problem, without regard to our future needs, or our children's future needs. Or, we may look to how we will be transporting our goods and ourselves in the not to distant future, and pursue a course to reach those future needs; NOW.

With our oil reserves naturally running dry, and the price of oil spiraling as it economically feasibly will, we cannot base our transportation industry on this resource. In doing so would totally relate to throwing money out the window.

We need a comprehensive 'Marshall Plan' that not only addresses our current crumbling transportation infrastructure, but also develops and implements solutions of getting from point a to point b when we can no longer afford the oil to do it the way we now do.

In undertaking this responsibility for our future we will be solving our transportation safety problem, our transportation energy problem, and our environmental problem that our recent transportation modes is a major contributor thereof.

This is what I would call the progressive solution to one bridge collapse in Minnesota, and the proactive way to ensure that nobody else must lose their lives due to governmental inaction.