WASHINGTON — The nation’s lifelines — its roads, airports, railways, and transit systems — are getting hammered by extreme weather beyond what their builders imagined, leaving states and cities searching for ways to brace for more catastrophes like Hurricane Sandy.
Even as they prepare for a new normal of intense rain, historic floods, and record heat waves, some transportation planners find it too politically sensitive to say aloud the source of their weather worries: climate change.
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It's the difference between a country that labels anything bordering on civil cooperation and planning as "socialism" (the USA), and a country that recognizes the value for all in a robust national infrastructure (Germany). It's the difference between a country that places its wealth in aircraft carriers and stealth bombers (the USA), and a country that places its wealth in fostering and supporting business (Germany). The result is that you do not see electrical cables in Germany (long ago buried underground), you do not have crumbling bridges, the roads are well-designed wonders that can withstand the worst that nature throws at them, all automobiles are recycled (by law), and so on.
Renaldo2... You understand that Germany does not have to pay for a military, as NATO (primarly the US) protects their borders? You also understand that it was those Aircraft Carriers and stealth bombers that you detest so much that put the Nazi's down? Germany and the EU Nanny States that are doing well (benelux, etc) are flourshing under the umbrella the US military provides them. The problem with US infrastructure is that most of the $$ go to no-show thugs/hacks and their bloated pensions...not to actually fixing the infrastructure. Remember New Orleans.... the liberals running it didn't do any maintenance for decades...but there were plenty of retiree's sucking benefits..
The local government in New Orleans had nothing to do with the levees; they were Corps of Engineers projects. The Corps had been warned over and over, most strongly and most recently during the Bush era, that the levees were vulnerable, but did nothing to reinforce them. You can still see the result.
This article makes it sound as if the design and construction codes of AASHTO have been in effect for ages and now after Super Storm Sandy AASHTO is making dramatic changes because of climate change/global warming. AASHTO was formed in 1914 to serve as a federal standard for the design/construction of civil/transportation engineering facilities. Before AASHTO design codes were developed since ancient times first by rule of thumb and what worked and what did not. The railroads were the early testing grounds for design codes. During the early days there were many collapses as engines got heavier, speeds increased and designers improved their understanding of structural mechanics and the impacts of temperature, wind, ice and earthquake. It was an evolving process. AASHTO codes have continually changed based on changes in materials, heavier vehicles, faster speeds, longer spans etc. Structures are designed for dead and live loads as well as other environmental loads ie temperature, wind, waves, ice, etc. Most other code changes occur due to actual experience and recorded weather events. Recorded weather may only go back some 200 years. We do not have records to indicate weather extremes such as a 500 year storm or worse but that does not mean we won’t experience one or that they never happened before. Here is the key: planet earth has been around for millions of years but we know the weather for only hundreds of years. Compare it to a large mountain of rocks and dirt. If we take a thimble full of the pile and measure every grain of sand and rock and then say these are the limits of particle size anywhere in that pile. Not so fast. Our observed weather changes are more likely normal variances that have occurred in the past at longer frequencies and not attributable to man’s industrial development. To claim the sky is falling and it’s our fault is short sighted.