Final Word: Kirk Landers-
final word | by Kirk Landers
Comparing roads,
here and there
G
ermany celebrated the 80th
anniversary of its famed
Autobahn in August, mainly
with a chorus of complaints
that the storied highway
system was crumbling under over-use and
under-investment.
The month closed with the news that
three people died when a brand new
bridge in China collapsed. State media
attributed the failure to shoddy construction and overloading. The failure of the
9.6-mile-long Yangmingtan Bridge marked
the sixth bridge failure in China in a
13-month period.
These two news items convey dramatically that road woes are a widespread
problem in our developed and developing
worlds today.
Germany’s Autobahn was the inspiration
for America’s Interstate Highway system
and for advanced highway systems all
over the world. China’s mega-investment
in roads and bridges has been cited repeatedly as one of the reasons the United
States needs to invest more aggressively
in its infrastructure: The cost of getting exportable products from the distant reaches
of a country to its commercial harbors and
ports is a critical factor in international
competitiveness.
While some might see these developments as proof that infrastructure investment has become globally passé, the
more intelligent observation is that infrastructure challenges are never ending for
all countries, and that the United States
is as well poised to solve its problems as
anyone else.
Germany’s problems with the Autobahn
have evolved even though that country’s
fuel tax is measured in dollars per gallon
74 December 2012 | EquipmentWorld.com
rather than our pennies per gallon.
China’s collapsing bridges are a symptom
many emerging nations endure as their
economic development is faster than the
evolution of reliable grass roots government and industry.
By contrast, the United States has a
dedicated fuel tax that is spent only on
transportation, and its system of building
and maintaining infrastructure is honest
and efficient. Yes, there is the occasional
scandal and there is endless carping about
costs, but the American tax payer consistently gets everything they pay for in their
roads and bridges.
Most of our pavement and bridge problems would go away if we increased the
federal fuel tax by a dime a gallon; they’d
all go away if we increased it by 25 cents.
That’s a total federal fuel tax of somewhere
between 28.5 and 43.5 cents per gallon.
Fuel taxes in Germany and elsewhere in
Europe run closer to $5 per gallon and are
used as general revenues, not dedicated to
transportation.
There is a strong message to highway
contractors and heavy construction firms in
all this. As far away from a serious transportation program as we seem to be today,
we are much closer than many of the
nations with whom we compete. We are
pursuing pennies per gallon while Germany has to re-allocate tax revenues – from
more popular programs – and China is still
trying to create a government and industry
structure that can produce reliable work.
This comparison is a good thing to keep
in mind when your industry association
asks you to get active in lobbying efforts,
especially after these several years of
futility. We’re closer to a solution than we
think. EW
As far away
from a serious
transportation
program as
we seem to be
today, we are
much closer
than many of
the nations
with whom we
compete.