Aging infrastructure - A dearth of investment in recent years
has resulted in the aging of US infrastructure. For example,
more than 60% of the interstate highway bridges currently in use
in the US were built during the 1950s and 1960s - and in 2004,
27% of urban bridges and 16% of rural bridges in the interstate
system were classified as deficient¹. Further, according to the
American Society of Civil Engineers, leaky pipes lose an
estimated seven billion gallons of clean drinking water every
day. And aging sewage systems send billions of gallons of
untreated wastewater cascading into the nation's waterways each
year. Overall, investments are long overdue in rail, roads,
water management, electricity grids, ports, prisons and more. ¹
Eurasia Group's GlobalTrend3 Infrastructure 1Q09 Funding gaps -
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is injecting $787
billion into the economy, of which the Brookings Institution
estimates $152 billion is going to infrastructure. And over $180
billion in private investment