In August 2007, the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge, an eight lane, 40-year-old steel truss crossing in Minneapolis collapsed, seemingly without warning, during evening rush hour, killing 13 and injuring 145.
A year later in 2008, two construction workers happened to stop for lunch under an I-95 overpass in Philadelphia, looked up and noticed an eight-foot gash in the roadway. The highway was closed immediately for repairs. Had it not, it probably would've collapsed sooner rather than later, transportation officials said.
And a quick Google search of the words "bridge collapse" reveals an alarming number of smaller road and rail bridg- es that have failed in just the last few months. Despite all the talk a few years back of shovel-ready jobs and badly-needed infrastructure improvements, very little has been accomplished.
Why? As usual, money, or lack of it, is a big part of the problem. But that's not all of it. Another aspect is that infrastructure just isn't sexy enough; we expect bridges to work; we expect roads to be paved; we expect transit stations to be updated. We expect these necessities of transportation will be taken care of. These are the basics, not the bells and whistles. So, it's difficult to get excited about infrastructure spending that maintains the status quo, especially when a majority of the work, at least the maintenance work, will be happening where most people will never see it. Nothing exciting about that.
In this month's Industry Focus story, business writer Eric Krell takes a good hard look at the Public Sector's Big Reach. Crumbling infrastructure and shrinking budgets may facilitate the need for more creative solutions than in the past. Today's public sector consultants understand that complex problems re- quire complex solutions, and that's why out-of-box-thinkers are looking to other industries and other countries to help solve our biggest Public Sector problems—especially the "unsexy" ones.
Joseph Kornik
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
jkornik@alm.com
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