Challenges and Opportunities for Innovation in the Public Works ...

This paper reviews some of the BRB's current work that sheds light on these and related questions.
We are fiding that there are indeed problems and, while these problems are frequently subtle and resistant to
analysis, there appear to be effective ways to deal with them. However, much remains to be done.
DEFINING INFRASTRUCTURE
Speaking at subcommittee hearings in 1987, during which the results of one NRC study were being
discussed (NRC, 1987), former Sen. Stafford commented that "probably the word infrastructure means different
things to different people." 2 One cannot take for granted that people know what "infrastructure" is.
Physical infrastructure is a system of users interacting with a diverse collection of constructed facilities
and associated services, ranging from airports to energy supply to landfills to water treatment. While facilitiesinfrastructures,
as some term them----comprise the hard core of the concept, to discuss infrastructure only in
terms of facilities neglects the important services provided by both private enterprise and public agencies, that
are enabled by these facilities. The success of such corporations as Federal Express and DHL in air parcel
delivery, for example, reflects the development of new infrastructure services based on existing infrastructures.
The system of infrastructure is constructed and managed primarily at the level of states and localities,
but has crucial importance for the nation's economy and quality of life. Yet there is no federal center of
responsibility for infrastructure policy, nor are there mechanisms in government at any level for addressing issues
of infrastructure as a whole. Despite more than a decade of debate regarding problems the nation's
infrastructure suffers---underinvestment, inadequate maintenance, lagging technological progress-a variety of
institutional and social barriers block effective action.
SLOW CHANGE OF INFRASTRUCTURE
A study sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering noted that a decisive characteristic of
infrastructure is the generally long physical lifetime of the facilities and the persistence of development and use
patterns that make infrastructures difficult to remove or retire. (Marland and Weinberg, 1988) Infrastructure
facilities are routinely designed to meet demands projected for three decades or more into the future, and despite
some early failures, most dams, bridges, and highways endure for many decades, and sometimes for centuries 3 .
Maintenance and occasional refurbishment are required, but the underlying structure often remains little
changed.
Infrastructure facilities are in many instances taken out of service only when a competing device can
perform the service more effectively or because the service is no longer particularly valuable-for example, a
bridge is too narrow for increased traffic loads. However, the design of facilities often reflects the expectations
of the designers, and so U. S. highway pavements have been designed for 20-year lives, while the German
autobahns designed to serve Hitler's 1000-year reich still are serviceable, 50 years later. Power plants have
typically been expected to last 25 to 30 years because history has shown them to become noncompetitive by then,
although that perception is said to be changing---and lifetimes lengthening-as designers reach the ceiling of
thermodynamic efficiency in conventional generation technology.
2 Subcommittee on Water Resources, Transportation, and Infrastructure; Committee on Environment and
Public Works; October 21, 1987.
3 The Takoma Narrows Bridge, famous for its dynamic response to winds, collapsed four months after its
opening. In contrast, the Brooklyn Bridge still serves after 100 years.
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