Perspectives on Urban Infrastructure (1984) / Chapter Skim
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2 Assessing Infrastructure Needs: The State of the Art
2 Assessing Infrastructure Needs: The State of the Art
Pages 67-109
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From page 67... ...
Public works capital investment as a portion of the gross national product has dropped from 4.1 percent in 1965 to 2.3 percent in 1977. Many state and local governments, faced with pressing budget problems, have been forced to reduce capital rehabilitation as well as operating and maintenance budgets for public facilities.
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From page 68... ...
This means that public works operation and maintenance budgets, in constant dollars, were decreasing at an accelerating rate during the 1970s. This trend of declining capital and maintenance budgets raises serious concern about the future condition of public facilities; maintenance cutbacks are bound to shorten the useful life of facilities at a time when capital rehabilitation funds are limited.
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From page 69... ...
to address it. While elected officials seem increasingly willing to devote additional resources to rehabilitate selected public facilities, they often have not been armed with the type and quality of information that ought to be a basis for such critical choices.
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From page 70... ...
DEFINING NEEDS Needs Versus Desirable Improvements A critical issue involved in defining infrastructure needs is communicating a realistic sense of the urgency of responding to various levels of need and the consequence of ignoring, or postponing a response to, any unmet needs. Decision makers need to know the real impacts of varying levels of infrastructure investment before they can make meaningful judgments about the appropriate level of resources to devote to the very real and serious problems confronting the nation's public investment priorities.
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From page 71... ...
Of course, demonstrating a level of need and justifying particular funding levels is a necessary and important part of the capital investment planning process. However, almost any program can demonstrate a large backlog of unmet and deserving needs.
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From page 72... ...
To the extent that the inventory and conditions assessment is a detailed facility-by-facility appraisal by trained professionals based on sound engineering data and measurements, debate over the current condition and projected future condition of facilities can be minimized. However, when the conditions assessment is based on a sample of facilities, performed by relatively inexperienced staff or performed using very crude assumptions and measures of conditions, questions about the real condition of a particular system will frustrate any attempt to define the capital investment needed to maintain or improve the system.
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From page 73... ...
Ultimately, good investment decisions generally will require a detailed appraisal of each facility compared with overall system conditions, and it would be much better for any serious needs assessment process to start with such an appraisal. While not perfect, the national bridge inventory and inspection program offers an example of an attempt to provide a comprehensive and sound facility conditions data base as a foundation for judging the nation's bridge needs.
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From page 74... ...
However, further steps can be taken to evaluate the real effectiveness of varying levels of highway investment, and many needs studies still rely exclusively on design standards to define needed levels of investment. The approach to defining investment needs recommended here recognizes that, from a practical point of view, the appropriate level of investment in any particular facility will depend on many factors in addition to the specific physical conditions of, and quality of service provided by, the facility.
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From page 75... ...
The Role of Standards While in many needs studies there has been an overreliance on using design standards as a yardstick for measuring needs, there is an important role for standards in defining capital infrastructure needs. Standards can help ensure that consistent approaches are used in improving similar facilities, provide for compatibility of all elements in a system to ensure continuity of service, offer potential cost savings by limiting the scope of potential improvements, and, most important, represent one key mechanism to provide for public safety through good engineering design.
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From page 76... ...
projects that may or may not be cost-effective investments, irrespective of the actual budget available; and · have been no real guide to tough priority decisions at the facility-by-facility level. What is necessary to replace this approach is a process that relates the investment level that is thought to be needed to the productivity or effectiveness of those investments compared with different investment levels and ultimately investments in other areas as well.
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From page 77... ...
Consideration of realistic budget levels, multiple objectives, and the most efficient way they might be met requires that needs studies evolve as part of a much broader allocation and investment planning process. THE CONDITION ASSESSMENT PROCESS Defining Conditions The previous section pointed out the neec} for accurate, reliable information on facility conditions as the first step in determining need.
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From page 78... ...
In evaluating the condition of facilities, it is necessary to consider both the physical condition and the facilities' role so that priorities can be established. The national bridge inventory and inspection program is an excellent example of a systematic, well-designed condition assessment process.
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From page 79... ...
The National Bridge Inspection Program In response to the collapse of the Silver Bridge in West Virginia in 1967, the U.S. Congress mandated a national bridge inventory and inspection program for all highway bridges over 20 feet in length.
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From page 80... ...
The condition and appraisal ratings for items 68-72 on the rating sheet are based on a 9-point scale. To help guide decisions on individual bridge priorities, the Federal Highway Administration develops a sufficiency rating using the same inventory and appraisal data base used to generate the needs estimate and to allocate funds, but it uses a different analysis procedure.
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From page 81... ...
Condition Analysis Appra isal Cost Estimate General Review Rating Rati ng FIGURE 2-1 Bridge inventory and rating sheet.
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From page 82... ...
reviewed the National Bridge Inspection Program in their August 11, 1981, report to Congress, "Better Targeting of Federal Funds Needed to Eliminate Unsafe Bridges." Among the report's many findings were two of importance to this discussion: incomplete, inaccurate, and unreliable data were detected; and inconsistency in bridge inspection ratings was a major concern. The GAO found several instances of incomplete, inaccurate, and unreliable data, including a case in which 10 percent of a state's bridges were inadvertently deleted from the inventory.
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From page 83... ...
The state of New York, in cooperation with the city, requested the Army Corps of Engineers to investigate the replacement needs for water distribution mains. The Corps, through a consultant, evaluated citywide water main condition trends and conducted a detailed investigation of Manhattan's water mains.
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From page 84... ...
In fact, there were 12 tracts in Manhattan experiencing 14 times the four-borough break rate for 6-inch mains. In order to investigate water main break problems in more detail, a computerized inventory of Manhattan water mains was developed, and break histories for each main were developed.
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From page 85... ...
When facility conditions data have been available (on the basis of either a comprehensive inventory and inspection or surveys and other indicators d, most needs studies have compared observed conditions with a set of accepted design standards to (refine and estimate the cost of"needed" improvements. Even when such an approach is applied to the results of a rigorous and comprehensive conditions assessment (as recommended above)
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From page 86... ...
In many cases, it will be more productive to improve the decisionmaking process at different levels of government than attempt, in the absence of changes to the investment planning process, to develop more sophisticated improvement standards or definitions of need. A Framework for Investment Decisions In maintaining existing infrastructure, public works officials face two interrelated questions: · What level of investment is required?
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From page 87... ...
select a program option. l I Facilityinventory I and Condition Assessment ]
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From page 88... ...
The next four steps in the proposed investment planning framework focus on how to proceed from a sound conditions assessment to judgments about needed levels of investment and particular project priorities. They reflect a strong belief that needs estimates (levelopec!
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From page 89... ...
can be developed to reflect the priority established for different types of (deficiencies (e.g., safety versus capacity) and facilities (e.g., water mains versus distribution systems)
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From page 90... ...
Since these estimates are primarily used to allocate federal grant funds, they may seriously understate or overstate needs. The enactment of the Federal Clean Water Act of 1972 caused dramatic change in water pollution control, including substantial increases in investments in treatment facilities.
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From page 91... ...
The 1977 amendments to the Clean Water Act eliminated storm sewer projects as grant eligible, significantly reducing federal obligations for pollution control costs. The 1978 needs survey showed a 30 percent reduction in eligible needs compared with the 1976 survey because of this change in grant eligibility.
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From page 92... ...
Partly because of the continually rising costs that far exceeded available funding, grant eligibility and pollution abatement requirements were modified to bring needs more closely in balance with fiscal resources. The needs surveys, while useful in defining overall fiscal implications of the Clean Water Act, were of limited value in setting priorities for specific projects.
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From page 93... ...
In short, the process of program development has been viewed as a somewhat mechanical one of checking off projects on a priority list until available funds are exhausted. To address these shortcomings, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation developed a new approach to highway investment analysis and programming that was designed to: · provide a range of policy choices to top management, not simply a single recommended program alternative; · maximize system benefits over individual project benefits; · consider alternative design concepts (i.e., investment levels)
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From page 94... ...
In parallel with the analysis of deficiencies in the state highway system, conditions and deficiencies in the other program areas were identified as well. For bridges, the results of the Federal Highway Administration's Sufficiency Rating Formula and the state transportation department's own priority listing based on load-carrying capacity, overall structural condition, and geometries were used to assess replacement needs.
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From page 95... ...
They were based on the results of deficiency analyses described earlier, expected federal funding availability, previous program commit TABLE 2-5 Structure of Program Alternatives: Wisconsin Department of Transportation Alternative Program Levels (Millions of 1978 Dollars) Program Area Low Mid High Resurface, recondition, reconstruc tion 200 300 400 Interstate improvements 90 135-195 245 Bridge replacement 70 100 140 Major projects 120 listing of additional projects
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From page 96... ...
Figure 2-3 illustrates the criteria that were expected to be used in determining the appropriate level of improvement; however, overall funding levels and deficiency criteria had to be combined in making project selections. At the lowest funding level for the RRR program area ($200 million)
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From page 97... ...
For interstate improvements, priority was given to completion of the system and selected operational and safety improvements on existing facilities. Unlike the National Bridge Inspection Program and the EPA survey, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation's approach to capital investment programming was not designed to produce an overall needs estimate for highways based on a set of physical and service standards.
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From page 98... ...
The National Bridge Inspection Program satisfied both desires well because it was based on sound, technically reliable data that could be used at the fecleral, state, and local levels. Surveys in other areas should follow the bridge prototype by building an information base that is both technically realistic and can be updated.
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From page 99... ...
We believe that research on the technical aspects of condition assessment, the role of standards on investment, and the investment decision-making process are fruitfu! areas for study.
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From page 100... ...
· The Value of Information Systems in Condition Assessment It would be useful to analyze the experiences of federal, state, ant! local agencies in the use of information systems in infrastructure management.
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From page 101... ...
Federal Highway Administration 1981 Highway Investment Practices and Trends. Federal Highway Administration, Washington, D.C.
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From page 102... ...
First, there is a vital need for inventories and condition assessments at the local level; unfortunately, there are a number of dependent variables that need to be identified. In each specific case a number of objective criteria must be examined, such as the number of water main breaks, the number of people served, etc.
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From page 103... ...
It may, for instance, be far more cost-effective to devote resources to preventive maintenance of facilities that are heavily used than to repair a facility that is less important in the functioning of the system. In other cases, such as water mains, a low rate of failure may offer a policy choice of accepting the temporary disruption caused by such failures and to undertake a program of emergency repairs rather than a far more costly systematic replacement program.
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From page 104... ...
For instance, they discuss how needs assessments should be related to the broader investment planning process so as to more rationally allocate resources between and within sectors. These priorities and allocations should be based on a variety of broader social ant!
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From page 105... ...
The serious shortcomings of any needs assessment process, however technically sophisticated, outside the context of the comprehensive planning process are illustrated by a few examples. If, for instance, a needs assessment indicates that a section of a combined sanitary and storm sewer system should be reconstructed, how, in the absence of a comprehensive plan, does one determine whether to reconstruct it as a combined or separated facility?
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From page 106... ...
Only within the context of the comprehensive planning process can these two important functions be aclequately aciciressecI. More important, only in that context can one determine the extent to which investment decisions meet broacler social ant!
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From page 107... ...
Data The idea that the collection of data should necessarily make for better decisions was challenged, particularly for data at the national level. A major use of the national bridge survey data is to facilitate decisions on resource allocation among the states.
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From page 108... ...
Planning involves stating the mission and getting agreement on it. The notion of using comprehensive planning as the context for assessment was challenged, however, on the ground that planning often is not a useful process for those who must make capital investment decisions.
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From page 109... ...
In response, the Wisconsin local planning process, involving the clevelopment of an annual and a 5-year capital program, was cited as a workable planning system. It was asserted, however, that capital programs were frequently changed and that projects proposed for the last years of any program do not resemble what is eventually built.
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