CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – Today is Joe Biden’s second visit to Superior to talk up his infrastructure bill. He’ll use the Blatnic Bridge to Duluth as the backdrop.
There are some useful lessons about the bridge and the infrastructure bill.
Let’s go back to the Obama administration. Desperate to stimulate the economy when he first came into office, Obama announced that he would fast-track federal money to shovel-ready projects. It didn’t work. The bureaucracy is so thick around construction projects that money appropriated today is years away from actually being put to use. Most of the Obama money went to save the jobs of union government workers that states, cities and school districts had already decided they could do without. Obama later joked that “most shovel-ready jobs… weren’t.”
The first lesson of the Biden infrastructure bill is that everything moves as quickly as molasses. I wouldn’t be surprised if Biden isn’t alive for the ribbon-cutting of his new Superior-Duluth bridge.
The need to replace the Blatnic Bridge is also a lesson in mismanagement. It’s structurally inadequate because of poor govenment oversight. Upgrades to the bridge in the 1990s made it too heavy. The steel reinforcements were beyond what the structural design of the bridge could support. It’s now a one-lane-in-each-direction, no-trucks over 40-tons, bridge because the government botched the renovations.
The Blatnic Bridge is similar in design to the I-35W Bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis in 2007. It’s a flawed design. A suspension bridge, which would have been more expensive to build initially, wouldn’t need to be replaced after just 65 years.
What we have is a poorly designed, poorly maintained infrastructure investment that will take years to replace. Joe Biden’s spending on this project has no economic impact whatsoever until decades down the road. For now, the federal government’s failing bridge is nothing more than background for a campaign speech.
Chris Conley
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