Time to Repair and Restore

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Some elected officials have concluded, however, that restoring infrastructure can be good politics. Cleveland Mayor George Voinovich persuaded voters to approve a 25% hike in their income taxes by promising that half of the money would go for capital improvements, including bridge and street repair. New York City now uses about 50% of its capital budget for rehabilitation rather than new construction, compared with just over 20% in 1970. Says Mayor Edward Koch: "Discussion at a city council meeting will not be about what building we're putting up, but whether sewer A will be finished before sewer B. We're not interested in the old political system of show them something on top if what you need is something below ground."

Railroads and Ports. Spending for train and track maintenance and new equipment has more than doubled, from $7.1 billion in 1975 to $14.9 billion last year, and once deplorable conditions are improving. But 6,468 trains were still derailed in 1980. These incidents caused property damages amounting to more than $200 million.

The most serious problems are on branch lines, which are often unprofitable. In many areas of Kansas and Illinois, grain shipments creep along on trains that can safely travel only at 10 m.p.h. Overall, an estimated 30% of total U.S. track mileage needs major repair.

Efforts to rebuild the railroads should be buoyed by the deregulation law passed by Congress last year, which directed the Interstate Commerce Commission to give the railroads more freedom to raise their freight rates. Rail executives hope that they can make many branch lines profitable and restore their tracks and roadbeds. Otherwise, they argue, the lines should simply be abandoned.

The railroads are counting on future profits from a boom in coal transport now that nations around the world are seeking a substitute for high-priced oil. But the U.S. will never fulfill its potential as a coal exporter until action is taken to upgrade and expand its ports.

Hampton Roads, Va., is the nation's busiest coal port and also its most notorious bottleneck. On an average day before the start of the current coal miners' strike, an armada of 150 ships was anchored offshore. Reason: the two loading terminals are so inadequate that the colliers usually must wait in line a month or more to pick up their cargoes.

Coal companies are planning to build new terminals at Hampton Roads and other ports, but a more serious problem will remain. No Eastern or Gulf Coast harbor is deep enough to accommodate so-called supercolliers: giant vessels that can carry more than 125,000 tons of coal, which is at least twice the load of standard ships. Many American ports, including Hampton Roads, Baltimore, New Orleans and Mobile, need to be dredged to the 55-ft. depth required by the supercolliers. But congressional appropriations for these projects have been held up for years, while lawmakers wrangle about which port should be first and worry about the multibillion-dollar price tag.