How fragile is our infrastructure. New York City has survived another infrastructure event – this time a major steam pipe rupture. While our Mayor (and indeed all of us) took heart that this was not an act of terror, such events are symptomatic of a true impending crisis – large scale infrastructure failure. New York City’s utility and transportation infrastructure have components that are 100 years old or older. In the complexity of delivering services to tens of thousands of persons per square mile – 24 hours a day, those roads and pipes and subway stations are stretched to the limit. Ideally, those who first designed and installed the roads and pipes would have put in place a plan – and budget – for maintenance, upkeep and replacement. This, of course has not been done. Even today, when every engineer has a course in economics that stresses life cycle costs and the importance of maintenance,  it is difficult, in the public realm to find adequate dollars to mitigate against such extreme events as the steam pipe rupture. It is more glamorous to build a new rail line or new water distribution facility than to put dollars aside for inspection, instrumentation and old fashioned good maintenance construction techniques. As engineers, we have the responsibility to speak up – and loudly – about the need for an era of rehabilitation. The costs of keeping our infrastructure working are far less than the costs of surviving an event, and the costs or replacing failed infrastructure.

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