A Catastrophe In The Making

President Trump has indicated that trying to get Congress to pass a bill to fund meaningful restoration of America’s infrastructure is one of the top priorities of his second year in office, and political pundits say there may just be a bipartisan consensus to do just that.

It’s long overdue.

If you don’t think the nation’s infrastructure needs immediate attention, read this Bloomberg article on the condition of the tunnels leading into Penn Station, one of the country’s busiest rail junctions.  It’s terrifying, because it indicates that one of these days the crumbling, 107-year-old tunnels — that’s right, 107 years old! — could give, causing the Hudson River to flood the tunnels and the station itself.  It’s hard to imagine what the toll of such an event would be.  And anyone who has been through Penn Station recently will tell you that the place is an overcrowded, smelly, appalling dump.  I went through the station recently, and I’ll never use it again.  When Candidate Trump was talking about the nation’s Third World infrastructure, he was talking about our airports, but he just as easily could have included Penn Station.

Penn Station isn’t alone.  In every major city, you could identify bridges, highways, and tunnels that are in desperate need of attention.  So, will our state and local governments actually tackle this infrastructure challenge?  And, if we do, will we do it in a way that makes sense, rather than having legislation that becomes a Christmas tree, with every Congressman and Senator and state representative insisting that their pet projects get funded in the name of infrastructure reform, so that the big problems — like Penn Station — end up getting deferred while other, less pressing construction projects like Boston’s “Big Dig” are funded to the tune of billions of dollars.  According to the article linked above, the Trump Administration has backed away from an Obama Administration commitment to fund half the cost of a new tunnel, with New Jersey and New York funding the remainder.  It’s not clear whether the Trump Administration thought it was a bad deal for the federal government and New York and New Jersey should foot more of the bill, or whether it concluded that a new tunnel isn’t the best approach from an environmental, traffic management, or resource allocation standpoint, or whether it found some other perceived problem with the plans.  Whatever the reason, nothing is happening.

In the meantime, Penn Station and its tunnels continue to deteriorate, thousands of Amtrak customers whose train trips are subsidized by taxpayers flood into the station, and a harrowing disaster looms right around the corner.  And the crucial question remains:  if we can’t take care of the basics like our infrastructure, can we really be said to have a responsible government?  And why are we spending money on things like “Click It or Ticket” ad campaigns instead?  As a country, we need to get our priorities in order.

Interior Exercise

We’ve reached the depths of winter in the Midwest, and the part of that dismal season when changes in temperature mean melting snow, then refreezing, then melting again, then refreezing again.  It makes walking outside a treacherous exercise that is not for the faint of heart — especially if you’re walking on ever-slippery brick.

But there is an alternative to outdoor exercise for those of us who are too cheap to get health club memberships but who desperately need the exercise if they hope to stave off the condition of Rapid Waistline Expansion.  It’s called the stairs.  And if, like me, you toil in an older building where there are lots of stairwells with different designs, like the stairwell shown above, the stairs can be a pretty cool option aesthetically, too.

According to the medical experts, taking the stairs does have the effect of burning some calories — although not enough to allow you to rationalize eating a Snickers bar a day, unless you’re walking to the top of the Empire State building on your way to work — and other health benefits as well, including building and maintaining health bones, muscles, and joints and improved aerobic capacity.  I like doing it because it gets me moving and gets the blood flowing during the day, and I feel like I’m at least doing something to maintain or even improve my health while at the office.

Of course, it’s a lot easier taking the stairs going down, than going up.