2015-11-05nytimes.com

In recent years, several well-publicized failures of roads, bridges and oil and natural gas pipelines have highlighted the lack of spending on infrastructure and the inability of strapped states to adequately inspect their structures. Most recently, in South Carolina, 36 dams collapsed after heavy rain. About 19 people died in the flooding, mostly in their cars as waves of rushing water covered their vehicles.

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The federal Department of Transportation estimates that obsolete road designs and poor road conditions are a factor in about 14,000 highway deaths each year. Research by Ted Miller, a senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, which receives financing from the Transportation Department, put the medical cost of highway injuries from poor road conditions at $11.4 billion for 2013, according to the latest data available.

The problem extends beyond roads. Research by the National Transportation Safety Board shows that since 2004, about 77 deaths and 1,400 injuries could have been prevented if railroads had installed a safety system known as Positive Train Control. That includes an Amtrak train derailment in May that killed eight people and injured hundreds more in Philadelphia.



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