Aileen Cho/ENR

America may finally be coming to its senses now that it is recognizing the important role that roads, bridges and transportation systems have in sustaining the U.S. economy and public safety. The imminent opening of the Interstate 35W bridge and the growing support for an $8 billion rescue plan for the federal Highway Trust Fund demonstrate there is a will to support transportation infrastructure, but it often comes too late.

The I-35W bridge, also known as the St. Anthony Falls Bridge, is a marvelous example of willpower under duress. Even though there was a challenge to the awarding of the $234-million design-build contract to the joint-venture firm Flatiron-Manson, the bridge has risen rapidly over the Mississippi River and will be completed in half the time of a normal project. Speed was essential, as the estimated daily economic  loss of the crossing is $400,000 a day.

But the tragedy of the collapse is largely the source of the willpower to build. Such will was virtually nonexistent when the old bridge was standing, with the state trying to get by with a fracture-critical, fatigued 40-year-old bridge. The state wanted to squeeze another 20 years from its steel bones. That is the situation in much of the U.S., where bridges and other infrastructure are pushed past their limits because reconstruction would be too intrusive, inconvenient and costly. But disasters, real and pending, are supreme motivators.

Tudor Van Hampton /ENR

Pending disaster is spurring the legislative effort to save the solvency of the federal Highway Trust Fund. The fund’s balance is plummeting–from $4.2 billion at the end of July to less than $1.4 billion at the beginning of September. It is expected to incur a deficit of $3.3 billion in fiscal 2009, which begins on Oct. 1. When the account is dry, projects planned and under way will be severely challenged or halted.

Disaster brings together strange bedfellows for swift action, as seen by liberals joining with conservatives to keep the transportation program running and projects moving. This is the same kind of pressure pushing the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at a potentially huge cost to taxpayers. In the end, programs vital to the health of the U.S. must be supported by the public. But the public does not have to support or tolerate waste, which sometimes comes with a rushed solution.