Infrastructure Crisis and our Duties as Engineers| 1

Infrastructure Crisis and our Duties as Engineers

Abstract

Over the years infrastructure crisis has become an important topic of

discussion and relevance both in Canada so as in the rest of the world, mainly
because of the existent infrastructure deficit concerning available funds that are
needed for reparation and maintenance of municipal infrastructures, which many
are way over-due their service life and represent a threat to public safety and the
economy. This is a serious problem that affects us all and especially us as
Engineers who have duties and responsibilities towards addressing this particular
problem.

Author J. A. Herrera
University of Toronto, Department of Civil Engineering
Instructor: D. K. Panesar
CIV 1201 Concrete Technology and Non-Destructive Testing
September 16, 2009
 Infrastructure Crisis and our Duties as Engineers| 2

Infrastructure Crisis and our duties as Engineers

As many other problems that all the countries in the world share, there is one that has
called for particular attention in these past years and that is the current infrastructure crisis that
every country is dealing. Particularly in Canada this crisis involves an infrastructure deficit of
billions of dollars that will keep on increasing with time to a level where it will heavily affect the
society and economy itself; there isn’t enough funding or a solid national plan of action for
routinary maintenance and repair of existing municipality structures such as highways, bridges,
and many more. The main scope of this document is to serve as an informative basis of the
current problem and consequences, it also addresses our duties as engineers to be aware of such
crisis so as our role in it, and how we are involved in it.

The Problem
The infrastructure crisis is global and affects the infrastructure of every country, this
includes for the private and non-private sector; we will focus on the non-private sector that is, the
infrastructure that belongs to a government such as military, healthcare, municipal, and others.
The current crisis affects mainly the municipal infrastructure, this is the one that is accessible to
every person; this includes roads, bridges, subway stations, sewage systems, streets, parks, and
many other more. The lack of maintenance and funds available for the related tasks in the present
and in the past has started to pay-off its toll with numerous infrastructures collapsing not only in
Canada but everywhere in the world. An example of this can be an accident that happened on
July 14, 2009 that according to an article published online in Civic Issues for Urban Minds (July
14th, 2009), described that five people died in Montreal when an overpass collapsed, and the
author of the article quotes that “as our cities age, the issue of infrastructure replacement
becomes increasingly more critical. In some Canadian cities, the lack of infrastructure
investment has not only resulted in the loss of life, but it has also resulted in a huge financial
crisis. Many of Canada’s eastern cities are much older than those found in the west. As a result,
cities like Montreal and Toronto are in desperate need of infrastructure investments to help
replace ageing sewers and roads” (D. Fontaine, 2009). This is a real problem that is just
beginning to show us its first symptoms; we can compare it as a disease that is well advanced,
we might not be able to cure it, but we can diminish it until it is acceptable to live with it.
 Infrastructure Crisis and our Duties as Engineers| 3

The current infrastructure deficit in Canada has been estimated at $123 billion in which
$31 billion is for water and waste systems, $21.7 billion for transportation, $22.8 billion for
transit, $7.7 for waste management, and $40.2 billion for shared community facilities (Mirza,
2007, p. 2). This is a concerning matter and the deficit described before just shows the
approximate municipality infrastructure deficit; it doesn’t include other factions of the
government such as public health, education, military and highways, since 2003 it is said that the
deficit grows $2 billion annually (TD Bank Financial Group, 2002, p.12). This is comparable to
an enormous debt where each year there is just enough money to cover part of the interests and
the debt will just keep on getting bigger. The infrastructure deficit has grown a lot over the years
and it can be appreciated on figure 1, this increase on the deficit can be tied to the economic
growth of Canada, however with that growth there wasn’t apparently an adequate concern on
infrastructure maintenance or measures to lower the deficit, if there had been any then it would
have been shown on a decrease of it over the years instead of an increase.

Figure 1. Municipal Infrastructure Deficit Estimates (Danger Ahead: the coming

Collapse of Canada’s Municipal Infrastructure, 2007, p. 9)
 Infrastructure Crisis and our Duties as Engineers| 4

The Causes
There are a lot of causes for such crisis, in Canada is that its municipalities build, own
and maintain most of the infrastructure that maintains its economy and quality of life, yet for the
past 20 years, municipalities have been caught in fiscal squeeze caused by growing
responsibilities and reduced revenues and as a result, they were forced to defer needed
investment, and municipal infrastructure continued to deteriorate. The rerouting of funds to other
sectors has weakened the main infrastructure core of the country, especially now with the phase
of worldwide crisis the world is going through (Mirza, 2007, p. 2).
Another main factor that causes deterioration are the infrastructures age, many of them
have by far surpassed their expected service life. Only about 41 per cent of Canadian
infrastructure is 40 years old or less, the age of 31 per cent of the assets is between 40 and 80
years while the remaining 28 per cent is more than 80 years (CSCE, CCPE, CPWA and National
Research Council Canada, 2003, p.2013). This in conjunction with city and population growth
just makes structures have more solicitations that inflict more loads than expected at the time
they were designed. An example can be a bridge built in 1985 which was designed to bare a
certain load of cars and trucks, now in 2009 that same bridge has to withstand a larger amount of
vehicles and larger heavier trucks caused by demographical growth and city expansion, add to
that climate change with more extreme weather that puts more strain on infrastructure which
makes it deteriorate more rapidly and its serviceability life is diminished.
Politics is also a cause, replacing water pipes and overpasses never get the same attention
from the civic politicians as the opening of a new community centre or park. That’s why in so
many cities new investments in the “non-sexy” infrastructure take a back seat to the more media-
friendly structures. (D. Fontaine, 2009)

Why is it so important?
Infrastructure is a very important issue which involves many aspects; one of the most
important are the lifestyle of human beings and the economy. Concerning the lifestyle involves
safety and the environment, because the manner in which infrastructure has been planned,
designed and constructed leads to unacceptable burdens on human health and the environment.
The demand-side factors that drive greenhouse gas emissions are heavily dependent on our
 Infrastructure Crisis and our Duties as Engineers| 5

designs of transportation networks, buildings and solid waste disposal systems (Kennedy, 2006,
p.2).
Infrastructure and the economy is dependant one of each other, Kennedy (2006)
described the following facts that relate infrastructure to economics:
1) The construction and maintenance of infrastructure requires considerable amounts of
capital and labour. Capital is always scarce and has many alternative uses. Labour too
is often a scarce resource.
2) Infrastructure is inherently part of our wealth – and plays a central role in the
production and consumption of wealth. Provisions of transportation infrastructure are
the key to production of goods and access to consumers.
3) Infrastructure inherently underlies markets. A change in infrastructure is a change in
the “economic environment”- and hence impacts people and markets, e.g., consider
the impact of transportation/water infrastructure on real estate markets.
4) Many of humanities struggles in the “ordinary business of life” stem from the design
of infrastructure, e.g., environmental pollution, social polarization (p. 4).

What needs to be changed?

A particular solution can’t be developed because there is a variety of ways to attack the
problem, since it involves the application or various disciplines (Engineering, politic sciences,
economics, and many more) so it can’t be particularized to a one, however it can be generalized
in where there should be administrative changes concerning infrastructure funding that goes
along in hand with the current political trends, which should focus more on dealing with this
urgent issue. This is possible and can be done in a country like Canada, which has the resources
to do it but sadly this might not be the case for every country. I will put my own home country as
an example, in El Salvador which is a third world country and on a highly seismic region you
can see buildings very deteriorated and in high deplorable conditions, that is, because they
receive no maintenance at all which is mainly attributed to lack of funds from the municipalities
and rerouting of funds to other sectors, so it has become “normal” to see infrastructure collapse
all the time and the municipalities, politicians, and government still don’t care to address the
country’s infrastructural problem, this should serve a warning for where Canada might be
heading very soon.
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It might seem hard to lower the infrastructure deficit and get out of the present worldwide
crisis, however it can be done with proactive planning, by meaning proactive we should foresee
the consequences of the choices and actions we are taking now by projecting them in the future,
what possible problems will arise and how are we going to solve it, an example of that is the city
of Vancouver which has the lowest infrastructure deficit in all of Canada; this is mainly because
the city has had a long-standing policy of replacing 1 per cent of its infrastructure on an annual
basis. In theory, every 100 years, the City’s infrastructure is completely replaced. This policy has
not only helped to ensure that Vancouver doesn’t face the type of crisis older cities face; it has
also resulted in Vancouver having the smallest per capita infrastructure deficit (D. Fontaine,
2009). This is a good example of how they are trying to solve and avoid any future complications
related to their infrastructure.
Throughout this text we have made references that the main cause for this infrastructure
crisis is due to the rerouting of funds that were destined for the maintenance tasks, an
infrastructure design lifetime decreases when no maintenance is given almost by half and this
can be appreciated in figure 2, to fulfill an expected service life an infrastructure should at list
have a 1.5 or 2 percent maintenance rate over all its service time.

Figure2. Infrastructure condition as determined by maintenance (Danger ahead: the coming

Collapse of Canada’s Municipal Infrastructure, 2007, p. 17)
 Infrastructure Crisis and our Duties as Engineers| 7

It is true that maintenance tasks are very expensive, but there are also alternatives to it; it
doesn’t always have to be that expensive to do a checkup on a certain infrastructure to determine
the condition, there are a variety of new methods like the non destructive tests (NDT) which is an
economic alternative to make a quick diagnostic and asses the current condition state of
infrastructure, basically a NDT is a non-invasive technique used to determine the integrity or
properties of a material, component or structure and is a balance between quality control and
cost-effectiveness (D. K. Panesar, 2009, p. 9). Sometimes it is just required to do a visual
inspection to determine that a structure is suffering some kind of problem like excessive cracking
or alkali attacks. The method, technology, and information already exists it is just to figure out
and make a plan to approach the problem using these technologies.
As we have stated before maintenance is directly linked to service life and costs, many
could say that increasing an infrastructure service life could be the answer so that when it is not
given constant maintenance they could “last for longer”; however it isn’t that easy and also it is
not effective. An increase in service life is an increase in the final cost of any construction or
project, there isn’t much an engineer or a designer can do because in this current world
everything is tied to the “money factor” and competition is strong, people usually go for the
cheaper so if certain group higher up the standards on design and construction, then that would
result in more expensive infrastructure which wouldn’t be competitive in this worlds market. In
any case the changes would have to be done in the building and design codes, that way it will
ensure that all companies stick to those specifications but isn’t that economic effective. That is
why in the design phase there isn’t much an engineer can do, however in the constructive phases
what we can all do as engineers is to make sure there is a constant quality control of the work
done and that adequate construction techniques are applied.
In my personal experience working as a civil engineer I have seen a lot of engineering
practices that can just be catalogued as absurd and unethical, currently there are a lot of
contractors or even design offices that finish up a building or design without caring much for
quality control or taking the proper measures to evaluate them, this includes the use of low
quality grade materials, bad inefficient supervision and the use of improper construction
techniques such as throwing concrete over a height of more than one meter which causes
segregation of the aggregates, all these bad practices result in medium-low quality construction
whose service life is reduced than the specified designed specifications and also degrade faster.
 Infrastructure Crisis and our Duties as Engineers| 8

A good possible approach that would require both the heavy involvement of engineers,
the municipalities, and governments would be to create municipal commissions to evaluate the
current condition assessment of its entire infrastructure and then create a National database and
assign priorities based on the results obtained. The main benefit of having a national database of
the infrastructure condition would be that a number of action plans can be taken such as:
 Knowledge of total investment cost.
 Prioritization of infrastructure that depends on the location, condition and municipal
funds that is available.
 Creation of a financial plan to approach the incurring problem to lower the crisis.
 Keep a track of infrastructure condition and develop routinary maintenance plans.
 Develop maintenance and diagnostic guides based on the results obtained, so that the
process of inspection can be not just more efficient but more effective.

All these are a few of the endless possibilities to address the problem, there might be
even more that might be more detail or complex, but in general they would all address the same
issue

Conclusion
It is true that the current infrastructure crisis has focused government and public attention for a
couple of years now and finding solutions towards it hasn’t been so effective or easy because
there might not clearly exist a clear understanding of its extent, we can see this because every
year the deficit just keeps on growing more than last the previous year and so on. The task is not
easy, yet still solvable. For all this to happen and overcome the current infrastructure crisis there
has to be an involvement from not just the government entities but from the community, many
times it is the lack of information that keeps communities from taking action upon such critical
matters, the support has to come from the people putting pressure on politicians that would in the
end result in changes to this problem and lower the infrastructure deficit, that we won’t have
more accidents like the one in Montreal where an overpass collapsed and killed five people.
This crisis should also be a reflection to all engineers in any discipline, so that we always
ensure good engineering practices in design, supervision and construction of any infrastructure
project, it also should call us to develop more sustainable infrastructure. We as engineers should
 Infrastructure Crisis and our Duties as Engineers| 9

possess the knowledge of this pressing matter, we have to be able to understand the options we
have to address this problem, whether it would need us to specialize in certain areas such as
maintenance, or diagnostic practices to asses an infrastructures condition such as destructive and
non destructive practices such as NDT’s; emphasizing the latter one, it is of great value and
many people might overlook at them and by then not considering all its advantages like the low
cost, it doesn’t interfere with the infrastructures outgoing activities, it can give us an accurate
estimate of the properties so as condition of materials and components of the infrastructure in
assessment. For that many engineers in the public sector would have to be specialized in such
techniques and should be adopted broadly in use not just in Canada but in the whole world, being
that one of the first little steps in trying to solve this crisis. This is just one approach, in
whichever area we as engineers end up working, we would now have in mind about this crisis
and we can just do the best we can not to make it bigger or be part of the problem.
We are right now still on time to solve this problem which over time it will escalate,
figure 3 shows the current standing point where we are now, so where do we want to be in 60
years from now, with an infrastructure deficit of more than 2000 billion or 130 billion or lower if
proper action is taken, it is still time to save countless human lives from preventing infrastructure
collapse so as to not let our economy be affected by the growing infrastructure deficit.

Figure 3. Municipal Infrastructure Deficit: Projected Grow (Danger ahead: the coming
Collapse of Canada’s Municipal Infrastructure, 2007, p. 18)
 I n f r a s t r u c t u r e C r i s i s a n d o u r D u t i e s a s E n g i n e e r s | 10

References

 Kennedy, C.A. (Fall 2006). Notes for Infrastructure Economics CIV 1310, Department of
Civil Engineering University of Toronto, Retrieved September 12, 2009 from:
https://portal.utoronto.ca/@@20BCE089FC420678E176BC63325D5106/courses/1/Fall-
2009-CIV1310H-F-LEC0101/content/_1528344_1/1310%20notes.pdf

 CSCE, CCPE, CPWA and National Research Council Canada (2003). Technology
Roadmap, p. 2013.

 Fontaine, D. (July 14th, 2009). Some Canadian cities face a bigger infrastructure “crisis”
than others, Retrieved September 12, 2009 from
http://www.citycaucus.com/2009/07/some-canadian-cities-face-bigger-infrastructure-
crisis-than-others.

 Mirza, S. (November 2007). Danger Ahead: the Coming Collapse of Canada’s Municipal
Infrastructure, Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

 Panesar, D.K. (2009). Course Outline 7 Sept 2009, University of Toronto, Concrete
Technology and Non-Destructive Testing p. 9, Retrieved September 12 2009 from:
https://portal.utoronto.ca/@@20BCE089FC420678E176BC63325D5106/courses/1/Fall-
2009-CIV1201H-F-LEC0101/content/_1569084_1/1-Introduction_CIV1201_DKP.pdf

 TD Bank Financial Group (2002). A Choice between Investing in Canada’s Cities and
Disinvesting in Canada’s Future, p. 12.