A container ship collided with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore on March 26, 2024, collapsing a section of the bridge.
AP Photo/Steve Ruark
Transportation agencies plan for events like major bridge or highway collapses, but these events can disrupt traffic for months and affect residential neighborhoods as well as motorists.
Constructing barge canals took a massive investment that didn’t pay off.
New York State Archives
The lasting problems of infrastructure aren’t of need or construction, but of overbuilding, delayed costs and the challenges of thinking ahead.
In 1872, John Gast painted ‘American Progress,’ showing trains and roads spreading across the American West.
John Gast, Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons
Government investment in roads, railroads and other public services has always involved social programming, both for good and for ill.