Welcome to the ASCE Dallas Website, please feel free to click around. The Dallas Branch is one of the largest ASCE Branches in the United States. Read our President's Message.
ASCE Dallas supports and encourages the equitable opportunity for participation of all people within the civil engineering profession without regard to race, ethnicity, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, or physical challenges.
In President Obama’s State of the Union address in January he noted that investing in our infrastructure is investing in our nation, emphasizing that railroads and the Interstate Highway System are critical investments and citing construction jobs that were created through the Recovery Act. As civil engineers we know that for many years our nation has neglected to invest in infrastructure. I think of it as an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality. Until the public and the legislature actually “see” something that reminds them of the crumbling state of our infrastructure, such as the Minneapolis I-35 bridge collapse or the levee failures in New Orleans, investment in infrastructure takes a back seat to more visible and political pursuits. And even after they “see” something crumble, the short attention spans of many force their attention back to more visible issues and away from the need to improve our infrastructure.
While preparing this message I decided to Google “the nation’s infrastructure” for research material. This search generated in 12.3 million hits, primarily newspaper articles and media discussions dating as far back as 1999. Year after year the articles say the same thing: we need to invest in our nation’s infrastructure. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Investing in our infrastructure creates jobs. The cost to invest in our infrastructure grows exponentially each year that we neglect it. So much talk and so little action.
I was pleased to hear the topic of infrastructure investment in President Obama’s January speech. It is encouraging that this topic is still at the forefront of the President’s agenda. At the national level, I commend ASCE for their efforts to create the Infrastructure Report Card program and their tireless efforts to publicize the report cards and to inform the legislature of the critical state of our nation’s infrastructure. I also appreciate that a portion of the Recovery Act was allocated to infrastructure projects, even if they were “shovel-ready” projects that may or may not have affected each of us as design professionals.
Blaine Leonard, the President of ASCE National, issued a statement in response to President Obama’s January State of the Union address. Mr. Leonard’s response can be found here: http://www.asce.org/. He asks each of us to contact our U.S. Senators to encourage them to include a long-term, major infrastructure component in job creation legislation.
We are gaining momentum. After years of talking about the poor state of our nation’s infrastructure but doing nothing, it is evident that infrastructure investment is now a priority to our legislature and to our President. It is up to us to keep the momentum going by contacting our legislators to encourage further investment in our nation’s infrastructure. We must continue this momentum by insisting on action and not rhetoric.
Please join us on March 1st when Clarence Daugherty, P.E. will present an update on the construction of the Woodall Rodgers Deck Park.
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