Roads crack. Bridges crumble. Sewage leaks and power grids fail. America’s infrastructure is falling apart. Auburn alumni and faculty discuss the problems and solutions to a national crisis.

Infrastructure—the roads, the power grids, the water lines, the shipping ports—is foundational to civilization, enabling populations to thrive and commerce to flourish.

Future president Dwight D. Eisenhower recognized it as early as 1919 when he participated in the first military convoy across America. The journey from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco was fraught with incomplete roads, impassable bridges and dangerous terrain. In three days, Eisenhower calculated they had spent 29 hours on the road and moved 165 miles.

Those experiences contrasted sharply with what he encountered while leading the Allied forces in Germany during WWII. Seeing the effectiveness of the German autobahn, Eisenhower as president resolved to bring it to America.

“When we finally secured the necessary congressional approval, we started the 41,000 miles of super highways that are already proving their worth,” wrote Eisenhower in his memoir “At Ease.”

For decades, American infrastructure improved and evolved. But today it’s in trouble. Every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) grades the status of and condition of different infrastructure elements. Its 2021 report card gave the U.S. a C-, an improvement over 2017’s D+ rating but a reflection of the looming crisis that has been incrementally building.

In 2022 the federal government helped pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which committed billions of dollars to infrastructure projects around the county—one of the most significant investments in American history. But will it be enough?

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