You might’ve seen the recent news about the bridge that collapsed in Pittsburgh. It wasn’t a particularly old bridge by modern standards, having been finished in 1973, and there’s no reason it couldn’t have stood for another 30 years.
Unfortunately, our nation’s legacy of deferred maintenance, and our unwillingness to spend money to restore our infrastructure, is catching up with us. And it’s not just the bridge in Pittsburgh. Back in 2007, the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis similarly collapsed, killing 13 people. At the time, the bridge was only 40 years old.
One thing I’ve made clear throughout my campaign for San Diego City Council in District 6 is the condition of our broken roads, and the legacy of deferred maintenance that especially affects us in Mira Mesa, Kearny Mesa, and Miramar.
We’re told Gold Coast Dr. and Parkdale Ave. may at last be rebuilt sometime this year (we’ll believe it when we see it), but it was only after campaigns like our city council race in 2018 made it an issue that money was allocated for the project.
And once Gold Coast and Parkdale are at last rebuilt, there’s so much more than needs to be done. Our city needs to invest in and rebuild Stanfield Circle, Saluda, Ambassador, Montongo, Royal Ann, Tyrolean, Berryknoll, Pisces, and many others. As the economic center of the city, our city needs to focus on our communities first.
We may not have city bridges and overpasses in District 6 like the one that collapsed in Pittsburgh, nor the level of severe weather and moisture other cities face, but one of the first things I said when I kicked off my District 6 campaign was I support the Biden administration’s Build Back Better initiative. I still do.
Because we need emergency infrastructure renewal at this point to make up for decades of City Hall indifference. And we need to begin at home.