Jerry Kremer

'[Name a bridge] is falling down, falling down . . .'

Posted

Very few families in this part of the world haven’t sung, or at least heard of, the nursery rhyme “London Bridge is Falling Down.” It dates back at least to the 1700s, and bemoans the real or imagined state of disrepair of the world-famous bridge.

We don’t have a similar song for our American bridges, but there’s little doubt that they — along with our highways and mass-transit system — are really falling down. The crumbling infrastructure in this country, and especially here in the Northeast, is the victim of nothing more than cheap Washington politics.

Once upon a time, fixing up our decaying roads was a high priority. The creation of the interstate highway system was the achievement of a Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower. Without the interstates, which allow you to travel north-south, east-west and every imaginable combination thereof in America, this country would be a tangled mess of local, slow-moving roads. (Whether you love it or hate it, the Long Island Expressway was one of the road projects that was part of the Eisenhower plan.)

Today, highways, bridges and mass transit are one of the Democratic Party’s favorite issues. There are some Republicans who favor making our daily travels safer and more modern, but not many. It seems that the new Republican majority in Washington really dislikes spending money on just about everything.

Just last week, the House of Representatives passed its version of the federal budget, which drastically cuts money for things like Amtrak and other transportation systems. It’s unfair to blame the latest Amtrak tragedy on Republicans, but there’s no question that for many years, the party of Lincoln has been the principal opponent of funding for Amtrak.

Why, you might ask, would a Republican House majority be against programs like Amtrak, which is highly popular here in the Northeast? You’d have to search far and wide to find someone in our region whose family members, friends or neighbors haven’t used Amtrak. Its trains are clean and efficient, and get you where you’re going a lot faster and cheaper than an airline. Yes, there are rare accidents, but trains are still part of the lifeblood of our region.

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