With Lehigh’s storied Fritz Laboratory, a civil engineering landmark, serving as the backdrop, the Pennsylvania Council of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) announced today that the state has earned a C minus grade in its 2022 Report Card for Pennsylvania’s Infrastructure.
The report evaluates 15 infrastructure categories (aviation, bridges, dams, drinking water, energy, hazardous waste, levees, parks, ports, rail, roads, solid waste, stormwater, transit, and wastewater) and seeks to raise public awareness of the importance of modern and well-maintained infrastructure.
The goal of the report, according to ASCE, is to help citizens and decision-makers understand how Pennsylvania’s infrastructure is faring and what can be done to modernize its systems.
ASCE Lehigh Valley Section officials Lane Wilder (president-elect) John Caperilla (past president) announced the findings and emphasized the importance of maintaining and modernizing Pennsylvania’s infrastructure to the economy, public health, safety, and security of the local area and region.
As the state’s population continues to rise and increasingly common severe weather events impact communities, the officials said, decisions about the public uses of infrastructure, which is supported by user fees and taxes, must be made based on long-term comprehensive planning, with sustainable and reliable funding sources.
Shamim Pakzad, professor and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, was on hand to recognize Lehigh’s strength in infrastructure development and testing, mentioning both Fritz Engineering Laboratory and Lehigh’s Advanced Technology for Large Structural Systems (ATLSS) Engineering Research Center as indicative of the university’s continuing commitment to research in this field.
Farrah Moazeni, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, commented on the interconnectedness of the infrastructure systems covered by the report card. She emphasized how academic research, in particular at Lehigh through its Institute for Cyber Physical Infrastructure and Energy (I-CPIE), is aligning to address the cascading effect of events, both positive and negative, that impact major infrastructural systems.
The state’s C minus grade remains unchanged since it was last evaluated by ASCE in 2018; it also matches the mark given to the nation’s collective infrastructure network in the 2021 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure.
Review the entire ASCE report now at https://infrastructurereportcard.org/state-item/pennsylvania.
