Chapter 4: Prevention through Governments
Figure 4.9 Three modes of operation of the SMART Tunnel HOLDING BASIN STORAGE RESERVOIR
HOLDING BASIN
NO STORM STORAGE RESERVOIR
HOLDING BASIN
YEARLY STORM
STORAGE RESERVOIR
MAJOR STORM Source: Mott MacDonald Group 2009.
Selection does not conclude the issue: all infrastructure needs maintenance: fixing potholes in the road before the winter or the rain; painting steel bridges before they weaken through corrosion; and inspecting and fixing cracks in concrete bridges. All engineers know this, but they do not obtain budget appropriations—even in the United States, where the 2007 bridge collapse in Minneapolis drew attention to such neglect. Public finance theory suggests that spending should go down a list of projects arranged in descending order of (economic) rates of return. But when subject to arbitrary budget spending limits, lumpiness, and interruption costs, dynamic maximization could put some low-return spending ahead of postponable high-return spending. Since maintenance can be postponed, it gets deferred—repeatedly—until the asset crumbles. Multipurpose infrastructure, such as Kuala Lumpur’s Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel (SMART), is critical infrastructure tailored to the specific hazard. Floods from heavy rains are a hazard, and the 9.7-kilometer-long $514 million tunnel has three levels (figure 4.9), the lowest for drainage and the upper two for road traffic. The drain allows large volumes of flood water to be diverted from the city’s financial district to a storage reservoir, holding pond, and bypass tunnel. Combining the drain with the road has two advantages: it ensures maintenance of a drain that otherwise would be used only sporadically, and it costs less than building the road and drain separately. Critical infrastructure should still pass the cost-benefit criterion, and designs such as the SMART require imagination and innovation. Maintenance remains neglected, and although economists generally disapprove,
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