Infrastructure costs from Immigration

Crowded Roads
Traffic frustration, wasted petrol as the engine runs while the car is stalled in traffic, longer commuting times, more noise, smog, pollution, car accidents.

The annual arrival of 1.5 million legal and illegal immigrants is overburdening our already crowded roadways. Americans are spending more time sitting in traffic than ever before: in a typical day we spend 46 minutes commuting to and from work.

The cost of traffic congestion is immense. In 2005, congestion cost $78.2 billion in America’s 437 urban areas, up 7 percent from 2004. Population growth and the ensuing urban sprawl is worsening the situation, resulting in year-after-year increases in wasted fuel and time spent commuting.

Our nation’s ecosystems are also burdened by the crowding of our roadways. By themselves, the 8.5 million miles of impermeable roadway that traverses the U.S. cause habitat destruction. In addition, America’s fleet of personal vehicles floods our waterways with pollutants and is the major contributor to urban smog.

The average urban driver now spends more than 100 hours commuting to work, compared to just 16 in 1982--an increase of 525 percent. (Stephen Buckner and Joanna Gonzalez, Americans Spend More Than 100 Hours Commuting to Work Each Year, Census Bureau Reports, U.S. Census Bureau News, March 30, 2005). The Texas Transportation Institute's annual study of traffic congestion in urban areas found that in 2005 Americans spent 4.2 billion hours delayed in traffic and wasted 2.9 billion gallons of fuel.

California With five of the nation's 20 most congested metro areas, Californians wasted 871 million hours and 673.5 million gallons of fuel sitting in traffic in 2005. In the San Fernando Valley area, the average morning rush-hour speed of 31 mph is expected to fall to 16 mph by 2025 as new drivers crowd the already saturated roads. Los Angeles Los Angeles has been the most traffic-choked urban area in the country for 20 years running. State officials say the number of miles driven on Los Angeles and Orange County roads will increase 40 percent by 2020, due in large part to the sustained influx of immigrants into the region’s suburbs. Sacramento Even with $15 billion in planned road improvements, congestion will increase 400 percent by 2020.

Traffic congestion in Atlanta has become so bad that the Chamber of Commerce called it the greatest threat to the city's economic prosperity. The city, which has seen a large influx of hispanic immigrants in recent decades, and is now known as the “Poster Child of Sprawl,” is among the deadliest for pedestrians and motorists. Congestion on the overcrowded roads results in a traffic accident every 2.8 minutes in the metro area. The accidents further aggravate congestion, and cost $4.7 billion per year.

A new report by famed researcher Edwin Rubenstein exposed the costs of unending migration into the U.S. at: “$1.6 Trillion Needed to Repair and Maintain Nation's Hospitals, Schools, Parks, Water Supply, Bridges, and Basic Infrastructures.”

Immigration will be responsible for more than 80 percent of the spending needed to expand infrastructure capability between now and mid-century, according to the report. Ed Rubenstein examines 15 categories of infrastructure: airports, border security, bridges, dams and levees, electricity (the power grids), hazardous waste removal, hospitals, mass transit, parks and recreation facilities, ports and navigable waterways, public schools, railroads, roads and highways, solid waste and trash, and water and sewer systems,” reported Fran Griffin of Griffin Communications. “The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that $1.6 trillion dollars is needed to repair and maintain U.S. infrastructure in next 5 years. The massive influx of immigrants into the U.S. is increasing the demands on an overburdened infrastructure, much of which was built shortly after World War II and is outdated and deteriorating.”

 

Is this a joke thread? I was brought up on the Goons so I don't recognise the inability to amuse.

Just toll the roads and then use the monies to eliminate regressivity. Earmarking is integral!

 

While there are certainly cogent arguments against unregulated immigration (name that owners of capital use it to suppress wages generally and thus it increases the income gap), traffic is hardly a compelling one.

The problem with this is that traffic will result from any increase in population (from immigration or otherwise) and increase in population has benefits as well as burdens. You've mentioned a burden, but there are significant economic benefits, especially if the immigrants are productive hardworking people, which they tend to be.

 

No, this is not in any way a joke. Obviously, depending on where you live, this might not be an issue for you. But in some regions/cities, the traffic is horrible. This is what it looks like in Los Angeles, for example:


I have been to Los Angeles and I can report that around 70% of the cars on the road are filled with hispanics. Most of the white people left in the city are probably very old and do not drive much. The smog and noise from the traffic is very bad. The city would be much more pleasant without all those hispanic-filled cars on the road. I suspect that 90% of those hispanics are either illegal, or are children of illegals.

But obviously if you live in a less crowded region, you might never realize that this problem exists.


One more issue. There is the phenomena of "white flight", where the white people fled the overcrowding, crime, and overburdened school districts in the cities, to live in the suburbs. Unfortunately, most of the middle class jobs stayed in the cities, and this can mean long commuting times for many people. If it was not for all the immigration, and thus poor minorities crowded in the cities, white people would still be living in the big cities, and these cities would be much more pleasant places to live. Los Angeles once had a lively metropolitan culture, not unlike Vancouver. But after the 1960's it turned into a hell hole. If you go to visit there you can still see all the great monuments of the past. Indeed, visiting the city is like traveling back in a time machine, because there have not been many new buildings erected since the 1960's and many of the old buildings are beginning to crumble.

Think of this: if it was not for all the immigration, all the white peple who fled to the suburbs would not have had to build all those new buildings. In most cases, the older school buildings and museums were biger and nicer than the newer buildings that were later built in the suburbs.

 

That is the fault of an incredibly inefficient transportation system. All suburban areas should be linked to the major urban center by mass transit systems. Groups of major cities (such as the I-95 corridor from Boston to Washington D.C) should be linked by bullet trains. Provide people with other options and I can guarantee automobile congestion will no longer be such a problem.

 

Suburbia is the single biggest reason for road congestion. Everyone has to have their house with a yard and a driveway five miles from the nearest store. If you insist on your stupid American dream house in a white ethinc suburban enclave do not expect it to come without a long stupid drive to everywhere. The sprawl of the south and west belies the reality of urban living since these "urban" areas are nothing but vast low density suburbs where people are completely dependent on automobiles.

If you lived in a real city you could walk to the store and take the subway to work.

Really?
I was just in LA a few years ago and downtown does not look like that at all. There are all sorts of fancy new buildings and lots of new construction. The place is thriving. LA is buiding a new subway system to replace the trolleys that were dismantled in the 1950s. It was the dismantling of the trolley system that killed downtown LA. The new transit system is having a big effect in bringing it back.

 

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-04-20/local/29470037_1_sales-taxes-tax-revenue-property-taxes

 

Why build trains the urban crimnals can ride to the suburbs and rob the people who moved out of the cities to get away from that shti?

 

Based on what, exactly?

A hunch?

Evidence?

Bigotry?

 

Because suburbanites are wimps.

 

Why not allow suburbanites to enjoy all the benefits of urban life without having to sit in traffic all day?

I was in Boston last weekend for the Boston Bruins victory parade. Over 1.5million people attended, many of them from the suburbs. The trains and subways and buses operated at capacity and moved over 100,000 people per hour. The highways were parking lots and the parking lots were all full. Many suburbanites would have been physically unable to attend without the public transportation system.

There is a popular mis-perception that public transportation spreads crime when the opposite is what happens because public transportation spreads opportunity. Public transportation allows poor people who live in the city to commute to the suburbs for the low paying jobs that suburbanites will not take. Fast food operators and many other low wage employers consider the public transportation routes when siting their businesses. If there is no public transportation option wages need to be increased and employee turnover is significantly higher so they try to avoid these places.

The ignorant fears of urban terror spreading to middle class suburbia through public transportation has not born out. Instead it has engendered the absurd situation where a woman gets run over crossing a highway because there is no bus service to the mall where she worked because the mall management believed that buses would bring urban criminals. They never considered that it was buses that brought most of their janitors and food court workers and and many of the clerks in their stores.

 

Legal immigration is about 850,000-1 million per year. So...you are assuming another 500K-650K per year are illegal immigrants?

I suspect most of the 12 million illegal immigrants, of which maybe 1/2 of them drive cars, are not exactly those who are traveling our urban roadways doing 9-5 commuting to office and retail jobs. So how many of them are 'really' clogging the roadways?

The US adds about 1.2 million people per year simply through natural population growth. Now I'll bet many of these are the ones you'll find doing those 9-5 urban commuting...assuming they go out and get a job.

There are about 250 million registered vehicles in the USA. Your 1.5 million are slightly over 1/2% of the total drivers. Even if you assume all 12 million illegals are drivers, this is still less than 5% of all drivers.

So...do you really think all of our problems with the crumbling infrastructure and environment are caused by a few immigrants??

 

Rising crime, deteriorating school districts, and rising land prices in the main cities resulted in the flight of the middle class into the suburbs, which lengthened work commuting times, necessitating the use of more petrol. The huge increase in driving time compared to the past cannot be understood outside the context of race.

Another problem has been the overexpansion of cities, such that natural resources become necessary to transport in from long distances. These resources include lumber, fresh food, often water, and even the gravel used in cement. It becomes expensive to live in these cities, which have grown beyond the maximum size which their adjacent surrounding region can self-sustain. And most of the newer urban areas have not been designed well to enable people to live in such areas without a car. All the overcrowding and overexpansion has been fueled by immigration.

 

The Sierra Club had a Civil War with it's top officials loosing their positions of power because they came out in support of data that showed that Illegal Immigration was a huge threat and Immediant problen to the Enviornment & ecology of California (This was over 10 years ago)

 

The USAToday news company a few months ago concluded a multi-month investigation of the crime rates of the southern states in the USA who are supposedly greatly effected by illegal immigrants. In every single state, the crime rates are lower that ever before. The closer to the southern border the lower the crime rates.

The other issue is about illegal immigrants destroying the public education system and not paying like real Americans. Well, immigrants own and rent and lease property and all property is taxed which supports education. Other local and state sales taxes and lottery tickets, etc. which support education are also paid by immigrants.

I see you are outside of Shasta; I had an uncle who worked on building Shasta (*)(*)(*)(*), the bridges, and I5 through that area. Don't know how it is today but back then it was like living in the 1860's! I'm about 60 miles north of San Francisco, and because we have so much farming, migrant farm workers are very welcome here. They live and work and assimilate into our society and it works out great...

 

Most Bay Area folks have the Diversity at any cost ingrained into their souls from Jr. High School on so I forgive you on that but if you visit the Barrio Burbs of Mexifornia (Montebello) (City of Commerce) ( Paramount) (East Los Angeles /Highland Park South Pasadena)(North Long Beach) (Boyle Heights) or other regions ( Outskirts of Fresno/ Parlier) ( Stockton ) (Ceres) (Santa Maria) (Oxnard) you will realize that of the 15 million Illegals in America over 4 million of them are in our state and that up to 70% of them may not fully assimilate in their lifetimes (And reguardless of wether that number is much lower for their Children & Grand Children ) The Balkanization will continue with Multiculturalism being given Higher priority than American exceptionalism.

 

The main reason for this is that hispanics have been displacing black people from their tradtional black neighborhoods. The crime still goes on, it just gets spread to outlying areas as the blacks migrate away. Another interesting phenomena is that black crime rates suddenly went down after 2007. This has been referred to as the "Obama Effect", as it is speculated that black young adults feel they are no longer "opressed" since there is now a "black man in the white house". It is unknown whether or how long this effect will last after a new president is elected.

Here are some statistics for the state of California, with year, population, murder rates, and vehicle thefts:

year: 1960
population: 15,717,204
murders: 616
vehicle thefts: 53,453

year: 1980
population: 23,532,680
murders: 3,411
vehicle thefts: 174,834

year: 2000
population: 33,871,648
murders: 2,079
vehicle thefts: 182,035

year: 2010
population: 37,253,956
murders: 1,809
vehicle thefts: 152,524

In general, what has been happening is that black people have been leaving the state of California, and so the murder and rape rates have been going down. There was also a mild recession in the 1980's, along with the Los Angeles race riots, they may have contributed to an increase in crime at that time. But theft rates have been increasing, or not going down as fast as the violent crime rate. Robbery rates are not a good indicator, because of the increasing class segregation of housing, and the rise of gated communities.

But note how California population doubled in only 50 years, despite the massive exodus of whites and blacks seeking more affordable housing (and less congested main roads) elsewhere.
In 2005 California had the second-highest domestic population out-flow of any state. Since December 2009, more than 500,000 more people have left California than have moved to the state from other parts of the USA.

 

If those pop stats are correct then there are at least 5-7 mil illegals in our state .

 

or children of illegal immigrants.

(the white population in California has a replacement rate less than 2, meaning that white people are not having a enough children to replace their current numbers, so their numbers are declining)

I read one estimate that nearly half of the young adults in California are children of recent immigrants!
(source: http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/412203-young-children.pdf )


The one bright spot in all of this is that the statistics clearly show that hispanics, although still 3 times more likely to commit crime than whites, are still significantly less likely to commit crime (especially violent crime) than blacks.


Getting back to the subject, the traffic is just horrible in southern California. The roads just were not meant for so many cars, and it is difficult to widen the roads (they have already been widened several times before) because the roads are right up against peoples houses. And the new developments that have been built in California are very high density- tiny yards with the houses almost right up against eachother. There are just too many people! Here is a picture from Orange County:
http://sciencedude.ocregister.com/files/2009/06/octrafficjam-copy1.jpg



No, there is no big car accident up ahead. This is just how it is in the morning and the evening right after everyone is driving home from work. Fridays are even worse!

Here is the congested roads in Atlanta, Georgia:



For some people, it might be difficult to imagine being stuck in the congestion for several hours every day as one tries to get to and from their job. Increasing population from immigration certainly takes its toll on many city and suburban residents, in the form of wasted time and frustration. If you live in one of these areas, take a look inside the cars at the drivers. 50-70 percent will be hispanic, perhaps another 10-20 percent will be asian.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/8163121/detail.html

 

I live seventy five miles south of SF. I hope you have an auto accident with an illegal alien without a license or auto insurance. That will teach you. I hope your kids go to school with illegals and are held back. I hope illegal aliens have a profound effect on the lives of those you love.

 

Dude, forgive them for they are not old enough to remember the Heaven on earth that California was in the 60's & early 70's just as I am not old enought to know how Great America(And California) was in the 40's & 50's. The Brainwarshing & revisionist history they have been put through is impregnable.

 

I suspect more than that.
Los Angeles has Special Order 40, police can't ask about legal status.
There are sanctuary cities.
Schools, hospitals, etc. can't ask.
Lots of farms needing "unskilled" labor (an illegal has a much higher productivity than a 2nd generation Hispanic).

Even the left of center LA Times put the impact of illegals on the California budget at $10B.

And, you are right, California was a much more energetic, productive, state in 60's thru 80's.

 

First, I was born and raised in Los Angeles.

In CA there are only 2.5 to 3 million illegal immigrants.

Regarding assimilation, read a few articles;

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Report-says-assimilation-working-well-641153.php

http://www.nysun.com/new-york/report-immigrants-assimilating-more-rapidly-in-ny/76273/

 

Great information but the key point in the USAToday report was that illegal immigrants were not causing more crime as so many prefer to believe. The article directly mentions the governor of AZ pissing and moaning about all the crime from illegals yet AZ in the border areas has lower crime than other states!

With or without illegal immigrants, the demographics of the USA, and particularly in regional areas, is rapidly changing. By 2050 the US population will have 25% Hispanics. This means in the more concentrated areas it might be 50% or 75% or 100%. This also means they have enough critical mass to influence politics and government. The entire southern one-half of the USA will see the most drastic changes...