Six maps that show the anatomy of America’s vast infrastructure

President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to invest about $550 billion in new infrastructure projects across the country was a central theme in his campaign. “We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it,” Trump said. Details are still murky, but it appears that the plan will rely on tax credits to spur private investment.

The maps you are about to see show the massive scope of America’s infrastructure using data from OpenStreetMap and various government sources. They provide a glimpse into where that half-trillion dollars may be invested.

[ Clinton’s plans might add billions to the national debt. Trump’s could add trillions.]

The electric grid

There are more than 3,300 power utilities and about 7,700 power plants that produce and distribute electricity to homes, businesses and other consumers. That electricity travels through more than 160,000 miles of high-voltage electric transmission lines that reach into every nook and cranny of the country.

Experts describe the nation’s electrical grid as a patchwork of utilities, with transmission and distribution facilities — some dating to the 1800s — that will ultimately break down unless hundreds of billions of dollars are invested.

“When we started building what’s known as the electric grid, Thomas Edison didn’t sit down and develop a national plan — we built the grid as we went,” said Otto J. Lynch from the Committee on American Infrastructure at the American Society of Civil Engineers.

[ Mapping how the United States generates its electricity ]

But decades-old lines are bearing a heavier load than they were designed to carry. “We put more strain on our electric grid than any other country in the world, by far,” he said.

Not everybody thinks that this is a smart way to spend billions of dollars, though. Randal O’Toole, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, wrote in a blog post that government investment in our electrical infrastructure may not be necessary. “Private companies and public agencies are already taking care of this kind [of infrastructure], so if Trump’s plan applied to them, they would get tax credits for spending money they would have spent anyway,” he wrote. “That’s not revenue neutral.”

Bridges

A 2016 study by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association found that nearly 10 percent of the 600,000 bridges in the United States are structurally deficient. Each state performs its own inspections to determine whether a bridge — from those that span rivers and creeks to those that span highways  — is deficient. This presents a unique issue with creating a consistent set of standards from state to state. 

Iowa has the highest number of structurally deficient bridges, with about 20 percent of its bridges — more than 5,000 — classified as such. According to the National Bridge Inventory database, this means that the bridge “has one or more structural defects that require attention.”  In Nebraska, older spans make up 60 percent of deficient bridges — 1 in 5 bridges were built in the early 1930s. Delaware, on the other hand, has a more modern collection of bridges, yet 75 percent of the state’s structurally deficient bridges were built within the past 50 years.

[ Trump chooses Elaine L. Chao to be transportation secretary ]

Pipelines

There are about 150,000 miles of oil pipelines and more than 1.5 million miles of natural gas pipelines in the United States. Since 2010, fracking booms in western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Oklahoma and west Texas have led to an increased production of natural gas, along with the need to expand pipeline infrastructure.

Much of the domestic oil and gas production comes from the Gulf of Mexico, and nearly half of the country’s refining capacity lies along the Gulf Coast.

[ A proposed gas pipeline and the fight of a lifetime]

But building infrastructure to transport the product from one place to another is not always easy or politically expedient. The recent controversy surrounding the Dakota Access Pipeline illustrates the difficulties in threading a pipeline across hundreds of miles.

In addition, several high-profile oil and gas pipeline accidents, such as one in San Bruno, Calif.,  that killed eight, have presented the need for better pipeline management and improved maintenance.

Railroads

More than 160,000 miles of track, 76,000 rail bridges, and 800 tunnels across the nation are shared by hundreds of operators moving freight and passengers. Tens of millions of riders, mostly in the Northeast, rely on Amtrak and other commuter rail services each year.

The busiest freight rail corridor in the country originates in Wyoming where coal is shipped to power plants in the Midwest.

Airports

Our airways are the busiest in the world. In a three-day span in early November, Flightradar24, which tracks live air traffic, showed more than 160,000 flights arriving or departing U.S. airports. The most heavily-traveled routes are between Chicago and New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and Los Angeles and Chicago.

During the first presidential debate, Trump praised the airports of Dubai, Qatar and China, comparing them to U.S. airports such as LaGuardia, Kennedy, LAX and Newark. “Our airports are like from a third-world country,” he said.

[ A visual guide to Iran’s booming international air traffic]

And he was, at least a little, right. According to the 2016 Skytrax World Airport Awards, the highest-rated airport in the United States was Denver International Airport, which came in 28th. Kennedy airport was 59th, and LAX barely cracked the top 100, coming in 91st.

Meanwhile, airports in Asia and the Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East ranked consistently higher.

Ports and inland waterways

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that more than 95 percent of overseas trade produced or consumed by the United States moves through our ports. According to the World Shipping Council, the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach rank in the top 25 busiest ports in the world, and several ports on the East Coast rank in the top 50.

Our inland waterways — especially the Mississippi River system — allow for the transport of goods between inland ports such as Pittsburgh and Cincinnati to those on the ocean. This infrastructure is critical for the transportation of coal from the hills of Appalachia to power plants upstream and downstream.

 What this means for Trump’s plan

Brian Pallasch, the managing director of government relations and infrastructure initiatives at the American Society of Civil Engineers, says that Trump’s lack of specificity about his plans is a good thing. “It allows for the infrastructure community to have more input as the administration develops the plan, allowing us to have a broader conversation,” he said.

O’Toole disagrees. “The problem with a top-down solution such as Trump’s proposal is that one size doesn’t fit all. Different kinds of infrastructure have different kinds of needs, and the financial solution will be different for each one,” he said.

In Congress, his plan may find more support among Democrats than Republicans. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) has expressed a lack of appetite for a huge surge in infrastructure spending. “We passed the biggest highway bill, the long-term highway bill, for the first time since the 1990s just a few months ago,” he said. “That's already in place at 10 percent above baseline spending on mass transit and highways.”