Send message to Authors

Short abstract

We propose the term “infrastructural triage” to describe the prioritization method for repairing aging bridges, in order to address the legacy of the massive aging of public infrastructure, which we conceptualize as an “emergency engineering” issue.

Long abstract

Much of the infrastructure in European countries was constructed between 1950 and 1970 as part of post-war reconstruction effort. This includes energy production facilities, transportation networks, public buildings, housing, and utility distribution systems (water, gas, electricity, and communication). Consequently, a whole generation of infrastructure is aging simultaneously, presenting a significant challenge for the coming decades in terms of infrastructure management and politics. Moreover, this “age of maintenance” (Denis & Florentin, 2025) is characterized by public disinvestment policies that have turned the management of public infrastructure into what we call an “emergency engineering” issue in the pursuit of resilient futures.

Through an inquiry into the activities of the SPW-MI, the Belgian public infrastructure manager, involving interviews, ethnography and document analysis, with a particular focus on the cases of aging and deteriorating bridges, we demonstrate how the organization’s routines and conceptual frameworks are being reconfigured to address this more-than-now phenomenon of aging infrastructure. We propose the term “infrastructural triage” to describe the active waiting method adopted by the public administration to cope with this situation. Similar to practices in emergency medicine, the SPW-MI implemented a triage strategy with specific criteria in 2024 to address the financial constraints and backlog of repair and maintenance projects. This strategy prioritizes the repair of certain bridges over others and involves abandoning those that cannot be saved to preserve the rest. We argue that infrastructural triage perfectly exemplifies postponement practices and the impracticability of maintaining the extensive infrastructure that our societies have constructed and continue to build.