Our politicians need to stop kicking the can down Bermuda’s increasingly ill-maintained and potholed roads.

After years of stopgap measures, piecemeal and patchwork repairs and pared-down funding, Bermuda must finally establish a comprehensive long-term plan for upgrading our roads, bridges and other infrastructure essentials.

Three years ago the Government balked at paying the $340,000 fee that global professional services firm KPMG had asked for to provide an across-the-board blueprint that could serve as the basis for a Bermuda national infrastructure plan.

Bermuda was then still in the throes of the worst economic downturn in its modern history. Belt-tightening had become the new standing order for all government departments after years of sometimes extravagantly wasteful overspending.

So the decision to forego so large an outlay to a private consultancy was an understandable, short-term expediency for a recently elected administration eager to demonstrate that it was responsive to taxpayers’ wishes and intent on making good on its cost-cutting campaign promises.

But, in hindsight, voters’ long-term interests might have been far better served by going ahead with an overall strategy for repairing and modernising Bermuda’s deteriorating and increasingly decrepit infrastructure.

The reality is Bermuda is attempting to operate a 21st-century society and economy while dependent on an infrastructure that, in some places, dates back to the Victorian era.

The Causeway, for instance, was originally constructed in 1871 and was obviously only ever intended to carry horse-drawn traffic.

In addition to its age and design limitations, it has been damaged and partially rebuilt any number of times after sustaining repeated batterings from hurricanes throughout its almost 150-year history. No amount of patching up, shoring up or tarting up can camouflage that the narrow and crumbling Causeway is manifestly inadequate for meeting our modern-day transportation needs.

The seemingly never-ending series of temporary repair jobs, which keep this essential link to the East End and Bermuda’s only airport functioning, are simply postponing an inevitable day of reckoning; not actually averting it.

After Hurricane Fabian inflicted near-critical damage to its support structure in 2003, the government of the day did look into the feasibility of constructing a permanent replacement for the Causeway.

The possible alternatives included a true bridge, built on or near the site of the existing Causeway, as well as additional roadways and bridges connecting Coney Island to Ferry Reach — an idea first floated when the American military began constructing its East End fortifications in 1940, but never followed through on.

There was even a somewhat fanciful, and probably prohibitively expensive, proposal for an underwater tunnel connecting the main island to St George and St David’s.

In February 2010, however, plans to replace the Causeway were quietly shelved. By then the global economic crisis was in full swing and Bermuda would have been hard-pressed to fund such a significant infrastructure project.

Public reaction to the news was muted to the point of inaudibility. The emergency situation that had existed immediately after Fabian devastated the structure was just another distant memory by that time. And with so many other pressing problems to hand, and so little money available, building a more suitable replacement for the Causeway no longer seemed like a priority.

More’s the pity. Because, while there certainly are some merits — both practical and economic — to contentious plans for a new Bermuda airport, such a bespoke multimillion-dollar facility will be of very little use to the island if the next hurricane delivers the death blow to the Causeway.

The Causeway is, of course, just the most conspicuous example of what needs attention in Bermuda’s dilapidated public infrastructure. There are many other areas that risk becoming equally degraded and compromised and which are in increasingly urgent need of remedial work.

Money continues to be tight in the immediate post-recessionary period. So it is imperative that we evaluate, prioritise and address our most pressing infrastructure concerns in ways which best meet our needs and make the best use of our limited resources.

Continuing to approach these projects in the seemingly random and haphazard manner that has become the trademark of successive Bermuda governments is no longer an acceptable option and has never been a particularly efficacious one.

As Greenrock director Jonathan Starling remarked this week, not enough is being done to maintain or to enhance Bermuda’s infrastructure for the long-term demands that will be made of it.

“There’s a risk to engage in short-term initiatives without considering the long-term sustainability of them,” he said. “We need to be smart in our infrastructure investments and place sustainability at the centre of such decisions, rather than a short-term vision of fleeting profit and long-term costs.”

The director of the Bermuda environmental charity went on to call on the Government to revisit the idea of adopting a national infrastructure plan.

He was absolutely right to do so, for time is running out. Frankly, we are fast approaching the end of the road down which we’ve been kicking this particular can and there will be a heavy price to pay for continued inaction.