5 lessons from abroad about how the U.S. could fix its broken infrastructure

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ride the Green line train from L'Enfant Plaza Metro Station, the day after an incident where a Yellow line train filled with smoke, leading to the death of one woman and forcing 80 passengers to seek medical attention. (Photo by Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post)

As hundreds of thousands of D.C. commuters tried to get to work on Wednesday during a 24-hour Metrorail shutdown for an emergency safety inspection, many might have wondered: Why is our infrastructure system so broken?

These five lessons from abroad might help understand what is going wrong in the U.S.

1. Germany has highways for bikes

German autobahns are renowned all over the world for having no general speed limit. Now, the country is at the forefront of a new kind of highway -- for bikes. German engineers recently finished construction on the first section of what will become a 62-mile long network of bike highways in and around the Western German city of Duisburg.

2. Switzerland, ranked the country with the world's best infrastructure, shows that good infrastructure depends on political commitment

Journalists walk through an emergency tunnel at a multifunction and emergency stop station of the NEAT Gotthard Base Tunnel during a media visit near the town of Sedrun, Switzerland March 10, 2016. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann)

According to the World Economic Forum, Switzerland has the world's best infrastructure, even though everyone who has been to the country in the center of Europe knows that its mountainous landscape is far from being perfect to build modern infrastructure systems.

For every highway or train line, construction workers need to tunnel through mountains and hills. Having one of the world's highest transport system densities, Switzerland primarily proves that it is governmental commitment to infrastructure that makes the difference.

3.  Money matters -- and banks aren't much interested in long-term projects

Given the United States' size, developing countries like India or China might be a better comparison than Switzerland. Writing in the Financial Times, Patrick Jenkins argues that it's all about money. Infrastructure projects often face financing gaps because banks have abandoned the idea of financing such long and massive projects. "This is partly a result of a shrunken risk appetite across banking. It is also thanks to tougher capital charges on such assets, imposed by global regulators," Jenkins writes.

4. In Copenhagen, you can travel on a driver-less metro running 24/7

One does not have to change the entire banking and financing system to improve American infrastructure, though. The example of Copenhagen shows that smaller steps might be equally helpful. The Copenhagen metro runs 24/7 because it operates without drivers.

5. This Japanese train could get you from San Francisco to New York City in seven hours

(FILES) This file picture taken on May 11, 2010 shows the Maglev (magnetic levitation) train on the experimental track in Tsuru, 100km west of Tokyo. Japan's state-of-the-art maglev train set a world speed record on April 21, 2015 in a test run near Mount Fuji, clocking more than 600 kilometers (373 miles) an hour. KATORU YAMANAKA/AFP/Getty Images

Japan's magnetic-levitation trains set a new world record last year when they reached 375 miles per hour on a test run. That means travelers could go from San Francisco to New York City in only seven hours because the trains do not touch the steel tracks due to magnetic power.

The "bullet" trains are primarily a prestige project. Critics have said the expensive investment makes little sense for a country like Japan that has a rapidly aging and declining population. Last year, U.S. officials appeared to show interest in implementing a similar system between Washington and Baltimore.