Jul 28 2010
By Max Frazier, ASCE Government Relations Summer Intern The Hunter’s Point Bridge has been going through the approval stage for the past ten years in the San Francisco Bay Area. The bridge is a major financial and land-use component of the 10,500 home project proposed by Lennar Developers located in the old Hunter’s Point [...]
Jul 27 2010
The failure this weekend of an 88 year old dam in Iowa has once again brought the nation’s attention to the poor state of our nation’s aging infrastructure and shown us the devastation that can be caused when that infrastructure fails. There are more than 85,000 dams in the United States, and the average age [...]
Jul 09 2010
By Max Frazier, Intern The “Gas Tax” is something that has remained untouched for 17 years, according to the Washington Post “the federal tax of 18.4 cents per gallon has not gone up since 1993.” While low taxes on fuel has helped to boost the economy by cheap means of transportation, as some representatives [...]
May 10 2010
After a week of water problems and some publicized accidents during the Big Dig, some in Boston are wondering if the people in charge of the infrastructure: the politicians, the municipal managers, and yes, even the civil engineers, know what they’re doing. It’s especially worrying that the disruptions came from relatively new infrastructure installments. [...]
Jan 04 2010
An interesting and thought-provoking op-ed piece ran in Sunday’s Washington Post, “On Issues Like Global Warming, Scientists Need to Speak Up”, by Chris Mooney. Despite the title, the piece has very little to do with the question of whether global warming is happening, why it’s happening or any of the other hot-button issues surrounding this [...]
Dec 14 2009
On December 2nd President Obama declared the month ‘Critical Infrastructure Protection Month’ and pledged that his administration will keep our nation’s roads, bridges, water systems, and other critical infrastructure safe and resilient from natural disaster or attack. President Obama also drew attention to the National Infrastructure Protection Plan in the Department of Homeland Security, which [...]
Nov 06 2009
The news this morning wasn’t good: unemployment in October climbed to a twenty-five year high of 10.2 percent and is expected to grow. More troubling for those of us in the infrastructure field, last month the economy also lost about 62,000 construction jobs. While the Obama administration estimates on recovery.gov that as of October 30, [...]
Oct 16 2009
The Virginia Section of ASCE this week released its 2009 Report Card for Virginia’s Infrastructure. The Old Dominion’s infrastructure rated a D+ overall. The section’s first Report Card graded 13 infrastructure categories: aviation facilities, bridges, dams, drinking water systems, energy, parks and recreation, ports and navigable waterways, rail and transit, roads, schools, solid waste [...]
Aug 14 2009
You may have heard news reports of unruly Town Hall Meetings with legislators across the country, in most cases centered on the issue of healthcare reform. Many civil engineers (and other citizens) may be thinking, “I don’t want to get involved in that mess!” Town Hall Meetings are the very essence of democracy. They [...]
Aug 07 2009
A water main installed in the 1870s- yes the horse and buggy 1870s- ruptured this morning in New York City, causing major flooding and transportation disruptions. The NY Times City Blog paints a pretty grim picture: A 12-inch cast-iron water main installed in 1870 broke in Lower Manhattan early Friday morning, flooding about a [...]