The Infra Blog

Update: The Federal High-Speed Rail Program: A Post-Election Reality Check

Wednesday, November 10th, 2010

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s decision to cancel the proposed commuter trans-Hudson rail tunnel (ARC) offers another example of a resolve by the new wave of fiscally conservative governors to rein in spending on public works that, in their judgment, present an unacceptable level of risk and cost. While Christie’s decision was widely condemned as shortsighted by members of the infrastructure lobby, it was supported as fiscally prudent by a majority of New Jersey voters. (By a margin of 51 to 39 percent according to a Rutgers University poll).

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Tunnels USA Conference: Boston, December 6th-8th

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010
Tunnels USA Home

Tunnels are safe structures. Every day many tens of thousands use them without incidence. However, tunnel safety cannot be taken for granted.

Tunnel Engineers from throughout the USA will come together to share individual, practical experiences and will join an audience of leading contractors and cutting edge solution providers to identify best practice in the design and operation of tunnels across the country.

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High-Speed Rail Debate Refuses to Quiet Down

Monday, November 1st, 2010

In a November 1 column in the Washington Post reproduced below, the respected economist Robert J. Samuelson attacks the Administration’s high-speed rail program as “wasteful spending masquerading as a respectable social cause.”…Samuelson’s blunt assessment appears in stark contrast to the Administration’s confident prediction, in the words of top federal transportation officials, of “a world class network of high-speed corridors” that would connect “80 percent of America in the next 25 years at a cost of $500 billion.” How can professional judgments be so diametricaly opposed and whose judgment will prevail?

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Guest on The Infra Blog: Robert Paaswell, Ph.D., Executive Director, CUNY Institute for Urban Systems

Monday, November 1st, 2010
paaswell-robert

Dr. Robert Paaswell, Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering at the City College of New York, is also the founding Director of the City University Institute for Urban Systems, a major University-wide initiative to examine the intersection of new technology, changing institutional structure and innovative finance on the provision of infrastructure in the 21 st Century. Paaswell is Director Emeritus of the federally supported University Transportation Research Center (UTRC).

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Prospects for Transportation Legislation and Other Infrastructure Ventures

Wednesday, October 27th, 2010

What are the prospects for surface transportation legislation in the 112th Congress? We explored this question informally in conversations on the sidelines of several recent meetings and conferences, by reviewing debates on the National Journal’s Transportation Blog and by soliciting observations from colleagues in the transportation community.

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Guest on The Infra Blog: Samuel Schwartz, P.E., President, CEO & Founder, Sam Schwartz Engineering

Monday, October 25th, 2010
Sam Schwartz

Sam Schwartz has nearly 40 years of experience in the field of Transportation Engineering and Traffic Safety. He is considered a worldwide authority in traffic, highway, bridge, transit and parking systems. He was New York City’s traffic commissioner and the chief engineer for highways, bridges, ferries and other New York City infrastructure. Schwartz specializes in development of urban traffic programs utilizing his expert knowledge in traffic demand management, transit systems management, traffic calming and transportation planning and engineering. He has been in the vanguard of Intelligent Transportation Systems development and wrote the seminal paper, Intelligent Traffic, which received the International Institute of Transportation Award in 1985. Schwartz is also the author of Gridlock Sam, a popular New York Daily News column addressing traffic matters in New York City. His links with multimedia networks are extensive, spanning radio, television and the internet.

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Guest on The Infra Blog: Andrew Herrmann, P.E., SECB, F.ASCE, President-Elect, American Society of Civil Engineers

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010
herrmann-andrew

Andrew Herrmann, P.E., SECB, F.ASCE, is President-Elect of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) for 2011. He will be inaugurated in late October at ASCE’s 140th Annual Conference in Las Vegas and will succeed to the Presidency in 2012. He is a Principal of Hardesty & Hanover, LLP, a transportation consulting engineering firm founded in 1887 and headquartered in New York City.

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Living in Denial

Monday, October 18th, 2010

The reaction of various advocacy groups to President Obama’s recent call for a $50 billion stimulus spending plan for transportation infrastructure was predictable. They applauded the President’s initiative and thought that Congress should promptly approve the spending request…But convincing the next Congress of the need to act, whether to fund the infrastructure “down payment” of $50 billion or to authorize a proposed $500 billion multi-year surface transportation program, will not be easy.

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Obama’s $50 Billion Infrastructure Proposal

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

“Today, the average American household is forced to spend more on transportation each year than food. Our roads, clogged with traffic, cost us $80 billion a year in lost productivity and wasted fuel. Our airports, choked with passengers, cost nearly $10 billion a year in productivity losses from flight delays. And in some cases, our crumbling infrastructure costs American lives. It should not take another collapsing bridge or failing levee to shock us into action.”
-President Barack Obama

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The Miller Center Proposes a New Transportation Agenda

Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

In the relentless 24/7 news cycle of the news media, the release of another policy report by a group of experts causes hardly a ripple. At best it earns a perfunctory mention by the news services and in a few trade publications, only to be buried and forgotten in the next day’s avalanche of fresh news. The report “Well Within Reach: America’s New Transportation Agenda,” published by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia on October 5, deserves a more considerate treatment. The report not only stands out because it is the product of a distinguished bipartisan group of national thought leaders in transportation but also because it shows a keen grasp of the issues surrounding contemporary transportation policy.

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