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Archive for the ‘Guests on The Infra Blog’ Category

Conversations with infrastructure experts and stakeholders from around the U.S.

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Guest on The Infra Blog: Henry Petroski, Historian & Author of The Road Taken: The History and Future of America’s Infrastructure

Wednesday, April 20th, 2016
Henry Petroski Professor of Civil Engineering in Pratt School of Engineering

Henry Petroski is an Aleksandar C. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering at Duke University, as well as an author and historian. His most recent book is titled The Road Taken: The History and Future of America’s Infrastructure.

Roads that aren’t paved correctly should not be paid for. They should be redone. If we have something, work done in our house and it’s not done right, we expect the contractor to redo it. We don’t just write another check. I believe unfortunately that too many times the government that represents the people and spends the people’s tax money does do just that.

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Guest on The Infra Blog: Rachel Gutter, Director, Center for Green Schools

Wednesday, April 6th, 2016
Rachel Gutter, Director, Center for Green Schools

Rachel Gutter is Senior Vice President of Knowledge at the U.S. Green Building Council and Director of the Center for Green Schools.

“It’s been 20 years since the federal government published a comprehensive inventory of K-12 public school facilities, and at the time…more than 15,000 schools in the United States had air that was actually unfit to breathe. And then they dropped it for the last 20 years…because of our limited insight into the conditions of the school facilities, we have no sense of just how pervasive the problem is. But just like we know that lurking across these hundred thousand K-12 public schools there are thousands of schools that still have air that’s unfit to breathe, we know that there are likely thousands of schools that have water that’s unfit for drinking. And that’s not acceptable.”

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Guest on The Infra Blog: Keith Roe, Incoming President, American Society of Mechanical Engineers

Tuesday, March 29th, 2016
Keith Roe, ASME

K. Keith Roe, PE, has been selected as the president-nominee of The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for the 2016-2017 term of office. Roe, a fellow of ASME, has been an active member of the Society for more than 40 years.

I think one of the biggest challenges in this area is getting people to understand what the issues are…It’s an important thing and it really is so important to our economy. We need to do a better job, all of us, at getting the message across. People need to understand that those roads, those bridges, the highways, the electrical infrastructure, the oil and gas infrastructure, our ports and harbors, these are all vital to our world commerce.

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Guest on The Infra Blog: Dennis Slater, President and Secretary, Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM)

Thursday, March 10th, 2016
Dennis Slater, President and Secretary, AEM

Dennis Slater is President and Secretary of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM). He oversees operation of all Association programs, which focus on core service areas of market information and equipment statistics, public policy representation, product safety and technical support, and trade shows.

“…Equipment manufacturers build the machines that make America. They build the machines that harvest crops and feed America and feed the world. Originally this was something that we just explained to our members, and we decided it’s not good enough. You have to also ask your members, you have to explain to their employees so they get involved in this and understand that their jobs depend on policies that support their jobs…This year, especially, we’ve gone out there now to the candidates that are running to say “what’s your manufacturing platform? What are your solutions for infrastructure?”’

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Posted in Competitiveness, Employment, Funding, Guests on The Infra Blog, Jobs, Policy, Private Investment, The Infra Blog

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Guest on The Infra Blog: Michael Melaniphy, President & CEO, American Public Transportation Association (APTA)

Wednesday, February 24th, 2016
Michael Melaniphy on The Infra Blog

Michael P. Melaniphy is president and chief executive officer of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and president of the American Public Transportation Foundation. Melaniphy’s entire career has been in public transportation, with more than 30 years of both public and private sector leadership experience.

“As a kid growing up you had a binary choice: you were either a bus kid or you were a car kid. You were one of the two. And you look at today’s environment and it’s a multi-modal environment. We have evolved as a society to understand that now it’s about mobility choices…So as we look at what are the best utilizations of our scarce resources in a community, people are looking at the full assortment of choices, and as we look at the unbelievable growth that’s going to come in the population set of this nation we’ve found that paving our way to a solution is not the best choice.”

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Posted in Buses, Guests on The Infra Blog, High Speed Rail, Public Transportation, Rail, The Infra Blog, Transit

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Guest on The Infra Blog: Richard Harnish, Executive Director, Midwest High Speed Rail Association

Monday, February 1st, 2016
Richard Harnish on The Infra Blog

Richard Harnish is the Executive Director of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association (MHSRA), a member-supported non-profit organization advocating for fast, frequent and dependable trains linking the entire Midwest.

Here in Illinois we’ve been seeing a lot more interest in doing true high speed rail and we think we’re close to an important next step there. And I was out in Sacramento two months ago and touched the first car shell for that line. That’s something that most people don’t know: those trains really are under construction, and the stations are under construction. So we’re very close to a major tipping point.

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Guest on The Infra Blog: Jeff Morales, CEO, California High-Speed Rail Authority

Tuesday, January 26th, 2016
Jeff Morales, CEO, California High-Speed Rail Authority

Jeff Morales is the Chief Executive Officer of the California High-Speed Rail Authority and has a distinguished record of experience managing large and complex transportation issues and projects. As the former Director of the California Department of Transportation, Morales managed a $10 billion program and more than 23,000 employees working to build, maintain and operate the largest state transportation system in the U.S.

“California, with the leadership of Governor Brown and the legislature—we’ve taken the position that we’re going to advance this program with or without additional federal support, and we’ve committed to doing that and are doing that, and we’ve got major construction underway in the Central Valley on the first segment.”

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Guest on The Infra Blog: Rod Diridon, Sr., Emeritus Executive Director, Mineta Transportation Institute

Tuesday, December 29th, 2015
Rod Diridon on The Infra Blog

Rod Diridon, Sr., served as executive director of the Mineta Transportation Institute from 1995, four years after the Institute’s creation, until 2014 when he moved to Emeritus status. Mr. Diridon has chaired more than 100 international, national, state and local programs, most related to transit and the environment.

“The minimum gas prices around the world are more than double, sometimes triple, the United States…Now the public in America wants a gas tax increase: the polls show it. The polls show that if the gas tax increase will be used for transportation and infrastructure improvements, then the public supports it sometimes as high as 80%…But the U.S. can’t do it because Congress doesn’t have the courage.”

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Our Future with the FAST Act: Ed Rendell, Former PA Governor & Building America’s Future (BAF) Co-Founder

Monday, December 14th, 2015
Our Future with the FAST Act: Ed Rendell

“I do believe with a new Congress and a new administration, whatever the configuration of that is…I think we have a chance to get a blue-ribbon, six-month commission to propose ways to make significant investments in the American infrastructure. And I think that would lead to doing something like all of the G20 countries have done, and that’s a long-term infrastructure revitalization program…I think with Presidential and Congressional leadership looking at one of the most significant long-range problems facing this country, I think we have a chance to start anew. If we had such a commission I would love to be part of it or chair it, and I would do it as a labor of love.”

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Our Future with the FAST Act: Bud Wright, Executive Director, AASHTO

Thursday, December 10th, 2015
Our Future with the FAST Act: Bud Wright

“I think all of those who have been surface transportation advocates have in fact been heard by the Congress, because they are supportive of this program, but that said, many of those same groups who are advocating for transportation investment have also made the point that what we really need is that sustainable source of revenue for the longer term. And the Congress did not address that issue. They chose to use what revenues do flow into the Highway Trust Fund but are insufficient to support today’s program levels and supplement those with general funds.”

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