John Hennessy III,
P.E.
The American Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) and the HeroX crowdsourcing platform are presenting a challenge to bring attention to infrastructure in the USA…The hosts hope to create “an incentivized platform for innovative ideas to thrive and help shape America’s growth in the 21st Century.” They hope to gather ideas, vote for the most impactful ideas and projects, and even enter a “build” phase in July 2016.
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2016 ACEC Convention and Legislative SummitThe 2016 ACEC Annual Convention and Legislative Summit is coming to Washington, DC this Spring. Attendees can expect a wide variety of presentations, forums, keynote speeches, educational sessions and much more.
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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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BOSTON UNIVERSITY
INITIATIVE ON CITIES
Mayors overwhelmingly believe that physical infrastructure is one of the greatest challenges facing their city. Mayors were asked to identify the greatest challenge they face which falls outside their control—in other words, a challenge that is typically the purview of other levels of government. “Think about the next five years and beyond. What ONE trend or issue that you primarily think should be a state and/or federal matter will pose the biggest challenge to your city?” Importantly, this question did not query mayors about challenges to their cities generally, which was explored in last year’s report.
ADVANCED ENERGY ECONOMY
The pages of this report are filled with technologies that deliver a variety of benefits to our energy system and enable a transformation that will result in reliability, affordability, consumer choice, and innovation across the board. This transformation is well underway in every state across the country as utilities, businesses, and customers embrace the advantages of advanced energy.
TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD
This study reviews the demand for interregional travel in the United States and the uncertainties that arise in supplying transportation services and infrastructure to accommodate it. Consideration is given to relevant experience in other countries, especially in providing intercity passenger rail. A central finding is that appropriate analytical tools and up-to-date data on long-distance travel in the United States are lacking, which complicates decisions about how to invest in the country’s interregional corridors in ways that will serve future travelers most effectively and further other policy goals such as protecting the environment, enhancing safety, and curbing energy use.
AMERICAN ACTION FORUM
Written by Emil H. Frankel
n its re-affirmation of a continuing federal role in surface transportation, FAST Act is an important statute. However, this legislation continues a trend toward a growing dependence on general funds for these programs and stagnation in the general level of federal funding for surface transportation. The inevitable result is a growing burden on states and localities to address the needs of an aging, deteriorating, and often-congested national surface transportation network.
BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
METROPOLITAN POLICY PROGRAM
With the recent passage of a new five-year, $305 billion surface transportation bill—Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act—Congress finally brokered a long-term agreement to address the nation’s infrastructure challenges. While the bill pumps needed spending into a range of highway, rail, and transit projects, albeit through some budgetary gimmicks, its most lasting achievement may center on freight.
INSTITUTE FOR ENERGY RESEARCH
While headlines have reported declining oil, gas, and coal prices, those declines do not deter from the fact that U.S. energy resources are valuable to our domestic economic growth. The most recent government estimate of those benefits was a 2012 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study, produced at the request of the House Budget Committee, which analyzed federal lease revenues that could be expected to arise from a proposal to open federal lands and waters to oil, gas, and coal extraction.
Animation from the United States Department of Transportation on the importance of seaports to the American economy. “Without ports, the economy stops,” but many of our nation’s ports are in need of updates.
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