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Get a unique, behind-the-scenes look at the BART crew working to keep our tracks safe. What does it mean to ‘build a better BART?’ These guys tell it how it is.
View this complete post...John Hennessy III,
P.E.
Take a ride on a Track Geometry Car, part of the specialized fleet that inspects the rails of the NYC subway.
View this complete post...AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS
IOWA SECTION
The 2015 Report Card for Iowa’s Infrastructure has been prepared to acquaint Iowans with the extent, condition and importance of the capital assets that support modern life. It is hoped that this information, along with the grades, will encourage awareness of and concern for these often under-appreciated facilities. Iowa’s ASCE members hope that the grades will alert citizens, media agencies, business leaders, and elected officials to the needs of the infrastructure and induce a commitment to giving it proper care and upkeep.
The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad (reporting marks CRIP, RI, ROCK) was a prominent (Class I) railroad in the midwestern United States, commonly known as the “Rock Island.” In 1854 when the line connected the Mississippi to Chicago and the East Coast, the event was marked by a large promotional voyage called the Grand Excursion. In 1856, the line crossed the Government Bridge, the first railroad bridge across the Mississippi, connecting farms in Iowa and beyond to Chicago.
View this complete post...New York City’s airports will get a major facelift with Governor Andrew Cuomo’s 2015 Opportunity Agenda.
The announcement doesn’t come as a surprise, given that LaGuardia recently suffered some very public infrastructure criticisms. Add to that over $5 billion in one-off legal settlements from Wall Street recently awarded to New York State, and you’ve got a perfect recipe for infrastructure investment.
View this complete post...Rail fans can still spot coal-laden boxcars from coast to coast, but today’s locomotives are increasingly likely to pull tankers full of crude oil. Largely stemming from the fracking boom in North Dakota, crude oil transportation by rail has reached unprecedented heights in past years. In response to a growing number of accidents–some on an apocalyptic scale, as in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec–ProPublica assembled an interactive map to let you know whose tankers carry crude oil, where they’re coming from, and where they’re going.
View this complete post...Earlier this year I argued that the up-front cost of local transportation projects, like light rail and bus rapid transit, aren’t really comparable to the cost of California’s high speed rail system. While all of these investments are fighting for the same dollars to some degree, their long-term balance sheets look very different: Local transit typically requires a persistent operating subsidy, whereas even the low-ridership estimates for high speed rail forecast a consistent operating profit. As a result, longer time horizons favor high speed rail, as profits gradually eat away at the high initial capital costs required to build out the network.
View this complete post...A train hauling two million gallons of crude oil from North Dakota had exploded in the Canadian town of Lac-Megantic, killing 47 people. Now regulators had to assure Americans a similar disaster wouldn’t happen south of the border, where the U.S. oil boom is sending highly volatile crude oil every day over aging, often defective rails in vulnerable railcars.
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Steve Anderson
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SteveAnderson@InfrastructureUSA.org
917-940-7125