John Hennessy III,
P.E.
AMERICAN RIVERS
The report is not a list of the nation’s “worst” or most polluted rivers, but rather it highlights rivers confronted by critical decisions that will determine their future…The report presents alternatives to proposals that would damage rivers, identifies those who make the crucial decisions, and points out opportunities for the public to take action on behalf of each listed river.
THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS
Cities in the United States play a substantial role in funding critical infrastructure with investments in capital projects such as roads, bridges, schools, and libraries. For example, all local governments accounted for 35 percent of total highway and transit spending from 2008 through 2012. To pay for these projects, cities often sell bonds on the municipal market.
ENVIRONMENT AMERICA
Our transition to a clean energy system has already begun. But, with the need to reduce the pollution that causes global warming growing more urgent every day, we need to step up the pace. To maximize the benefits of moving to 100 percent renewable energy, leaders at all levels must act to accelerate our progress. America’s energy policy should facilitate mass deployment of clean energy solutions, support research and development of new clean energy technologies, and keep much of our coal, oil and gas reserves in the ground.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
BUREAU OF TRANSPORTATION STATISTICS
Bike-share systems typically operate independently of local transit authorities. However, most bike-share docking stations (86.3 percent) can be found near local public transportation stops (transit bus, commuter rail, heavy rail, light rail, and transit ferry). These locations offer modal choice and the opportunity to connect between modes. Transit bus is the most typical connection, with 84.2 percent (2,236) of bike-share stations located a block or less from a transit bus stop.
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.”
View this complete post...The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) is hosting a webinar on Wednesday, April 13, 2016 at 1:30pm ET in order to discuss the impacts of climate change on engineering services and civil infrastructure…The potentially severe impacts on civil infrastructure from climate change require updating infrastructure policy to integrate climate resilience planning into current decision-making. For the engineering profession, this means new service opportunities.
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A growing number of state departments of transportation are leveraging innovative drone technology to creatively improve safety, reduce traffic congestion and save money. This Transportation TV Special Report explores the many ways in which state DOTs are using drones. According to a March 2016 survey by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, 33 state departments of transportation have or are exploring, researching, testing or using unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly referred to as drones, to inspect bridges and assist with clearing vehicle crashes, among other innovative applications. AASHTO has also prepared an on-line fact sheet that highlights the many benefits of UAVs.
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21ST CENTURY SCHOOL FUND
NATIONAL COUNCIL ON SCHOOL FACILITIES
THE CENTER FOR GREEN SCHOOLS
School facilities represent the second largest sector of public infrastructure spending, after highways, and yet we have no comprehensive national data source on K–12 public school infrastructure. Even at the state level, school facilities information is often scant. The dearth of official data and standards for our nation’s public school infrastructure has left communities and states working largely on their own to plan for and provide high-quality facilities…These realities inspired our three organizations to assemble the best available state-by-state data and propose a standards-based framework by which we can benchmark the nation’s investment.
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Wind Program is committed to helping the nation secure cost-competitive sources of renewable energy through the development and deployment of innovative wind power technologies. By investing in improvements to wind plant design, technology development, and operation as well as developing tools to identify the highest quality wind resources, the Wind Program serves as a leader in making wind energy technologies more competitive with traditional sources of energy and a larger part of our nation’s renewable energy portfolio.
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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