Infra Views

Coastal Vulnerability Assessment: City of St. Augustine, Florida

Thursday, December 21st, 2017
Sea Level Rise increments considered for the assessment - NOAA SLR curves

The City of St. Augustine is one of the three communities involved in the Community Resiliency Initiative Pilot Projects administered through the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) and funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The overall effort seeks to assess community vulnerability to projected increases in coastal flooding and develop strategies to improve resilience to the associated impacts.

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ACEC’S ENGINEERING INC. — Walking the Walk for Sustainability

Wednesday, December 20th, 2017
HDR - Washington, DC Office

In addition to providing solutions to meet client needs, member firms are creating their own facilities that demonstrate innovative sustainability.

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The Future of Equity in Cities

Thursday, December 14th, 2017
The Future of Equity in Cities - NLC

While many cities feel the immediate positive outcomes from wealth flooding into metropolitan regions, they also feel the negative impact on community members of varying income levels – particularly, those at the bottom that face increased housing prices, greater need for social services and growing concern for community safety. The income inequality and wealth gaps are at outsized levels, with the richest 0.1 percent holding the same amount of wealth as the bottom 90 percent. And when examined through a racial equity lens, the disparities become even starker; on average, white families have six times the wealth of African American and Hispanic families. This is where we are now. Unfortunately, the current policy environment at the national level isn’t focused on alleviating these inequities—cities are.

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The Fourth Regional Plan: Fixing The Institutions That Are Failing Us

Wednesday, December 13th, 2017
4th Regional Plan - Building Transit Thumb

REGIONAL PLAN ASSOCIATION (RPA) The following is an excerpt of The Fourth Regional Plan: Making the Region Work for All of Us Most of the public institutions that govern the region were established in a different era. Because of this legacy, the region’s 782 municipalities are responsible for critical decisions about land use, property taxes, […]

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Filling the Gap: A Realistic Look at Today’s Challenges and Opportunities in U.S. Infrastructure

Monday, December 11th, 2017
Survey of Infrastructure Executives - respondents

Developing nations aren’t the only ones with poor infrastructure. Across the U.S., examples of citizens, government officials and the press criticizing the condition of their roads and bridges, airports, schools or other infrastructure are easy to find. This should come as no surprise, says Scott Pattison, CEO of the U.S. National Governors Association (NGA), “because as a nation, we are critically underinvesting in our infrastructure.”

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Not Everything Is Broken: The Future of U.S. Transportation and Water Infrastructure Funding and Finance

Friday, December 8th, 2017
Figure S.1: Total Federal, State and local spending on infrastructure, 1956-2014

Infrastructure has become a popular topic, fueled by a widely held perception among the general public and many elected officials that the nation’s infrastructure is crumbling as a consequence of age and underinvestment. In fact, not all transportation and water infrastructure in the United States is falling apart—far from it. While highway, bridge, and water system maintenance backlogs exist in many places, the data do not support a picture of precipitous decline in total national spending or in the condition of the assets. Rather, the U.S. infrastructure story is far more nuanced and challenging.

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ACEC’S ENGINEERING INC. — Can P3s Rescue U.S. Infrastructure?

Wednesday, December 6th, 2017
Public-Private Partnerships: The Governor George Deukmejian Courthouse, Long Beach, California

Over the last decade, it has become increasingly clear that America’s infrastructure requires a significant upgrade. Roads, highways, bridges and tunnels have decayed and deteriorated—sometimes to the point of catastrophic failure. Yet, with tax dollars limited and funding for projects largely declining, finding a way out of the mess has been extraordinarily difficult.

“It has put the spotlight on public-private partnerships,” states Lee Weintraub, chair of public-private partnerships and vice chair of construction, law and litigation at Becker & Poliakoff.

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The Fourth Regional Plan: Making the Region Work for All of Us

Thursday, November 30th, 2017
RPA - Fourth Regional Plan - current trends

If the Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs, from 1922, was about realizing that New York City was part of a larger regional economy and natural ecosystem; if the Second Regional Plan of 1968 was about trying to concentrate unconstrained sprawl into a constellation of regional cities; and if the Third Regional Plan of 1996 was about reinvesting in the infrastructure systems of the region to reassert our prominence on the national and international stage—then the lesson we learned from four years of data analysis and public engagement is that the Fourth Regional Plan is about creating and recreating our public institutions, and shaping them to make positive change happen.

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ACEC’S ENGINEERING INC. — Withstanding the Immense Power of Wind

Wednesday, November 29th, 2017
Engineering, Inc. - November/ December 2017

Engineering wind-resilient structures and spaces is a complicated endeavor that relies on both human ingenuity and science. Projects must also mesh with other environmental factors, including falling snow and ice, snow loads and solar conditions. Consulting firms tap detailed climatological data, local wind data and more to grasp how wind affects a structure in a particular spot. But that’s only a start.

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The Impacts of Unscheduled Lock Outages

Monday, November 27th, 2017
Lock closure costs - Study Projects and Summary Characteristics

The summarized work is the result of a study commissioned by the National Waterways Foundation and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD). The goal of this study is to highlight the economic benefits associated with reliable inland navigation.

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InfrastructureUSA: Citizen Dialogue About Civil Infrastructure