Infra Views

(Re)Building Downtown: A Guidebook for Revitalization

Tuesday, December 15th, 2015
Figure 1: Spectrum of public participation

SMART GROWTH AMERICA
This movement presents an economic opportunity for communities. Creating a vibrant, walkable neighborhood can help attract and retain talented people and the companies that want to hire them. It can expand economic opportunity within your community, and create a culture of engagement. It can help your region grow without compromising open land or working farms. It can also make your town or city stand out within your region as a destination to shop, dine, visit, move to, or invest. It’s a chance to celebrate your community’s diverse history, create new opportunities for long-time neighborhood residents, and to achieve the triple-bottom line of a more equitable community, stronger economy, and protected environment.

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Between Public and Private Mobility: Examining the Rise of Technology-Enabled Transportation Services

Monday, December 14th, 2015
TABLE 2-1 Selected Taxonomy of Innovative Mobility Services

TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARD
Information and communication technologies, combined with smartphone applications and location data from global positioning systems, are making feasible transportation services that have long been imagined but never realized on a large scale. These innovations include carsharing; bikesharing; microtransit services; and, most notably, transportation network companies (TNCs) such as Uber and Lyft.

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San Francisco, CA: 2015 Congestion Management Plan

Friday, December 11th, 2015
Figure 4-2: 2015 Average Muni Bus Speeds on CMP Network Segments, Weekday AM Peak

SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY
The CMP legislation aims to increase the productivity of existing transportation infrastructure and encourage more efficient use of scarce new dollars for transportation investments, in order to effectively manage congestion, improve air quality, and ultimately allow continued development.

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Broadband Adoption Rates and Gaps in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

Thursday, December 10th, 2015
Figure 1. Broadband adoption rates by different demographic and economic indicators, United States, 2014

BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
METROPOLITAN POLICY PROGRAM
There is no question that the Internet is a huge boon to the economy and society, but maximizing its potential is only possible if all individuals are online. As a result, it is critical that policymakers closely track broadband adoption rates: the share of households with a DSL, cable, fiber optic, mobile broadband, satellite, or fixed wireless subscription.

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Fuel Economy State of the World 2016

Tuesday, December 8th, 2015
FIGURE 1 Global passenger light duty vehicle stock out to 2050

GLOBAL FUEL ECONOMY INITIATIVE
Vehicles play a vital role in our economic and social prosperity, connecting people, goods and places. However, to prevent dangerous climate change the vehicles of the future must be more efficient and less polluting. The Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI) brings together technical and policy experts to show how to achieve this and to support governments and the private sector to make this happen.

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World Green Building Trends: Developing Markets Accelerate Global Green Growth

Friday, December 4th, 2015
Percentage of Respondents Who Are Doing/Expect to Do More Than 60% Green Projects by Country

DODGE DATA & ANALYTICS
The World Green Building Trends 2016 study focuses on the growth of green globally with a total of over 1,000 survey participants from 69 countries. Where the previous studies conducted in 2008 and 2012 relied primarily on responses from GBC members, this new study features a higher proportion of design and construction practitioners, like architects and contractors, who are not GBC members, demonstrating the exciting expansion of green around the world.

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Transportation Infrastructure: Information on Bridge Conditions

Thursday, December 3rd, 2015
Table 1: Overall Deficient Bridges

UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
In summary, based on 2014 NBI data, the nation has 610,749 bridges. Of those bridges, 23 percent are on the NHS, and this 23 percent comprise 58 percent of the nation’s total deck area. Nearly 25 percent of all bridges are deficient, with 10 percent categorized as structurally deficient and 14 percent categorized as functionally obsolete. Of bridges on the NHS, 4 percent are categorized as structurally deficient while 17 percent are categorized as functionally obsolete. State agencies own about half of all bridges and over 90 percent of NHS bridges.

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Fossil Fuel Subsidy Reform: From Rhetoric to Reality

Tuesday, December 1st, 2015
Value chain of production and consumption of fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal)

THE NEW CLIMATE ECONOMY
Despite this mounting evidence of the costs of fossil fuel subsidies, and the potential virtuous cycles that could result from their removal, governments are often reticent to undertake reform. Researchers have identified several specific reasons for the persistence of subsidies. Some of these are explicit, such as a lack of information, while others are implicit, driven by special interests.

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Decreasing Driving Miles in Massachusetts To Save Lives, Money, Injuries, and the Environment

Monday, November 30th, 2015
Figure ES-1: Annual Economic Savings, 2015-2030

MASSPIRG EDUCATION FUND
TRANSPORTATION FOR MASSACHUSETTS
The benefits of reduced driving are sometimes difficult to see, but hugely important. Many dramatic gains remain unrecognized because they are indirect, gradual, or result from avoided collisions and health problems that people don’t expect will happen to them in the first place. In our daily lives, it is difficult to assess the value of reduced costs that would have been borne by others or consequences that didn’t occur.

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Unclogging America’s Arteries: Prescriptions for Healthier Highways

Friday, November 27th, 2015
The available fuel savings for both trucks and passenger cars from eliminating the 30 worst bottlenecks. 35 MILLION GALLONS A YEAR

AMERICAN HIGHWAY USERS ALLIANCE
Severe congestion continues to stymie passenger and freight movement on many of America’s critical urban Interstates and freeways. This 2015 update to Unclogging America’s Arteries identifies the 50 worst highway bottlenecks in the U.S. and demonstrates that the cost of doing nothing is too significant to ignore.

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Dear Friends,

 

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917-940-7125

InfrastructureUSA: Citizen Dialogue About Civil Infrastructure