• London to…Beijing? China has announced that it’s in negotiations to build high speed rail lines to several European countries, including the U.K. The expansion plans also extend into Southease Asia, connecting Singapore and Vietnam. (Budget Travel)

• Did Ray LaHood royally tick off the entire airline industry by telling them, “Let me give you a little bit of political advice: Don’t be against high-speed rail” at the FAA’s annual forecasting conference? (WSJ)

• Author Christian Wolmar writes an op-ed in the New York Times arguing that the Acela should be made into a model project to demonstrate that we can successfully get HSR going in the U.S. (NYT)

• On this topic, the New Republic brings up a good point: In the Northeast, Amtrak and state governments own the actual rails. But in most of the country, Amtrak and commuter train services run under agreements with freight railroads — which hold a dedicated right-of-way that’s not going away. (TNR)

• We’ve discussed some of the ways that planning for HSR can go very wrong. Here, the CHSR Blog offers an example of doing it right. (CHSRB)

• Remember that $810 million in federal money for an HSR line between Madison and Milwaukee? Sounds great — once they figure out where it’s gonna go once it arrives in Madison. (Wkowtv)

• But will California HSR plans plow straight through certain hard-won plans for commuter rail? (AP)

There will likely be repercussions from this string of deaths — lawsuits, claims of negligence, jobs potentially lost, safety review boards created. But while the sudden string of well-publicized deaths might spur some backlash, it’s tough to argue that much more could be done to keep incidents like this from happening. For starters, there’s the fact that many train-related deaths — like those of the teen girls in Pennsylvania — are suicides. According to a recent study, around 300 to 500 people per year die by deliberately jumping in front of trains.

So can measures be taken to prevent these suicides? There’s the option of erecting barriers, or other physical deterrents — though the counterargument to that is that someone who wants to end his or her life won’t be stopped by a barrier along the train tracks. Still, the Boston Globe reports that there’s “significant evidence that taking away or obstructing the means for people to kill themselves can defuse self-destructive impulses, which often occur in moments of extreme anguish or stress.”

Unfortunately, even if some highly-populated regions decided to erect barricades around the tracks, there’s virtually no way it could be done along all of the 215,000 miles of train track in the U.S. Meaning that all a suicidal person would need to do would be to head to a portion of the track that had no barrier. Some advocates are suggesting testing barriers in locations where they could be most effective — presumably, the most highly-populated areas like the Northeast. Other measures are being tried: Sign campaigns have been sprouting up at commuter rail stations, including notices listing a toll-free suicide hotline, but so far their effectiveness has not been studied.

Still, the sad reality remains that for those seeking to end their lives, trains are an option. Though despite the recent spate of deaths, accidental or no, lets not forget that train fatalities still don’t hold a candle to cars.

• Continuing on the theme in a more novel way, a Volkswagen that runs on coffee grinds has been engineered by a British scientist. But can the Car-puccino be a viable method of transportation? (USA Today)

• An 11-year-old has won the ultimate contest prize: He’ll be pushing the button to dynamite Texas Stadium, former home of the Dallas Cowboys.  According to reports, he is “real excited.” (Dallas News)

• California legislators fight over Proposition AB 32, with opponents arguing over whether the carbon-cutting measure will create or destroy jobs. (LA Times)

• The politics in Cyprus are diverting attention from a growing water crisis.  Solutions are complicated, to put it mildly. (BBC)

• A critique of the new bike lane feature on Google Maps — though, despite the criticism, the author sees potential for the app in the future. (PC World)

• The 100 years war between GE and environmentalists about the dredging of the Hudson goes on. Somewhere, Jack Welch is cringing. (Times Union)

• Republicans in the House of Representatives are pushing an earmark ban, many of which are pet infrastructure projects in a politicians constituency. If only George Carlin were still alive.  (Politico)

CLICK TO ENLARGE.

While Americans may be concerned with safety in air travel, the real danger, as we all pretty much know but forget regularly, is motor vehicles. Somehow our brains are able to conveniently parse and suppress the fact that our chances of dying behind the wheel (or even just in the passenger seat) of a car are around 1 in 100 — compare that to your 1 in 52.6 million odds of being killed on a single airliner trip.

So just how does the U.S. compare with the rest of the world when it comes to traffic-related deaths? This amazing infographic offers an impressive amount of information on international motor vehicle deaths, including how traffic fatalities play out among richer and poorer countries. Right now, road accidents are the ninth leading cause of death in the world — by 2030, they’re projected to be the fifth. Still not sold on public transit?

Image: NGHealthCareEurope

• Village Voice legend Michael Musto extols the virtues of biking in New York City, including getting around town on an ugly bike no one would want to steal. (Streetfilms)

• Mr. Villaraigosa goes to Washington: The mayor of L.A. is heading to the District to lobby for funds to pay for a much needed expansion of the L.A. rail system. (Washington Post)

• The toilet of the future is coming to America. New bathroom technology comes equipped with heated seats, flushing options, and sound effects. (MSNBC)

• Pictures of the the world’s first solar “Power Tower” have been released. The Andalusian structure can power up to 6,000 homes. (CNN)

• Silicon Valley is becoming the sticking point of California’s High Speed Rail Project. The tunnel-versus-above-ground debate in the area rages on. (San Jose Mercury New)

• The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) helps out Yerevan’s metro. A $20 million loan will overhaul the Soviet-era system. (Eurasianet.org)

• Budget cuts in Chicago are causing riders to switch from buses to trains, and the Windy City is looking at how to cope with reduced public transport service. (Chicago Breaking New)

• Puerto Rico has big P3 plans: A new airport, schools and highway are slated to be constructed by means of Private-Public-Partnerships. (Reuters)

These results aren’t all that surprising, given the rash of safety-related incidents that have resulted in massive media coverage. There was the Christmas Day bombing attempt (which, studies now show, would not have been successful even if the bomber had managed to detonate his device) as well as the near-collision in Denver, and of course the small children making air-traffic control announcements at JFK. But as so many studies have shown, the relationship to how safe we feel versus how safe we actually are is skewed by all sorts of kinks in human perception. Which isn’t to say that air travel is as safe as it could be, or that our attempts to up safety levels have been effective and efficient (take a close look at the security theater going on in the average U.S. airport, and that notion flies out the window). 

Still, the fact remains that on the whole, air travel is remarkably safe. What it is not is efficient — both in terms of travel times and in environmental impact. The efficiency problem is exemplified by the recent announcements by airlines that they’ll cancel flights rather than risk falling victim to the new federal fine that penalizes airlines for keeping passengers on the tarmac for three hours or more. Not a half hour, or even an hour. Three hours. That this new rule would be such a threat to major airlines is a definite sign that something is rotten in the state of air travel, besides just TSA.

Granted, this isn’t to say we shouldn’t take action to increase basic safety, such as the following:

A major component of future aviation infrastructure improvements is the Next Generation Air Transportation System, or NextGen, a satellite-based digital navigation and communication system designed to replace radar-based systems introduced in the 1940s. It has the potential to make modern air travel safer, more secure and more reliable. Currently, more than half of Americans (53 percent) support such a change.

Image: Cartoon News Magazine

• In other airline news, the TSA’s new fines for keeping passengers on the runway for more than three hours have brought about a classic unintended consequence: Continental is saying it will cancel flights rather than risk the fines, meaning even more problems for travelers. (AP)

• Israel and Syria finally agree on something: Both countries decidedly want their own nuclear power. (JTA)

• Slate wants you! Show off your brilliant ideas for creating a cheaper, more energy-efficient human existence by participating in “The Efficient Life” contest. (Slate)

• Seattle’s Community Transit, which serves most of the city’s northern suburbs, is shutting down completely on Sundays, after a vote by the Community Transit Board. So what will happen to people who need to get to work that day? (Seattle Transit Blog)

• High speed rail promotes social cohesion? A European study on locations with accessibility may offer key insights  into the American HSR network’s likelihood of success. (Brookings Institute)

• Nord Stream engineers hit a treasure trove of European History: A 1,000 year old Viking vessel is found, but there are no plans to raise it, as well as a number of other ships. (Der Spiegel)

• The growing pains of Spain’s solar industry are exemplified in the town of Puertollano. (New York Times)

• Communities around the country are pulling out all the stops to land Google’s fiber optic network.  In particular, Greenville, South Carolina is feeling lucky. (LA Times)

Still, like so many buildings, the station was slated for demolition, and according to a report from the New York Times, exists only because of  a lawsuit to have it preserved as a historic landmark (not to mention the city’s $400 million budget deficit). So is it a symbol of urban decay and the inexorable decline of American infrastructure that should be bulldozed so the city can start anew? Or a priceless relic of a golden age in architecture and prosperity, that should be restored and put to good use? Here are some photos, to help you make up your mind.

• The policies that created urban sprawl must end: A look at anti-city bias and its impact on development. (Boston Globe)

• A Miami architect is working with a building materials manufacturer to design and provide prefabricated, hurricane-resistant homes for displaced Haitians. (New Urban News)

• Remember that shiny new metro system in Dubai? The city is on track to increase their mass transit population from 6% last year to 30% in 2020. (Trade Arabia)

• Ten top European companies unveiled their plan for a $46 billion super grid for the soon-to-be-tapped-out North Sea.  Wind will play a vital role in powering the U.K., Germany and Norway. (UPI)

• Plenty of sunshine, but how to harness it? Africa has the potential to power itself with an energy resource out of the reach of foreign interests. The only problem is (Global Geopolitics)

• A new bill seeks to address the unending housing mess in the U.S. More than five million homes are still in danger of foreclosure. (New York Times)

• Fan-favorite Tesla makes a Wall Street Journal top ten list. A clutch of SoCal solar companies also get a nod in the paper’s first ever survey of Clean Tech companies. (Wall Street Journal)

Here are the most expensive transit projects of the past decade, detailed in all their glory (or ignominy). Click the picture below to start the gallery.

The lawsuit isn’t new — the plaintiffs first first filed suit a couple weeks after the storm hit in August 2005, likely to avoid any statute of limitations issues — and when it was first filed, the district court tossed it out, ruling that the issue was “a debate which simply has no place in the court.” Three federal appeals court judges held in October of 2009 that the case could be heard — but now the court is demanding a new hearing, this time with nine judges.

These plaintiffs might have a case. They certainly have clear and provable damages — the storm annihilated entire towns in Mississippi. But the massive gaping IF in this lawsuit is the plaintiffs’ ability to draw a direct link between the damage caused to their lives and property, and the actions of Big Oil. Doing this involves decisively linking a load of other very difficult and full-of-variables items, including:

1) Proving that the storm was caused/exacerbated  by global warming;

2) Proving that the damage was a direct result of this increase in the storm’s severity, and not the negligence of city, state, and federal officials who failed to build and maintain adequate infrastructure;

3) Proving that, if the storm WAS caused by global warming, Big Oil’s actions were a primary cause of said warming, as opposed to the myriad other causes of carbon emissions.

And on and on — you get the idea. Picture years of depositions, entire warehouses of documents, and utterly befuddled jurors who can’t really be expected to parse the nuances of climate science and politics (the two are hopelessly intertwined at this point - they can’t be separated). All of which adds up to collective time, money, and resources that might be better spent focused on rebuilding efforts and initiatives for alternative energy and emissions reduction. 

There’s also the long-term effects to consider if the plaintiffs actually win — would it open the doors for every storm victim in the country to sue Shell and Chevron?

In need of an overhaul

• Today’s metaphor for America’s decline: The U.S. as LAX.  Thomas Friedman makes a salient point. (Fresno Bee)

• An international incident over full body scanners: A parliamentary delegation of Pakistani officials refused to go through scanners at Washington’s Dulles Airport, instead electing to return to Pakistan. (Press TV)

• The U.S. DOT shut down Tierra Santa Inc., the bus company involved in a crash that killed six people in Arizona last week. The company had a number of shady dealings, including a poor safety record and improper authorization to transport passengers over state lines. (LATimes)

• The fits and starts of Philly’s urban regeneration (Philadelphia Inquirer)

• Time for New Deal 2.0?  American mayors want a remake of the FDR-inspired plan to tackle unemployment and infrastructure problems. (Wall Street Journal)

• A random act of kindness is recognized by a Boston commuter. (Christian Science Monitor)

• If sustainable design wins out, tourists could enjoy a Central Asian Switzerland. (Eurasianet)

• While many in Africa go hungry, foreign countries are increasing their hold on the continent’s arable land for the benefit of their own populations. (Guardian UK)

• Kudos to Bloomington High School South for their “Calories to Kilowatts” program.  The Panthers have a gym that’s absolutely electric. (AP)

• In response to claims that it exaggerated projected ridership and went through a flawed peer-review process, the California High-Speed Rail Authority on Thursday published an eight-page response defending their model, which forecasts that 41 million people will ride the L.A.–San Francisco line by 2030. (MercuryNews)

• “America’s foray into high speed rail should include NYC.” Ahh if only! (PennLive)

• Ray LaHood’s visit with Senate appropriators got testy yesterday, when Republican Sen. Kit Bond tore into him to defend the White House’s plans for sustainable development and high speed rail. LaHood stood fast and held his own. (StreetsBlogDC)

• Wait, campus protests for…public transit? Students at the University of Oregon rallied this week for light rail, drawing praise from a State Representative who’s working with the Oregon Legislature to find funding for rail-line repairs and increase train speeds to 65 miles per hour. (KMTR)

• Wisconsin’s largest business groupgot itself into some hot water with claims that the $823 million awarded to Wisconsin and Minnesota by the federal government “made some sense.” The only problem? Both leading Republican gubernatorial candidates are pro-halting HSR if tawpayers wind up having to pay any operating costs. (JSOnline)

In Quilmes, Argentina, a town of 500,000 people in the province of Buenos Aires, artist Tito Ingenieri decided to build his house using a unique form of recycled materials: Used glass bottles. He began collecting bottles from trash dumps, and pretty soon local residents and merchants were saving their discarded bottles to give to him. He then used his booty, which eventually totaled over 6 million bottles, to construct a house. The cement base gives it strength, and the house itself has grown to a mini-compound with a built-in weather service — when a storm is coming, Ingenieri says, the bottles make whistling noises to alert him. Not exactly the modular mansions of notoriety for upper-middle-class Americans — but it’s certainly easier on the planet.

(Hat tip: Huffpo)

We’ve done quite a few galleries of amusingly defaced street signs. And while we like to celebrate their tongue-in-cheek lets-all-laugh-at-ourselves humor, we do have to acknowledge that the message printed above  (itself on a defaced street sign — such is the age of irony) is important: Defacing street signs, particularly Stop signs and other road safety signs, is illegal and potentially dangerous for drivers and pedestrians. And since March is National Collision Awareness Month (and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is quick to remind us all that around 102 people died in auto crashes per day in 2008 – one every 14 minutes!) we want to formally state that we at The Infrastructurist do not condone the defacing of public street signs, no matter how witty, zingy, or hilarious the results may be.

Of course, should individuals ignore our recommendation and continue to vandalize signs, we’ll keep on printing them…but we’ll feel slightly guilty about it.

• Check out the slides from U.S. PIRG Transportation Advocate John Krieger’s presentation at the High Speed Rail 2010 conference in Orlando yesterday. Other guests include Governor Charlie Crist and representatives from Spain and Japan. (USHSR)

• Time has an amazing slideshow of urban destruction (through natural disasters or war) and subsequent rebuilding, including cities from Lisbon to Antigua to San Francisco. (Time)

• Another day, another “American Infrastructure Is Going to Hell” rant. (Atlantic Online)

• American waterworks could benefit from a potential jobs bill. The Sustainable Water Infrastructure Investment Act will use incentives to start water projects and encourage hiring. (MarketWatch)

• Telsa is rolling out a partnership with Tag Heuer in Geneva — though EV-charging infrastructure is still needed to make the cars run like a Swiss watch. (Allcarelectric)

• In often overlooked agricultural news, a thriving organic farm is being recognized for expansion and innovation.  Can such a model be a possible alternative to the industrial farm complex? (Agrinews)

• Members of the Taliban have been uprooted from the tribal region of Bajaur. Journalists can now inspect the war infrastructure that has been left behind. (BBC)

• A Brooklyn meeting about potential (read: inevitable) service cuts in the MTA got out of hand. The meeting turned rowdy, eventually leading to four arrests. (1010wins)

Which is why we get worried when we hear about HSR plans that are already entering deeply-flawed territory. Like the scenario in Florida, where no agreement has been made about connecting the planned Orlando-Tampa HSR line (which, as you’ll recall, got a whopping $1.25 billion of the federal HSR funds) to SunRail, a 61-mile project that’ll be built on existing CSX tracks from DeLand to Poinicana, running through the east side of Orlando.

According to current plans, the HSR line will follow Interstate 4 and have five stations — none of which link to the SunRail. Which could severely hinder the ability of passengers to use the HSR line to get to their destinations, and consequently put a severe damper on the number of people who use both lines. What’s the point of spending millions on separate train lines in the same area if there’s no way to switch between them? The Florida DOT is reportedly worried about slowing down travel time on the HSR line — but if passengers aren’t able to access the train with ease, keeping up a lightning-fast speed won’t matter, since no one will ride the train. Plus we’re willing to bet that the average passenger would be willing to add 5 or 10 minutes of travel time for an opportunity to transfer between lines.

The debate over issues like this is coming to a head this week at the High Speed Rail 2010 conference in Orlando. The rest of the country, and the government, and all HSR supporters are looking to Florida to get this right. The time is now to look at the bigger picture and hammer out details like this, before construction starts in earnest. In the meantime, we’re working on staying positive with happy videos like this one:

Metropolis by Rob Carter - Last 3 minutes from Rob Carter on Vimeo.

What does more than 200 years of urban expansion look like? Visual artist Rob Carter has developed a unique and entertaining way of showing the history of a city on video, using uses stop-motion animation, time-lapse video and large format photographs. In his film Metropolis, he depicts the development from infancy of Charlotte, North Carolina, beginning with the construction of the city’s first house in the 1700s. Carter chose the city because it’s one of the fastest growing urban areas in the U.S., mostly due to a massive influx of major banks that led to a mass architectural and population expansion — one that shows no sign of slowing post-financial crisis. Carter describes his vision as follows:

[W]e see the town develop through the historic dismissal of the English, to the prosperity made by the discovery of gold and the subsequent roots of the building of the multitude of churches that the city is famous for. Now the landscape turns white with cotton, and the modern city is ‘born’, with a more detailed re-creation of the economic boom and surprising architectural transformation that has occurred in the past 20 years….

Made entirely from images printed on paper, the animation literally represents this sped up urban planners dream, but suggests the frailty of that dream, however concrete it may feel on the ground today. Ultimately the video continues the city development into an imagined hubristic future, of more and more skyscrapers and sports arenas and into a bleak environmental future. It is an extreme representation of the already serious water shortages that face many expanding American cities today; but this is less a warning, as much as a statement of our paper thin significance no matter how many monuments of steel, glass and concrete we build.

The results are quirky and distinct, offering a powerful sense of the seeming-inevitability, if not always efficiency, of progress in American urban development — all in a style that reminiscent of Terry Gilliam’s Monty Python shorts.

Here’s a clip of the final three minutes.  To watch the full video, visit Carter’s Web site.

• Streetfilms goes inside Seattle’s new 13-station Link Light Rail, which opened in mid-2009. (StreetFilms)

• California transportation activist Ken Gosting has drowned in an apparent suicide. A former transportation and emergency services adviser to Gov. Jerry Brown in the mid-1970s, Gosting then successfully lobbied for seat belts in buses. (AP)

• The time has come to rebuild in Haiti. One company is looking to recycle the ruins of Port-au-Prince and replace them with buildings — and this time, they’ll be up to seismic code. (Inhabitat)

• Does this mean the end of dreadful airport lines? Mobile boarding pass sage increased by 1200% in 2009. (Mobilecrunch)

• Caltrans is set to face major lay-offs. Sacramento officials want to cut 1,500 jobs from the “overstaffed” agency. (Sacramento Bee)

• Twelve members of Congress are heading to China, with infrastructure on the agenda. But is it serious business, or spring break? (Washington Post)

• A Dallas native laments the state of the city’s main transportation artery. If only infrastructure could incite the same political passion as illegal immigration. (Dallas News)

• Low cost carriers best the recession: Ryanair and Easyjet have profited during the economic downturn by catering to frugal travelers. (Daily Mail)

• The Department of Energy has enlisted techies to solve America’s energy problems. Here are ten tech companies looking to redesign the country’s energy infrastructure. (Wired)

Granted, this isn’t anything resembling a permanent solution — the bill merely extends the Highway Trust Fund for another 30 days. StreetsBlogDC is reporting that the House will vote this coming Thursday on whether to extend the ‘05 transportation law until 2011. And California Senator Barbara Boxer has reportedly announced that she’s planning to write a new transportation bill this year, before the Senate retires. Which would be good news for everyone who doesn’t love this purgatory of endless last-minute extensions.

Image: Chunx

So is it possible to design a building that’s truly earthquake-proof? Plenty of experts think so, and engineers around the country are working to develop new technologies that could minimize the human and economic costs of a major quake. And one of the busiest hubs of innovation is tucked in a college campus in North Carolina.

Click through our gallery to get a first-hand look at how this impressive lab is working to create — and test –  the ultimate quake-proof structure using actual simulations of earthquakes.

• The green community is incensed at the Obama administration’s claim that nuclear equals clean energy.  Author Ron Pernick labels the revival of nuclear under the clean energy banner as “madness.” (Clean Edge)

• Vice President Biden pitches for Amtrak. Is his direct endorsement of the company walking a fine line of propriety? (Mediaite)

• Bulgaria seeks to build a new nuclear power plant in the border town of Belene — using European Union funds.  Russia has already offered $2 billion, but E.U. energy commissioner Günter Öttinger says the project will find financing from Brussels.  (Sofia Echo)

• Nabucco update:  The E.U. pipeline intended to break Russia’s monopoly on Europe’s natural gas supplies may be less costly due to sinking steel prices.  The project envisions Middle Eastern, Caspian, and Central Asian gas imports flowing into European markets. (Businessweek)

• A bridge to reconciliation?  Turkey and Armenia to rebuild bridge connecting the two countries in a move to reopen relations, which were severed in 1993.  (Hurriyet)

• India looks to court Saudi Arabia to invest in infrastructure.  The Indian energy sector gets top billing in this budding relationship. (Times of India)

• The New Jersey DOT commissioner has proposed placing a toll on Interstate 80.  Public outrage is guaranteed to follow. (NorthJersey.com)

• And New York’s MTA is going through with a heavy round of service cuts, despite vociferous protests. Just what a recession-embattled city needs — cuts in public transit! (NYTimes)

What else does this all mean? We’ll likely see a total shutdown of federal funding for road, bridge, bike-ped, and transit projects, since a short-term extension of the Highway Trust Fund was attached to the dead bill. The government will also halt the processing of funds for stimulus construction work, which means the remainder of the ARRA money will sit gathering dust. And to top it all off, the federal spigot will be dry for state-based road safety groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

All of this is bad news for states. Very bad. The DOT’s layoffs will trickle down into the private sector, as Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood noted in a statement, since “construction workers will be sent home from job sites because federal inspectors must be furloughed.” And as Larry Brown, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Transportation, put it: “If you do the math, we’re talking about more than $153 million a day in lost reimbursement payments for highway projects to the states.” Finally, Susan Martinovich, director of the Nevada Department of Transportation, summed it up thusly:

The timing could not be worse….States need every dollar they can get to improve our aging roads and bridges and put people to work. My home state of Nevada has the nation’s seventh-highest unemployment rate at 10.4 percent. We should be awarding contracts for spring construction right now, but instead many states are forced to delay, and in some cases cancel, projects.

Still, all hope is not lost. StreetsBlogDC writes:

Nevertheless, the situation remains fluid. House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) has secured a promise that future Senate legislation will assuage his panel’s frustration with a provision in the pending jobs bill that would apply 2009 earmarks to $932 million in 2010 transportation grants.

That agreement helps pave the way for House passage of the Senate jobs bill, perhaps as soon as Tuesday. If both chambers can agree quickly on that jobs bill, which would extend the 2005 federal transport law until 2011, the flow of federal funding for local projects likely would turn back on without senators having to break through Bunning’s one-man filibuster.

Let’s hope! In the meantime, Oberstar’s committee has released a statement explaining how bad things could get. Read it and weep.

• The biggest private-public partnership in Australia’s history is set to bring more water Down Under. But not everyone is happy about the plans for the proposed desalinization plant — some water experts are calling it a massive waste. (BBC)

• Bad news for employees of the Transportation Department: The agency has announced around 2,000 layoffs, as well as the temporarily halting of construction projects, reimbursements to state governments and highway safety programs. (BusinessWeek)

• Amtrak has kept its promise to install Wi-fi on trains. The catch? It’s only on the Acela, as well as in stations along the Northeast Corridor. (AP)

• Pipeline politics between France and Russia: GDF Suez and Gazprom are hashing out a partnership for gas via the Nord Stream pipeline. (The Moscow Times)

• The U.S. is losing the alternative energy war to China :Plans for renewable sources like wind and solar are far superior in the Middle Kingdom to anything we have here. (Forbes)

• Transport infrastructure for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa looks to be on track — thus far, most of the country’s infrastructure has been overhauled for the event. (Goal.com)

• Banned in Iran! Caterpillar, one of the leading building equipment companies in the U.S., has ended operations in the Islamic Republic due to political pressure. (WSJ)

• EV carmaker Tesla is now offering leases for its Roadster and Roadster Sport models — $12, 453 up front followed by $1,658 monthly payments is the cost of putting an end to your days of filling up at the pump. (Wall Street Journal)

• A beginner’s guide to Clean Tech in Time magazine, with a focus on the venture capitalists of Silicon Valley. (Time)

• With Greece’s financial infrastructure tumbling, will Hellas drag down the Euro? And what would that mean for European exports? (New York Times)

• Google’s green energy czar (yes, they too have czars) hails progress in new solar technology. The company has developed a mirror technology that could cut solar costs in half. (Reuters)

• The running count of flights grounded in the Northeast due to inclement weather stands at about 2,344. Aaand more snowstorms are on the way. (Bloomberg)

• The quest for the finest Brooklyn arugula? This and more urban farming will be on display in a new film entitled “Truck Farm.” (Grist.org)

The earthquake that struck Chile on Saturday measured a whopping 8.8 in magnitude, making it 500 times more powerful than the 7.0 quake that struck Haiti in late January. Still, the death toll in Chile — which has recently topped 700, hardly an insignificant tragedy –  is a mere .3% of the estimated 250,000 that died in and around Port-au-Prince.

So what saved the South American country from the Caribbean nation’s levels of death and destruction?

The economic answer is that Chile is a modernized and industrialized nation, with a per capita economic output that’s more than 10 times larger than Haiti’s. As such, building codes are far stricter and better-enforced, emergency resources are more available, and the population is better educated as to the safest places to take refuge. The earth science answer, as the BBC News points out, is that the Chile quake’s epicenter was 21 miles underground and occurred off-shore, meaning it was 70 miles from the nearest large city, Concepcion. Meanwhile, in Haiti, the epicenter was only 8 miles underground and located right next to the capital city.

But another key reason is the buildings themselves. After a massive 9.5 earthquake hit the country in 1960 (the strongest ever recorded), the Chilean government developed a seismic design code for all new buildings, shown in the image above. According to AIR Worldwide, the country’s building codes were revised again in 1993 to include significant advances over previous versions. And they were wise to do so, given the frequency with which Chile experiences quakes: the country gets hit with a magnitude 7 or higher quake at least once every five years, meaning that the earthquake awareness, both in engineering and building codes, is superior. As the BBC describes it:

One system that helps [Chile's] buildings stay up is called the “strong columns weak beams” system.

The idea is that buildings are held up by reinforced concrete columns, which are strengthened by a steel frame.

Reinforced concrete beams are joined onto the columns to make floors and the roof.

If there is an earthquake, the idea is that the concrete on the beams should break near the end, which dissipates a lot of the energy of the earthquake, but that the steel reinforcement should survive and the columns should stay standing, which means the building will stay upright.

Granted, even the best buildings aren’t perfect — the damage from Saturday’s quake is estimated to be in the range of $15 billion to $30 billion, according to EQECAT Inc., a catastrophe modeling company. But the property damage and loss of life are a stark comparison to the utter devastation that continues to plague Haiti.

Image: BBC News

• Chicago architect Helmut Jahn, known for his work on transportation facilities, has sketched out a plan (pictured) for a high-speed rail station in Chicago, involving a “glassy street-level pavilion” that “advertises the romance of travel and offers a view out to the skyline and the Chicago River.” (Blair Kamin)

• Nearly 9 in 10 Americans would consider high-speed rail as an option for their long-distance travel, according to a survey conducted by HTNB Corp., an architecture and engineering firm. Granted, that number is still lower than it was in March 2009, when 94 percent of Americans viewed it as a travel option. (HoustonTomorrow)

• Eurostar officials are saying that full service to and from Brussels will be restored on Monday, two weeks after a commuter-train collision killed 18 people and forced the closure of parts of track outside the city. (NYTimes)

• Want to know what’s going on with your favorite train makers? Here’s the latest from Bombardier, Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam, AECOM, RailComm, and Ricardo. (Progressive Railroading)

• A new report commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission found that by 2035, California’s proposed HSR system would reduce passenger loads at San Francisco’s airports by as many as 6 million people. (Mercury News)

• The planned HSR line from Milwaukee to Madison is supposed to go right through the small town of Waterloo. But residents there say it will literally divide their community in two. (NewsTalk)

Image: Chicago Tribune

Over at Fast Company, they’ve posted the above graphic by Rob Vargas. It depicts some of the projects that nabbed pieces of the $777 million (out of a total of $1.5 billion allotted) the government has handed out in TIGER grants, which will fund 22 state-sponsored projects and likely create thousands of jobs.

Enter IBM’s new initiative — essentially a menu of metering devices and other services that customers can choose from to monitor energy use and offer suggestions for savings. For example, the facility managers of a huge highrise could opt for a dashboard that helps them proactively deal with problems, like identifying a boiler that’s just starting to run inefficiently but hasn’t failed yet. According to Al Zollar, the general manager of Tivoli software for IBM, Big Blue itself has been using the new system for its 98 million square feet of building space, and saved enough to pay the company’s entire energy bill for a year.

Of course no pro-energy conference in Vegas would be complete without a keynote speech from Al Gore. The self-proclaimed “recovered politician” gave a relaxed and jovial talk, focusing on the importance of efficiency and national security, and steering noticeably clear of global warming.

• A new documentary will air in Canada tomorrow focusing on the cultural, architectural, and social roles malls have played in North American culture. The title is, appropriately, Malls R Us. (CBC)

• Many (mostly poor) cities across the world are not equipped to withstand a powerful earthquake. It is possible–even likely–that Haiti’s tragedy will be surpassed this century in one of many vulnerable places like Karachi, Tehran, Katmandu, and Lima. (NYTimes)

• Helmut Jahn, the architect who did the O’Hare’s “L” station and its United terminal, as well as Bangkok’s airport and Berlin’s Sony Center, has a mock-up of what a high-speed rail terminal could look like in Chicago. (Tribune)

• A study indicates that high-speed rail in California would reduce the number of passengers at the three Bay Area airports by about six million. (Mercury News)

• And Canada has declared an allergy to cats a disability, which might mean that there will be no more cats on planes. (680News)

First it was the swift and unexpected — and largely still unexplained — closing of the Burj Khalifa just a few days after its opening (the story they’re sticking to is a broken elevator).

Now it’s a near-catastrophe in the shark tank in the Dubai Mall. Opened in 2008, the structure is the world’s largest shopping mall based on total area, spanning 440,000 square feet and housing just about every major retail outlet known to man. Following the largesse theme, the mall’s aquarium is also one of the biggest in the world at 167 ft by 66 ft, and houses over 30,000 creatures, including more than 400 sharks and manta rays. All was well in this aquatic wonderland, until it sprung a massive leak today, leading to the evacuation of the mall and a flood of emergency services.

The leak is currently being fixed, and no fish or humans were harmed. Still, it’s been a heck of a month for the city of ultimate excess.

(Hat tip: Clusterstock)

• Magnanimity or folly? Toyota will provide free transportation to everyone in the world whose vehicle is involved in the recent recall. In the U.S., that means 2.3 million free rides! (Detroit News)

• Be warned about “appalling conditions” should your Eurostar train encounter trouble, because the company has “no plan” in place to deal with broken down trains. (EU Infrastructure)

• D.C. racked up its worst commute since 9/11 a few weeks ago, but its transportation chief is unfazed: He’s moving to get people out of cars, initiating a pilot bike-sharing program with 1,000 bicycles and 100 stations. (WaPo)

• Envisioning a “healthy” Detroit metro region, a columnist says the city needs to get its act together. Fortunately, it has the support of developers, academics and the Obama administration. (Detroit Free Press)

• Ridership is down more than 15% on Dallas’s DART buses and almost 10% on its Railway Express commuter service. One rider says the buses are “always late” and carry too many “hoodlums.” (Dallas News)

• Amman, Jordan (pictured) is making huge strides towards livability by building functional sidewalks along its hilly streets. The city’s master plan has a great slogan: “A livable city is an organized city, with a soul.” (NYTimes)

• “Unless they go forward on a step-by-step basis, there is a risk the federal HSR money will not be well spent,” says an expert about California’s high-speed rail money. This much is obvious. The real issue is where the rest of that $40 billion is going to come from. (CNN)

• The decline in driving seen in the U.S. over the last two years appears to be over. Traffic congestion is not nearly what it was at its peak in 2007, but is expected to rise again as the economy recovers. (The City Fix)

• Go figure: There is a strong correlation between a city’s population size and its rank on a list of the most congested metro areas. And no city has it as bad as L.A.–only New York comes remotely close. (USA Today)

• Philly’s city controller thinks that by limiting the times at which students can use their free passes on SEPTA will curb insubordination, despite the fact that juvenile crime is down 50% since the passes were introduced. (Philly.com)

The key in analyzing the numbers, ARRA advocates say, is focusing not on just how many jobs the stimulus created, but on how much worse things would have been had it never existed. On his blog, Ray LaHood offers a sum-up of mainstream media reports acknowledging the the ARRA’s importance, not in eliminating the constant climb in unemployment, but rather in keeping unemployment rates from surging even higher. Examples include the Boston Globe, which wrote this weekend:

The numbers are in, and there can no longer be any doubt that President Obama’s stimulus bill helped pull America from the brink of economic catastrophe, in part by creating millions of jobs that would not otherwise have existed. All of the major economic research firms that have studied the stimulus’ effect have come to this conclusion….

[I]t’s ridiculous to deny, as many have, that adding 2.5 million jobs was a poor use of government funds… Stimulus opponents, often motivated by strictly ideological or political concerns, have repeatedly claimed that the bill didn’t create a single job that the economy wouldn’t have created anyway. This isn’t true, and it should be beyond the bounds of political debate to claim it.

Meanwhile, the Baltimore Sun noted:

To conclude the stimulus has done no good is to forget how bad things were, to underestimate how much they have turned around and to ignore how much more the program still has to offer.

And finally, even Gov. Schwarzenegger is hailing the stimulus as a job-creator and chiding those who criticize it, telling ABC News:

I find it interesting that you have a lot of the Republicans running around and pushing back on stimulus money and saying this doesn’t create any new jobs, and then they go out and do photo-ops and they’re posing with the big check and they say, “Isn’t this great! Look the kind of money I provide here for the state! And this is great money to create jobs, and this has created 10,000 new jobs, and this has created 20,000 new jobs.” It doesn’t match up.

• The American Federation of Government Employees thinks the 40,000 American transportation security officers should have collective bargaining rights. This is politically tricky, as the withdrawal by TSA nominee Errol Southers recently demonstrated. (WaPo)

• In New York, 1,000 MTA workers will lose their jobs as the agency scrambles to make up for budget shortfalls. Says a union rep, “riders are going to pay a heavy price for this philosophy in the case of an emergency.” (Herald Sun)

• In response to 14% unemployment–as high as 35-40% in some trades–Mayor Villaraigosa wants to crunch all of the Measure R transit projects into a ten-year timeline. They were originally scheduled to be completed over the next 30 years. (HuffPo)

• The WSJ calls infrastracture spending in India “a necessary pre-condition for improved productivity.” Necessary transportation and logistics spending are estimated to be around $187 billion, but without making that sacrifice, India will not be able to satisfy its “growth ambitions.” (WSJ)

• Mayor Bloomberg’s New Housing Marketplace Plan, if approved, will spend $8.5 billion to create or preserve 165,000 affordable homes by 2014, and ensure that they stay affordable for 30 years. (NYTimes)