INFRASTRUCTURIST

How Many Hours Do We Waste in Traffic in Major U.S. Cities?

CLICK TO ENLARGE How much time do Americans spend commuting in traffic? And how much worse has it gotten since 1997? The above diagram by Martha Kang McGill shows the number of hours a single driver wastes annually due to road congestion. The orange line indicates the loss or gain in wasted hours from 1997 to 2007. When it comes to worsening traffic, Texas is a clear winner, with Houston and Dallas both gaining around 20 hours in lcommuting time. All data is from the Texas Transportation Institute's 2009 Urban Mobility Report. [SButtonZ button="digg"]

The Morning Dig: Will Civil War-Era Pipes Threaten Our Water Supply?

• Every 120 seconds, a water main bursts somewhere in the U.S. Here's an inside look at the terrible condition of the nation's sewage systems. (NY Times) • China's development strategy of "If you build it, they will come," continues unabated when it comes to air travel -- though for the time being, there are barely any passengers at many of the Middle Kingdom's airports. (LA Times) • A few Parisian metro stations have gotten an IKEA makeover: Commuters can lounge around on comfy sofas while waiting for their train. (Fast company) • Australia is seeking solutions to a growing population and diminishing water resources. Some of the country's best architects are designing radical changes to the urban landscape. (Reuters) • HSR is taking off like crazy in Spain, resulting in political and economic benefits (as well as lots of saved time for travelers). (NYT) • A real-life Clash of the Titans as Airbus takes on Boeing on its home turf: The European firm wants to begin selling planes to the U.S. Department of Defense. (Seattle Times) • British Airways employees are set to begin striking on March 20th. Company officials say service will continue for most long haul flights, and that contingency plans will allow it to fly 60% of its customers. (BBC)[SButtonZ button="digg"] • Foreign high speed rail train makers vie for the chance to go to Disney World. (Businessweek)

What Do Republicans and Environmentalists Agree On? Nuclear Energy

This week, the New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg takes on nuclear energy -- specifically, how the ideologies of anti-nuke nuclear winter have gradually lost ground to the realities of global warming in recent years, to somewhat confusing results. While the partisan lines are drawn -- Republicans tend to favor nuclear power, Democrats not so much -- the liberal world of environmental activists is beginning to swing decidedly pro-nuclear. As Hertzberg notes:

Such founding fathers of the environmental movement as Stewart Brand, the creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, and Patrick Moore, an early stalwart of Greenpeace, now support nukes. James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a climate-change prophet, favors the so-called fourth-generation nuclear systems, which would substantially reduce the amount of nuclear waste. Hans Blix, the former U.N. chief weapons inspector, is another supporter. So, within limits, are liberal senators like John Kerry and Barbara Boxer. And so is President Obama.

Nuclear has certainly been back in the spotlight, culminating last month when the Obama administration announced that $8.3 billion was going to the construction of two new nuclear reactors in Georgia. But despite its growing political support, the so-called "nuclear power renaissance" remains bogged down by a major PR problem. Think about it -- what's the immediate association you have with nuclear power? Chances are it involves words like "Three Mile Island" or "Chernobyl" or "that nasty piece of green radioactive waste that goes down Homer's shirt in the Simpsons' opening credits." The (few and far between) failures of nuclear have been vastly and relentlessly publicized, and always with a smorgasbord of scary-sounding buzzwords etched into our collective memory: Disaster! Meltdown! Radiation![SButtonZ button="digg"] Still, as Hertzberg points out, whether or not nuclear can overcome its bad image, there are plenty of hurdles to prevent it becoming a primary energy source for the U.S. -- the largest being the up-front costs of building new plants. Reactors can run $6 billion to $8 billion apiece, and though their operating costs are low, that kind of price tag can be prohibitive, particularly in a wretched economy. Oh, and there's also the small matter of where to dump all that toxic waste. Still, compared to the emissions-belching alternatives like oil and coal, CO2-free nuclear energy may be our best long-term option.

Underwater Skyscrapers, Vertical Prisons, and Other Winners of the eVolo Skyscraper Contest

We've written about floating airports, and there are reports of man-made floating islands to fight rising sea levels. But floating skyscrapers? That's what Malaysian designer Sarly Adre Bin Sarkum suggested at this year's eVolo Skyscraper Competition, which seeks to find "outstanding ideas that redefine skyscraper design through the use of new technologies" and "change the way we understand architecture and its relationship with the natural and built environments." Click through our gallery of the remarkable structures that won special mentions and prizes, with designs ranging from vertical prisons to buildings made of steel nesting to towers that filter the air around them.

Click here to view gallery

All photos are courtesy of the 2010 eVolo Competition.

The Morning Dig: Will China Build Our HSR Trains?

• Major broadband initiative to be unveiled in Washington this week. After falling behind countries like South Korea in terms of high speed internet access, the U.S. might soon get a serious connectivity boost. (Reuters) • Here comes China! The global superpower -- and high speed rail world leader -- is planning to bid on major U.S. HSR projects. (AP) • Also in China news, new metro stations are springing up like daisies -- no surprise, since the country responded to its post-crisis collapse in exports by boosting its infrastructure. (Reuters) • Lies and half-truths are flying around the divvying up of California's dwindling water supply. Conservative lawmaker Tom McClintock seems to have learned nothing from the destruction of the state's salmon stock. (LA Times) • A Philly corruption tale as old as time: local politicians and a bridge construction company have been caught in a contributions-for-contracts scheme. (Philadelphia Inquirer) • A Chicago resurfacing project is set to create "the ultimate bottleneck" on the road to Wisconsin. (Chicago Tribune) • OPEC is meeting this week in Vienna. The cartel is going to address production quotas, which will have an effect on world energy costs. (Marketwatch) • For all you high flying readers out there, the world's best airport lounge has been named! Take a guess to where it is. (Morning Herald) [SButtonZ button="digg"] • Infrastructure in Sport News: One billion pounds will be invested to revitalize one of Manchester's poorest areas. Sheik Mansour of Abu Dhabi, who is the owner of Manchester City Football Club, has proposed a plan for the revitalization of Eastlands. (Manchester Evening News)

The Week in High Speed Rail

• How many people used China's new Wuhan-Guangzhou line during the Chinese New Year festival? More than a million, and that's just during the first 26 days of the 40-day event. Trains were 98% full. (Economist) • 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 Southeast 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)[SButtonZ button="digg"] • 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)

Death on the Tracks: Can Trains Be Safer for Non-Passengers?

It' s been a rough year so far for train-related deaths in the Northeast. There were the two teenage girls killed by an Acela train near Philadelphia -- both teens jumped on the tracks in an apparent suicide. This week saw two more deaths in New Jersey, with both victims being struck and killed by separate trains -- the first was Amtrak's Keystone 642, which hit someone in Mercer County near the Hamilton Township station, while the second was a New Jersey Transit commuter train that killed a man near the East Orange station. Yesterday, Manhattanites were shocked to hear that a 48-year-old woman had been crushed by a 6 train on the Upper East Side after jumping on the tracks to retrieve her gym bag. To make matters worse, at the time the police were already investigating the death of a 50-year-old man who was hit and killed by a train in Brooklyn. 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.[SButtonZ button="digg"] 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.

The Morning Dig: KITT Coming to a Showroom Near You

• Here are five automotive technologies to look for in the near future. They run the gamut run from alternative fuels to self-driving models (KITT, anyone?). (HowStuffWorks) • 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)[SButtonZ button="digg"] • 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)

How Cars Are Killing Us Around the World

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.[SButtonZ button="digg"] 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

The Morning Dig: How to Be a Biker in New York

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

What’s Our Priority for Aviation Infrastructure? Safety (Not Efficiency)

When it comes to travel, Americans appear to value safety over convenience -- at least, according to the answers of the 1,007 people who took an online survey about it. According to the latest poll by HNTB Corp., what Americans want most when it comes to aviation infrastructure improvements is anything that will make us feel safer, both in terms of air traffic control and potential acts of in-air aggression (aka terrorist attacks). More than 62% of respondents said they care most about improvements to either in-flight or pre-flight safety, as opposed to a mere 21% that said they valued overall travel convenience, or the 12% that valued sustainability. 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). [SButtonZ button="digg"] 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

The Morning Dig: The Secrets of the “No-Fly” List

• Just how is the U.S. "No-Fly" list (which has nearly doubled in size since Christmas) created? The AP investigates. (AP) • 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)[SButtonZ button="digg"]

Is Detroit’s Train Station a Decaying Mess or a Priceless Relic?

Detroit is becoming the prototype for a dying American city. As the Mayor enacts radical plans to bulldoze whole neighborhoods in a desperate attempt to save others, the city is reaching a critical point in its history, and no precedent exists for how to save it. Caught in the center of this turmoil and plan for destruction-in-hopes-of-recreation is a key landmark: Michigan Central Station. Abandoned for decades -- the last train pulled out of it more than 20 years ago --this once-stunning building has become just another of the scores of abandoned structures. But despite the corrosion and dilapidation that have plagued the station, it remains a unique and stunning reminder of a once-thriving city. [SButtonZ button="digg"] 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.

Click here to view gallery

The Morning Dig: Will Nuclear Weapons Power Our Homes?

• Old nuclear weapons are heading south -- to South Carolina, to be exact -- for retirement. And the plutonium within these weapons could potentially power Tennessee -- assuming we process it successfully. (Newsweek) • 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)[SButtonZ button="digg"] • 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)

The 10 Most Expensive Transit Projects of the Decade

We've barely begun the new decade, and already billions are being handed out for major transit projects around the country. But before we leap off the cliff into new territory (read: HSR) it's not a bad idea to take a look back at what our time, efforts, and money have yielded in the last ten years -- and how much we've gotten for each buck. 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.

Click here to view gallery

Questionable Legal Battles: Katrina Victims Sue Big Oil for Global Warming

Global warming has hit the courts: Victims of Hurricane Katrina have filed a class action lawsuit against large oil companies claiming that Big Oil's "operation of energy, fossil fuels, and chemical industries in the U.S. caused the emission of greenhouse gasses that contributed to global warming," according to documents reviewed by the AFP. The plaintiffs are residents of southern Mississippi, which was pretty much destroyed when Katrina came through. 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. [SButtonZ button="digg"] 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?

The Morning Dig: Full Body Scanners Cause International Incident

[caption id="attachment_8613" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="In need of an overhaul"][/caption] • 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)[SButtonZ button="digg"] • 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)

The Week in High Speed Rail

• Conclusions from the High Speed Rail 2010 conference in Orlando: HSR's success in the U.S. lies in "effectively promoting and selling it as a safe, convenient, environmentally friendly mode of transportation." Yeah, that and actually providing the product we're selling. (Ledger) • 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)[SButtonZ button="digg"] • 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)

Innovative Building Idea of the Week: Houses Made from Beer Bottles

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.[SButtonZ button="digg"] (Hat tip: Huffpo)

The Ultimate Verdict on Amusingly Defaced Street Signs

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. [SButtonZ button="digg"] 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.

The Morning Dig: HSR Gets Pushed in the Sunshine State

• 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)[SButtonZ button="digg"] • 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)

How to Make High Speed Rail Fail: Don’t Connect the Lines

We want high speed rail to succeed in the U.S. For one, there's a lot of time, money, and other resources that have already been spent, or will be soon, on HSR. Also, it has enormous potential to galvanize travel, communities, economies of scale, and even the national economy, not to mention create thousands of desperately-needed jobs. 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.[SButtonZ button="digg"] 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:

Over Two Centuries of Urban Expansion, Shown in Nine Minutes

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:[SButtonZ button="digg"]

[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.

The Morning Dig: See That Light Rail, Breezing Past the Traffic

• 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)[SButtonZ button="digg"]

Chaos Averted! Obama Restores Transportation Funds

Take that, Bunning! Last night, President Obama signed a bill restoring transportation funds for, well, everyone, and ending the unpaid furlough for the 2,000 DOT employees that were given the proverbial boot earlier in the week. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood has announced that the workers are returning to the job this morning.[SButtonZ button="digg"] 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

The Lab That Could Create an Earthquake-Proof Building

In the wake of the simply massive earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, the subject of destruction-prevention is on everyone's minds, in the event that another Big One strikes. 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.[SButtonZ button="digg"] 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.

Click here to view gallery

The Morning Dig: A Total Ban on Japanese Cars?

• Mad Cow redux? Republican Senator Mike Johanns from Nebraska has suggested that the U.S. ban Japanese cars entirely until the country's government guarantees that the vehicles have no defects. (USA Today) • 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)[SButtonZ button="digg"] • 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)

We Have No More Federal Transportation Law, and That’s Bad

Here's a rundown of what happened: Late last week, Republican Sen. Jim Bunning filibustered a bill to extend federal unemployment benefits, arguing that the government needed to add a provision stipulating how it would pay the $10 billion tab. As a result, the Transportation Department has announced it's going to furlough 2,000 employees (though it could be double that) without pay -- including people like federal inspectors that keep state construction projects going. The job cuts will come from the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the Research and Innovative Technology Administration. 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).[SButtonZ button="digg"] 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 Morning Dig: Will San Diego Become an Extension of Vegas?

• Stay classy San Diego: A group of "big thinkers" in the city are saying it should become part of a mega-region stretching from Southern California to Las Vegas. (Sign on San Diego) • 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)[SButtonZ button="digg"] • 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)

The Evening Dig: Caterpillar Kicked Out of the Persian Gulf

• With the Olympics over, eyes now turn to the Herculean construction tasks needed to turn the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi Russia into a success. (Kyiv Post) • 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)[SButtonZ button="digg"] • 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 Power of Building Codes: Chile Death Toll Less Than 1% That of Haiti

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

The Week in High Speed Rail: Tragedy on Amtrak

• Yesterday, a Northeast Corridor Amtrak train hit and killed two 10th-grade girls in Norwood, just southwest of Philadelphia. More details surrounding the incident haven't been released yet, though some are speculating it was suicide. (NYTimes & WaPo) • 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)[SButtonZ button="digg"] • 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

What Does TIGER Look Like? A Graphic Depiction

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. [SButtonZ button="digg"]

IBM’s Pulse 2010: The Time Is Now to Stop Infrastructure Waste

Infrastructurist attended this year's IBM Pulse 2010 conference, held this week at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The emphasis was on the company's new energy initiatives -- specifically, their Smart Building Solution, a combo of IMB's business analytics and enterprise software and Johnson Controls's energy technology that allows office and residential buildings to monitor their energy and water use and achieve greater efficiency. Right now, powering, heating, and cooling all our existing buildings generates around 40% of all CO2 emissions -- even more than automobiles. And as anyone who's ever worked in a Manhattan highrise knows, efficiency is not always the goal -- ever been the only one left in the office, yet all the lights and AC are still on full blast?[SButtonZ button="digg"] 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.

The Morning Dig: What Do You Do When Your City Is Sinking?

• Jakarta is sinking: By 2025, the sea level could rise high enough to hit the Presidential Palace in the city center (pictured). So what's the solution? Time for a new capital city: "If we have a good plan ... we can build a city from scratch, like Brasilia in Brazil," says an expert. (AFP via Yahoo) • 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)[SButtonZ button="digg"] • 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)