Photo Courtesy of BNSF Rep. Garamendi decries lack of public data concerning 5,000 railroad bridges. Related Links: Pipeline Advocates Question Crude-By-Rail Safety California lawmakers are pressuring railroads to share maintenance and construction data for infrastructure exposed to increased crude-oil traffic from North Dakota. There are 5,000 railroad bridges in California, but almost no public data exists on them, says U.S. Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.). "Are they safe?" he asks. "I don't know, but there should be some standard for determining their safety."Garamendi tells ENR that infrastructure upgrades and maintenance, especially to bridges, are crucial as more crude from North Dakota
Photo Courtesy of NASA SpaceX's CRS-5 Dragon arrives at the International Space Station on its fifth supply run on Jan. 12. Related Links: SpaceX CRS-5 Mission Elon Musk on Twitter As January comes to a close, 2015 already has been a busy year for Elon Musk, president of Space Exploration Technologies. Musk's SpaceX rocket manufacturing company secured $1 billion in financing from Google and Fidelity Investments for a shared 10% stake. Musk also announced his intention to build a five-mile test track for his pet high-speed land-transportation project, known as the Hyperloop.The Google-Fidelity announcement came days after Musk's Jan. 16
Photo Courtesy of ARTBA Transportation and technology professionals mingled at ARTBA's annual TransOvation workshop last fall at Microsoft's headquarters. Related Links: ARTBA Workshop Asks: Will Smart Vehicles Meet Dumb Roads? Intelligent Vehicles, Tools and Collaboration Hot Topics At Transportation Meeting Big data, automation and the "internet of things" will profoundly influence the construction and management of transportation infrastructure—and industry insiders are still trying to figure out exactly how that will happen.This mind-set was reflected at the most popular sessions at the Transportation Research Board's annual meeting, the theme of which was "Corridors to the Future: Transportation and Technology." Held on
Related Links: PennDOT Pushes On With P3 Plan To Replace 614 Bridges Plenary Walsh Keystone Partners In a $899-million deal to address the state's aging transportation infrastructure, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Transportation signed a contract on Jan. 12 with Plenary Walsh Keystone Partners to replace 558 bridges by the end of 2017."Now that we have a contractor in hand, we can go full-steam ahead," says Erin Waters-Trasatt, PennDOT spokeswoman. She says the plan is to replace 58 bridges in 2015 alone, with construction to begin this spring. PennDOT performed much of the advance work on the first batch of spans,
Related Links: TxDOT Awards $1-Billion Houston Loop Contract Alternate Project Delivery on the Rise Snaking 38 miles through both forests and developed land, the F-1, F-2 and G segments of state Highway 99's Grand Parkway feature straightforward construction—just lots of it in a short period of time. Advancing the rapid growth of the Houston metropolis—thanks largely to key investments by ExxonMobil and Southwest Energy to the north and east of the city—the design-build team, led by a joint venture of Zachry and Odebrecht, must build the three segments in just over two years for a 2015 completion."Technically, the project's design
Related Links: Precast Concrete Network Arch Bridge Is A First Unusually Slender Arch Marks Prague Bridge Arch bridges are one of the oldest types of bridges. The oldest known bridge in the world known to still be in use is the Caravan Bridge, a stone arch bridge across the Meles River in Izmir, Turkey. It was built in 850 B.C.Roman engineers built many arch bridges, quite a few of which are still standing. Probably the most famous is the Pont du Gard, an aqueduct bridge in southern France. Built in the first century A.D., it features three tiers of limestone
Image Courtesy of InterBering LLC The Moscow-Beijing high-speed rail line may one day connect to a possible tunnel under the Bering Strait to North America. Related Links: Dream Projects: Bering Strait Tunnel China has bagged a Russian contract to build a high-speed railway that would connect Moscow to Beijing in just 48 hours. This is part of a more grandiose plan to connect China with the United States and Canada by creating a tunnel in the Pacific."If the funds are raised smoothly … the line can be completed in five years at the quickest," Wang Meng-shu, a tunnel and railway
Related Links: $741M Overhaul of San Ysidro Land Port of Entry Burdened by Myriad Site Constraints San Ysidro Land Port of Entry The maelstrom of the $741-million remake of the world's busiest border crossing—the San Ysidro Land Port of Entry between Southern California and Mexico—was the 570-ft-long by 55-ft-wide cable-stayed canopy over the 24 lanes of tandem inspection booths that process 50,000 vehicles daily. The general contractor's agreement with SYLPOE not to worsen the already-lengthy vehicle wait times during construction of the canopy—and the tandem replacement booths—turned an intensely difficult project into a hellish one."The canopy was a pretty complicated
Related Links: Transportation Expert Manages With Tenacity Massachusetts Delays $1-billion Boston Line Extension to 2018 The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has received a tentative federal funding commitment for nearly $1 billion, almost half the cost of constructing the Green Line extension project. Congress must approve the grant.In a Dec. 1 letter to Congress, Therese McMillan, acting administrator of the Federal Transportation Administration, announced plans to "execute a full funding grant agreement," totaling $996 million for design and construction of the 4.7-mile Green Line extension. The grant would include the construction of six new stations to carry trains into Somerville and,
Buoyed by court rulings and a dedicated funding source from the state's cap-and-trade program, administrators of California's ambitious high-speed-rail program are moving forward with initial construction and renewed optimism.
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