Many ENR readers have watched with interest the recent debate over the proposed Las Vegas-to-Los Angeles high-speed rail corridor running along Interstate 15. Long viewed as a potential maglev project, things got a little murky last month when U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) switched his support from maglev to conventional high-speed steel wheel technology. But what happened in Vegas is not staying there. With the advent of the Obama presidency, rail suddenly is a hot and potentially lucrative topic everywhere.
MARC CASPE Security perimeter standards and physical-barrier technologies have rapidly developed in recent years due to increasing threats to buildings and human lives. Security perimeter technologies require assessing all risks and vulnerabilities. Based on crash-validation test standards, innovative technologies are available using analytic simulation tools followed by prototype validations. Attractive antiterrorism designs now can provide landscaping of city streets without deep excavations. Photo: Courtesy of KKCS Simulations and actual crashes fine-tune design process. “The Specification for Vehicle Crash Test of Perimeter Barriers and Gates” was first published in 1985 by the U.S. Dept. of State and then revised in 2003.
The global construction market is in crisis. Credit is tight or non-existent. Development deals are stalled or stopped. The money flow from lenders- to owners -to contractors is slower than normal. Based on past history, these conditions lead to more claims, more disputes, and more arbitration and litigation. So, what can be done to avoid or reduce the historical equation of “less money equals more disputes?” The construction industry has long served as a “laboratory” and proving ground for innovative dispute resolution prevention and resolution. Some processes have worked better than others. There are the preventative processes such as “partnering”.
With $130 billion in Federal stimulus money heading into the economy for infrastructure, the demand for engineering talent will be enormous and competition for that talent will rage. Whether it’s for designing and building new highways or bridges, water systems, transit lines or green buildings, proposed federal stimulus spending will see a massive change in how engineering staffing models are employed and utilized by the building design and construction industries. SALVUCCI But I have a few questions. Will the coming hiring binge sow the seeds for a counter cycle two or three years from now that will eliminate many of
According to the Federal Bureau of Labor and Statistics the construction industry has one of the highest occupational injury rates. What makes the situation worse is that the Social Security Administration notes that disability costs related to these injuries are projected to increase 37% this decade due to an aging workforce. This lost time due to injury/illness impacts both direct and indirect disability costs and that may lead to a variety of issues including a decrease in employee morale, increased litigation, and increased medical and lost time costs. It may also lead to an increased experience modification rate. So what
ENR’s recent story on the new labor-management accord in New York City to cut building costs and boost work revives memories of the founding of PRIDE of St. Louis Inc., 37 years ago. Like New York now, St. Louis then had a construction industry in crisis. Labor-management disputes were disrupting building projects and development dollars were fleeing town. PRIDE, an acronym for Productivity and Responsibility Increase Development and Employment, became a forum to unite labor and management. We, too, eliminated outdated work rules, more than 300 of them. Prefabricated plumbing was allowed to expedite on-site assembly. Non-competitive overtime rates were
President Barack Obama recently announced a new federal policy to raise the mandated average gas mileage of cars and trucks, as well as reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. By 2016, the fleet-fuel-efficiency standard for all passenger cars will be 39 mpg, and 30 mpg for light trucks and sport-utility vehicles. Photo: Ford Motor Co. Slick hybrids could become jobsite workhorses. The average of these two equals a passenger-car and light-truck fuel-efficiency standard of 35.5 mpg. So what does this mean for future pickup-truck buyers? It depends. What is still to be determined are the exact rules that will have to be followed
The urgency of the current economic situation means state agencies must re-examine the way they do business, particularly with respect to in-house versus outsourced design work. Conventional wisdom has long favored the cost-effectiveness of private-sector design of public projects. Private-sector design professionals are more efficient. A recent report by Polytechnic Institute of New York University pegs the cost differential between public and private designers at about 14% and substantiates the claim that New York state can achieve significant cost savings by using private-sector engineers. SIMSON Performed at the request of the American Council of Engineering Cos. of New York, the
The U.S. Green Building Council has just rolled out the long awaited LEED 2009, also known by some as LEED v.3. It is the first major change to LEED since version 1.0 was released in 1999. In this new version, the USGBC has made some of the major changes that the green building industry has been demanding, but for many on the innovative end of the green building spectrum it will not go far enough. One of the criticisms with the current LEED version has been the inequity of the one point for each strategy system. For example cleaning up
The federal government has conducted stress tests of financial institutions after lending billions of dollars in the Temporary Assistance Recovery Program (TARP). The main aim of the tests is to determine if banks can survive the economic downturn without additional capital. The idea is to avoid a repeat of the financial crisis that occurred last year when Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and other lenders went bust as a result of miscalculating their risk. What is the impact from misjudging risk on the design and building industry? During a slow economy claims and litigation increase. The economic climate also is forcing
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