National News - Richard A. Rula School of Civil & Environmental Engineering - Bagley College of Engineering - Page 3
An investment in America’s infrastructure could cost taxpayers nothing
A recent report showed unexpectedly slow job growth over the summer, raising the odds of a stall in the already sluggish U.S. economic recovery. While this in itself is disappointing, the even greater disappointment is the failure to do anything about it, particularly when there’s an obvious and costless solution: borrow hundreds of billions of…
Americans Pay Steep Price for Repairs Caused by Bad Roads
With the nation’s road repair fund running on fumes, a transportation research and lobbying group has collected data on just how much bad roads are costing American drivers in higher repair bill. Every spring thaw brings potholes. This year, one of the harshest winters in memory is turning America’s highways into a historic pothole-palooza. Now,…
R.I.P. California (1850-2016): What We’ll Lose And Learn From The World’s First Major Water Collapse
Last week when NASA announced that California is on its death bed and has only 12 months of water left, the news hit like a punch to the gut. “Data from NASA satellites show that the total amount of water stored in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins — that is, all of the…
GOP budgets quiet on highway funding
Budgets that were released this week by Republican leaders in the HOuse and Senate offer little relief for a transportation funding shortfall that is threatening to stall construction projects this summer. Lawmakers are scrambling to come up with a way to pay for an extension of a transportation funding measure that is currently scheduled to…
ASCE Helps Provide a Bi-Partisan Budget Plan to Deter Cuts in Infrastructure
The President proposed a detailed, six-year plan. (The Gop) may not like how it was funded, but at least he did it. The Republican budget will send a ripple of fear and concern across this country because we are facing a cliff. The Republicans have no plan on the table and their budget demonstrates that. You are…
ASCE Fights in GOP for Long-Term Infrastructure Budget
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, we need to invest over $3 trillion by 2020 in our infrastructure. at a time when millions of Americans are working for starvation wages and when the federal minimum wage is an abysmal $7.25. We need to increase wages. We also need to pay equity in this country so…
Cable-Stayed Bridges Emerge as Preferred Option
Cable-Stayed Bridges Emerge as Preferred Option As the United States undertakes efforts to upgrade its ageing infrastructure, the cable-stayed methods fast becoming the preferred design option for new bridge construction. The cable-stayed method involves the use of cables suspended from one or more pylons to support the bridge deck. The design has a lengthy history, with…
Can We Reverse-Engineer the Environment?
The Sanitary and Ship Canal was heralded as a triumph of that heroic age of American civil engineering in which technological progress and industrial might promised to deliver us from nature’s tyranny. If we could reverse the course of rivers, what couldn’t we bend to our will? In 1955, the American Society of Civil Engineers named…
Hyperloop Transportation System Possible
Tesla and SpaceX co-founder Elon Musk’s idea of a “Hyperloop” transportation system might eventually turn into a reality within a decade, according to a California startup. The Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) said that the futuristic transportation system will be used to connect several key cities in the United States. After about a year of its…
Columbia River Bridge of 1917 Remains Deathtrap as Infrastructure Crumbles
Oregon and Washington had spent more than a decade devising a compromise to replace the steel-girded mess on Interstate 5. The structure dates to 1917 during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency and is too low for the tallest river-going derricks and dredges, so operators frequently have to raise part of the span, halting traffic. Rush hour starts…