Podcast: The Infrastructure Show

Water infrastructure issues are much in the news in the U.S. — not only in the West, where drought continues to take a high toll, but also in other parts of the country, where the water needs for municipalities, energy production, commercial interests, and agriculture intersect and sometimes conflict. In this interview, one in a series of three exploring some of the nation’s water challenges, we talk with Robert Glennon, Regents’ Professor and Morris K. Udall Professor of Law & Public Policy at the University of Arizona, author of Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to Do About It. Prof. Glennon discusses the trade-offs between competing demands for water, the conflicts in allocation, and strategies for both conserving and sharing scarce water more effectively.

New and stronger concretes have become the standard material for very tall buildings, particularly residential buildings, where structural stiffness is important for the comfort of occupants. In this interview, Paul James, Senior Vice President with Lendlease U.S. Construction in Chicago, talks about the tradeoffs in design and materials selection as a function of use of the structure, the rate limiting factors in the construction of tall concrete and steel buildings, the effects of weather on construction speed, and the role of the construction engineer in material specification

New and stronger concretes have become the standard material for very tall buildings, displacing steel in structural design. These concretes bring higher, selectable strengths and workability properties that make them particularly efficient and effective for architectural megastructures. In this interview we learn about designing tall concrete buildings in a conversation with architect and structural Joseph G. Burns, who is Managing Principal with the design firm Thornton Tomasetti in Chicago

Concrete is among the oldest of building materials; for example, it was the principal material in the dome of the Pantheon in Rome, completed in 128 AD. Research and innovation have led to radical changes in concrete and its applications, particularly over the past 30 years. These changes have made it possible to use concrete for the tallest buildings in the world, buildings that, only a few decades ago, would have been built of steel. In this first in a series of three podcasts we examine the science of concrete to understand the material itself, and how research has changed its properties to facilitate important new uses for concrete, particularly for megastructures. We learn about new concretes from Emeritus Professor Surendra P. Shah of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois

Breaking the Freight Bottlenecks for the Expanded Panama CanalThe effectiveness and efficiency of a marine port is closely tied to the performance and capacity of the landside transportation network that moves goods to and from ships. The expanded Panama Canal, designed to handle significantly larger ships, will challenge U.S. Atlantic and Gulf ports with those larger ships and the resulting higher rate of flow of products in and out of ports. Assuring sufficient landside capacity is a task shared by the private sector (both railroad companies and intermodal terminal operators) and governments responsible for the highway network. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has formed a stakeholder group to identify and address the needs of shippers, carriers, and ports along the Texas Gulf Coast. TxDOT has been investing in expanded roadway infrastructure to ease key bottlenecks, particularly those affecting the major port of Houston. In this discussion, Professor Schofer explores some key activities of TxDOT with Caroline Mays, Freight Systems Branch Manager for TxDOT

The Port of Houston is the principal U.S. port on the Gulf of Mexico, handling petrochemical, coal, and grain exports, and inbound consumer products. Many of the 4,000 or so ships that traverse the Houston ship channel annually transit the Panama Canal on their journeys. The expanded Canal, set to open in the winter of 2016, will support Neo-Panamax ships with as much as three times the capacity of current Panamax ships, as well as very large LNG carriers. Is the Port of Houston ready for these new ships? What public and private investments have been made and are planned to assure that Houston, and the U.S., are competitive in international trade? Roger Guenther, Executive Director of the Port of Houston Authority talks about Houston’s progress and plans with host Joseph Schofer

The expanded Panama Canal is scheduled to open in the winter of 2016, featuring a new, parallel set of locks and deeper channels, allowing the passage of Neo-Panamax container ships carrying as many as 13,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), in contrast to 5000 TEU capacity of today’s Panamax ships, as well as larger bulk carriers and now LNG ships. Larger ships mean lower transportation costs, and the possibility of reducing consumer prices and making some US businesses more competitive in the global markets. But a key question for the U.S. is “Are our ports, harbor, and landside transportation systems ready for these larger ships?” Are channels deep enough, cranes sufficiently large and plentiful, and do rail, road, and storage facilities have the throughput capacity to move the bulk and containerized goods? Host Joseph Schofer discusses the national perspective on port readiness with Roger Bohnert, Deputy Associate Administrator-Office of Intermodal System Development, and Yvette Fields, Director, Office of Deepwater Ports and Offshore Activities, at the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD). The Phase I report of MARAD’s Panama Canal impact study is her

“Nuisance flooding” is a term for minor flooding that is not catastrophic or life-threatening, but which causes various problems for cities and towns, including overflowing storm water management systems, roads that must be closed to traffic, and deterioration of infrastructure not designed to be under water and in contact with salt-water. Much has been written in recent years about climate-related sea level rise, but a study released this July by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, focuses on the impacts of sea level rise as manifested in increasing frequency and magnitude of nuisance tidal flooding – and the findings are dramatic. Titled “Sea Level Rise and Nuisance Flood Frequency Changes Around the United States,” the report shows that nuisance flooding occurs much more frequently today than in the 1960s – in fact, 300 to 925 percent more frequently. Professor Schofer discusses this important topic with the lead author of that report, William Sweet, oceanographer at NOAA’s Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services

Six years ago, transportation planners across the U.S. watched with great interest the progress of the November 2008 elections in Los Angeles County, California, where a proposed sales tax to fund transportation projects – called Measure R – was on the ballot. Measure R passed in that election, and its proposal was implemented: a half-cent sales tax on each taxable dollar spent in Los Angeles County, used to fund specific transportation projects for the next 30 years. This month, on the 6-year anniversary of Measure R’s passage, Los Angeles County is the scene of five major highway and transit projects under construction at the same time – an unprecedented accomplishment in U.S. metropolitan areas, where “no new taxes” is the popular mantra. Professor Schofer talks about Measure R, its process and products, with David Yale, Managing Executive Officer, County-Wide Planning and Development, for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, also known as Metro

In the Midwestern United States, the winter of 2013-2014 was one of the most severe in recorded weather history. In Chicago, every type of transportation was affected by waves of Arctic cold and 80 inches of snowfall. At O’Hare International Airport, in suburban Chicago, the challenge of removing snow and ice from 14 miles of runways, 45 miles of taxiways, and 20 million square feet of gate areas during this period of extreme weather was immense – this for the second busiest airport in the U.S., handling more than 194,000 flight operations for the first 3 months of 2014. Yet O’Hare did such a good job that it won a top aviation industry award for excellence in snow and ice control – the coveted Balchen/Post Award issued annually by the Northeast Chapter of the American Association of Airport Executives – O’Hare was this year’s winner in the large commercial airports category. Professor Schofer discusses the snow removal challenges at O’Hare Airport and how they are met with George Lyman, Managing Deputy Commissioner, Chicago Department of Aviation, Airport Airfield Operations and Vehicle Services Sections