Podcast: The Infrastructure Show

Unlike Germany, which is closing down all its nuclear facilities in response to the disaster in Fukushima, Japan, the U.S. will see completion of a new nuclear power plant in 2015 – the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar 2 nuclear plant, located in east Tennessee. The hosts talk about the details of this plant, and about the outlook for nuclear power in general, with Gary Mauldin, General Manager of Project Assurance and Support Services for Watts Bar at the TVA

The State of California has been a world leader in earthquake safety building codes, starting with the California Seismic Code, passed in 1933 after the Long Beach earthquake. In spite of code changes and advances in design standards, retrofitting buildings to meet new codes continues to be a challenge. For example, following the 1971 San Fernando Earthquake, 1,777 California public school buildings still did not conform to the school seismic safety standards passed by the state legislature 38 years before. The main obstacle was the cost of the retrofits. Although the San Fernando Earthquake led to still more advanced design codes, The Los Angeles Times has reported that many concrete buildings in the city do not meet current seismic safety standards, putting their occupants at risk in the event of a major earthquake. Once again, the cost of retrofits was cited as the major problem. To explore the topic of seismic retrofits of concrete buildings, the hosts talk with Dr. Gregg Brandow, Professor of Engineering Practice at the University of Southern California, who is a leading expert on the seismic evaluation and retrofit of buildings

Carmel, Indiana, a city of about 83,000 people located directly to the north of Indianapolis, has become informally known as “The Roundabout Capital of the U.S.” because of its embrace of the roundabout, a traffic concept more commonly found in Britain. Carmel has become a city nearly free of conventional four-way intersections, which means it is also nearly free of stop signs and traffic lights. At these roundabouts, traffic flows continuously, in one direction, around circular islands. The hosts discuss why the city has adopted this design – and what characteristics of the city have made the changes possible –with Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard, the man who made the roundabouts happen.

On July 6, 2013, a freight train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in the downtown area of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killing at least 42 residents. Subsequently, a special emergency meeting was held in Washington, D.C. by the Federal Railroad Administration’s Railroad Safety Advisory Committee, to discuss additional rail safety measures for hazardous materials transport. The agenda of the emergency meeting included a Safety Advisory issued jointly by the FRA and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, also known as PHMSA. Directed to railroads and shippers of hazardous materials, this Advisory included a number of recommended actions to help reduce transport risks. The hosts discuss this topic of safe transport of hazardous materials with PHMSA Administrator Cynthia Quarterman

The U.S. General Services Administration’s Public Service Division, in its role as a landlord for the government, has in recent years been on the leading edge of green building design, new and retrofit construction, operations and maintenance. Among GSA’s initiatives is to “act as a green proving ground,” and many of the facilities it manages have become showcases for energy efficiency and new technology. The hosts discuss the impressive green building achievements of GSA with Dr. Dorothy Robyn, Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge consists of two separate spans, each of about 10,000 feet. The west span connects San Francisco to Yerba Buena Island in the middle of the bay, and the east span connects the island to Oakland. Daily traffic is about 280,000 vehicles. Completed in 1936, the west span is a suspension bridge, and the original east span was a cantilever design. In 1989, during the Loma Prieta earthquake, a portion of the east span collapsed, with one fatality. While the damage was repaired quickly, the decision was made to construct an earthquake-resistant new east span, of suspension design. Construction of this new span began in 2002, parallel to the original cantilever span that remained in operation during the 11 years of construction. Finally, on September 3rd, 2013, the new east span was opened for traffic. The hosts discuss the many challenges of completing this strikingly designed new Bay Bridge east span with Tony Anziano, Toll Bridge Program Manager for the California Department of Transportation, commonly called Caltrans, the department that has managed this project, in conjunction with the Bay Area Toll Authority and the California Transportation Commission.

In Europe and other developed countries of the world, infrastructure spending generally is regarded as an investment for the common good of the citizens. In the United States, on the other hand, infrastructure spending is treated in budgeting as an expense rather than an investment. Thus, in recent years Congress has tended to ignore the value of our built assets and to focus on the country’s budget deficit. How can the U.S. make infrastructure improvements given the funding obstacles that exist today? Focusing in particular on transportation infrastructure, the hosts talk with Mort Downey, a Senior Advisor for Parsons Brinckerhoff, who was Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation from 1993 to 2001. During his years with the DOT, he helped to double infrastructure funding

Transit service in low-density suburbs is usually provided with buses operating on local streets – rail transit on separate rights of way is too costly given modest ridership levels. But providing bus service in contemporary U.S. suburbs can be a challenge both to the bus operator and the travelers themselves. Secure paths for getting to and from bus stops may not exist, and protected bus stops may be rare. To encourage transit ridership, it is important to offer seamless transportation – safe, efficient, and fast connections between origin and destination, including getting to and from the bus stops. The hosts talk about the challenges of providing seamless bus infrastructure in suburban communities with Michael Bolton, Deputy Executive Director, of Pace, the Chicago metropolitan area’s suburban bus system.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the catastrophic North Sea Flood of 1953, which occurred on January 31 and Feb. 1 of that year due to a combination of very high tides and a storm with gale-force winds. The storm surge overwhelmed many of the sea defenses in the countries bordering the North Sea. The worst flooding was in the Netherlands, where 1,836 deaths were recorded. The response to the tragedy was the creation of the Delta Works Commission, which in the following decades transformed the Netherlands flood protection system into the outstanding infrastructure it is today. The hosts talk about the Delta Works with Henk Ovink, who is currently senior advisor to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan in his role of Chair of the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force. Before joining the Task Force last April, Mr. Ovink was Director General for Spatial Planning and Water Affairs and Director of National Spatial Planning for the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment in the Netherlands.

The 2013 Edition of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Infrastructure Report Card gave its highest grade – a B minus – to the category of solid waste management, up from a C plus in the 2009 report card. According to the ASCE, while recent figures show that Americans generate about 250 million tons of solid waste annually, about 85 million tons of that – or 34% – is recycled. As well, the generation of waste per person today is less than it was 20 years ago. The hosts discuss what the U.S. is doing right in regard to solid waste – and how we still might improve – with Debra Reinhart, a Professor in the Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering Department at the University of Central Florida, who was in charge of the solid waste evaluations for the 2013 ASCE Infrastructure Report Card