Podcast: The Infrastructure Show

Changing climate brings new risks to infrastructure, and commonly these risks are shared with insurance companies. To control their risks, insurers need to understand and anticipate both the sources and characteristics of natural threats, and to collaborate with their clients – infrastructure owners and operators – to mitigate the risks of natural hazards.To open a window on the role of insurers in addressing climate risk, we talk with Martin Lockman, a research lawyer working at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Martin works at the intersection of climate-related threats to infrastructure, the insurance industry, and risk management

COVID-19 has robbed public transit of riders as many have changed workplaces, shifted schedules, and chosen new ways to travel to avoid crowds. Transit operators around the world are working to attract commuters back, adjusting services and fares to accommodate changing markets, secure reliable revenue sources, and redefine their roles in the city.To tell us more about both the challenges and responses of a major commuter rail operator, we’ve invited James Derwinski to talk with us. Jim is CEO and Executive Director of Metra, the commuter rail system serving the Chicago Metropolitan area, the fourth largest in the US in terms of trips carried, and the largest in terms of route miles

Mobility is essential for the well-being of people wherever they live. The automobile is king of the mobility market across the US, but public transit supports mobility for those who cannot, or chose not to, travel by car. The need for alternatives to automobility in smaller communities and rural areas is substantial but not especially visible.To understand the role and options for transit in such places, we talk with Scott Brogen, who is Executive Director of the Community Transportation Association of America

A hotter climate brings new challenges to the built infrastructure, stressing service systems – power generation and distribution and transportation systems – as well as structures. Are we prepared for these problems? How can infrastructure adapt to higher temperatures?To understand both the problems and options, we talk with Mikhail Chester, Associate Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at the Fulton School of Engineering, and Director of the Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering, at Arizona State University

Superfund sites are seriously polluted locations that are subject to remediation by the Environmental Protection Agency under the 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA). These clean-up processes can be large, complex, and costly.To understand what it takes to restore a particularly challenging location, the 132-acre Eagle Zinc Superfund site in Hillsboro, Illinois, we talk with the EPA’s Margaret Gielniewski, who is Remedial Project Manager

This podcast is a timely history lesson about the electrification of rural America and the Depression-era program that made it happen. The Rural Electrification Act of 1936 – the REA – provided federal loans to install electrical distribution systems to serve rural areas. The REA may offer lessons as we invest to extend high speed broadband service across the country.To learn about the REA and its impacts, we’re talking with Price Fishback, APS Professor of Economics at the Eller College of Management of the University of Arizona, an expert on the political economy of Roosevelt’s New Deal during the 1930s

Marine ports are gateways to world trade, and their efficient functioning is a pillar of our economy. East and Gulf Coast ports have grown more important in recent years because of the expanded Panama Canal locks opened in 2016 and continuing congestion in West Coast ports and overland transportation. The Port of Virginia has been making important infrastructure investments to secure its position in this competition for world trade.To learn how it became the second busiest container port on the East Coast, in this podcast we talk with Stephen Edwards, CEO and Executive Director of the Virginia Port Authority (VPA)

Railroads and motor vehicles can come into conflict at level, or at-grade crossings. Such conflicts almost always lead to deadly consequences. In this podcast we consider the trend in rail grade crossing crashes, and the differences that crossing control devices, education, and other policies might make toward mitigating this risk.To understand how we can make these intersections safer, we talk with Professor Ian Savage of Northwestern University, a transport economist who studies the economics of transportation safety, including rail safety

Replacing an active railroad bridge while limiting disruptions to both rail and river traffic presents significant challenges in design and construction staging. The 1889 Merchants Bridge at St. Louis – the oldest remaining rail bridge across the Mississippi River – needed to be upgraded to modern standards. The work involved removal and replacement of three truss spans, accomplished in separate time windows, and demanding the precise coordination of multiple contractors, as well as rail and waterways operations.In this podcast we talk with Dan Sieve, Senior Project Manager for Walsh Construction, the company that led the effort, to learn how the work was done

Because temperatures below the surface of the earth are relatively constant year around, the earth can be used as a heat sink or source to cool or heat buildings, offering an energy source that is not only carbon-free, but is also constant. How does this work? Where and how can we use this seemingly free energy source?To answer these questions, we talk with Alessandro Rotta Loria, Assistant Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Northwestern University, who studies the connections between geomechanics, energy, and environmental sustainability