Podcast: The Infrastructure Show

The US freight railroad system is moving to a different operating strategy, called Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR), intended to speed up service, get better utilization from infrastructure, and reduce operating costs. What is it and why does it matter?In this interview, we learn about PSR from John Friedmann, who is Vice President-Network Planning and Optimization for the Norfolk Southern railroad

People have been building dams for centuries to impound water for drinking and recreation, to support navigation, to manage floods, and as a source of hydroelectric power. But dams can also present dangers. Low-head dams, in particular, can pose invisible and deadly hazards to swimmers and boaters.To learn more about these dams, the risks they present, and what we can do about them we talk with Roger Adams, President of the Association of State Dam Safety Officials, and Paul Schweiger, a member of the Association and Vice President and Dams and Hydraulics Section Manager with Gannett Fleming

Geothermal energy brings steam created with the heat of magma deep in the earth to generate electric power. California is endowed with numerous sites where magma is close enough to the surface to make geothermal energy practical. The Geysers, a geothermal field in northern California, is the world’s largest source of geothermal electric energy, where six different companies use steam from 350 wells to provide enough electric power to support nearly half-a-million homes. To learn more about the Geysers, and to explore the functionality and sustainability of geothermal power, we talk with California Energy Commissioner Karen Douglas, an attorney and one of five members of the commission

Positive Train Control, or PTC, is a set of technologies designed to assure that our railroad system is protected from collisions and error-driven accidents. The system tracks the location of trains, compares their immediate operations to infrastructure limits, the presence of other trains, and other sources of risks, and guides operators, or the trains themselves, to avoid accidents.PTC is a complicated and varied system being deployed across the nation. Two distinct systems are in use – Interoperable Electronic Train Management System (I-ETMS) and ACSES – Advanced Civil Speed Enforcement System. To help us understand these systems and to learn more about PTC, we talk with Paul Victor, an experienced railroader and former President of the New York and Atlantic Railroad, a short line railroad serving customers in the New York City Metropolitan area

In 2008, Los Angeles County voters approved a half-cent sales tax increase to support specific improvements to both highways and transit facilities; in 2016, voters extended and increased that tax to support continued transportation investments.In this podcast we get a progress report on the investment program and learn about transit projects that will support the 2028 Olympic Games from Phillip Washington, CEO of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The Soo locks bridge a 21 foot elevation difference between Lake Superior and Lake Huron and the rest of the Great Lakes in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. These locks are an essential link in the U.S. steel supply chain. At the end of 2018, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Detroit District, which operates and maintains Soo Locks, advanced the plan to add capacity and redundancy to the Locks by releasing a study analyzing the economic value of investing nearly $1 billion dollars in a new lock. In this podcast we learn about the locks and the findings of this evaluation study from Lt. Col. Greg Turner, Commander of the Detroit District for the Corps

The earthquake risk in California is real, and tall buildings present a particular hazard because they concentrate people and activities, they support critical economic activities, and their scale can pose threats to nearby people and structures. In December of 2018, San Francisco’s Department of Emergency Management released a study of tall buildings focused on damage minimization and quick restoration of functionality. In this podcast we learn about the recommendations in this study from Brian Strong, San Francisco’s Chief Resilience Officer and Director of its Office of Resilience and Capital Planning, the office that oversaw this study

Hundreds of large power plants and a nationwide, interconnected distribution network produce and deliver electricity to homes and businesses in the United States. While our electric system is quite reliable (though nowhere near the best compared across nations), cascading failures do shut down parts of the network, and natural disasters, such as hurricanes, snow storms, and earthquakes, can cause widespread power blackouts. Microgrids, partly- or fully-independent sources of localized electrical power, can add resilience and sustainability to the power system. To learn about the characteristics, applications, and motivations for microgrids, we talk with Dr. Chris Marnay, retired staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who is an expert on microgrids and sustainable energy systems.

Damaging wildfires in the western U.S. are a growing threat. In California, wildfires destroyed tens of thousands of homes and caused the deaths of nearly 100 people in 2018. Fire also threatens public infrastructure, particularly the highway network, which is essential for both evacuation and the delivery of emergency response resources. To understand how wildfires have affected the state highway system, we talk with Rene Garcia, who is Chief of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) Office of Emergency Management and Infrastructure Protection

Historically, cities grew up near water – rivers, lakes, the oceans – because of the easy mobility it provides. But water presents a barrier as well as an opportunity, motivating the organized use of ships for local transportation. No city in the United States relies more on ferry transportation for commuting, commerce, and recreation than Seattle, Washington. To learn more about the role of the region’s ferries as a part of its transportation infrastructure, we talk with Elizabeth Kosa, Chief of Staff – Ferries, at the Washington Department of Transportation.