From Archimedes to Sim City

Archimedes, the brilliant Greek engineer, once said, "Give me a platform, and I can move the earth."

More than two millennia later, we can say, "Give me a 3-D printer, and I can create a whole new world."  Sim City is just a game, but it gives us plenty of ideas about how to create new things--and with the advent of 3-D printing, it's easy to see how anyone could be part of this exciting new prospect.

Of course, we would also need to factor in the need for new infrastructure, to accompany this new construction.

Robo-Cars in Sweden "no one should be killed or seriously injured in a new Volvo"

Wired reports: 

Volvo is bring its robo-car army to its home country of Sweden, with 100 autonomous vehicles taking to the roads of Gothenburg in the next three years.

In a move that one-ups Nissan’s promise to bring autonomous vehicles to market by the end of the decade, Volvo says it believes that “that no one should be killed or seriously injured in a new Volvo car by 2020.”

Michio Kaku, writing for The New York Times: 

As transportation is digitized in the next decade, driverless cars, guided by GPS and radar, will share our highways. “Traffic accidents” and “traffic jams” will become archaic terms. Thousands of lives will be saved every year.

Ray LaHood: Transportation Stimulus Should Have Been Bigger

The Washington Times reports:

Mr. Lahood, who led the Department of Transportation from 2009 until 2013, said that the $831 billion stimulus package that President Obama signed in 2009 should have included more money for transportation projects.

“Should it have been more money? Of course,” he said. “Rather than $48 billion, it should have been $480 billion.”

New Airport Terminal in Shenzen, China

CNN has the story. 

CNN Reports: From Africa to India to China, new infrastructure projects

Guess what country is not represented on this roster?   You got it--right here. 

Wall Street Journal headline: "A Slowdown on the Road to Recovery Decaying Bridges, Highways Raise Costs for Truckers, Manufacturers"

As The Wall Street Journal reports,  "One in nine of the country's 607,380 bridges is structurally deficient and 42% of the country's major urban highways are congested, according to an American Society of Civil Engineers estimate, the result of years of inadequate funding and deferred maintenance."

Those numbers might seem like abstractions, but the chart above shows how slow things can get; in "freight-significant" highways in the Chicago area, for example, average speeds at peak periods are around 22 mph.

And so, as the Journal's Bob Tita notes, decaying infrastructure has real-world, bottom-line, consequences for American business and the American economy: 

Trucks ship the bulk of the country's goods. But trucking companies and their customers complain those shipments are being rerouted—sometimes by hundreds of miles—or traveling at lower speeds over deteriorating or traffic-clogged highways. That causes higher costs for fuel, maintenance and other expenses, including drivers.

In some cases, the higher transportation costs end up on consumers. "We try to price our products to what our costs are," said Donald Maier, senior vice president of global operations for Lancaster, Pa.-based Armstrong World Industries, Inc., which makes floor and ceiling tiles.

He said fully loaded truck trailers traveling to or from its Marietta, Pa., ceiling tile plant will have to use a 25-mile detour, mostly to avoid a two-lane state highway bridge over a tributary of the Susquehanna River that will no longer be rated to accommodate fully loaded heavy-duty trucks.

Armstrong projects the additional miles will add about $200,000 to $300,000 a year to the Marietta plant's transportation costs.

The Journal report continues:

The U.S. hasn't raised the federal fuel tax for 20 years and many states also have been reluctant to raise taxes on fuel or vehicle registration fees, prompting drastic tactics to manage stretched funds.

"One thing we don't factor in our investments is a decline in state-owned transportation infrastructure, but it could become a huge issue," said Dave Strobel, senior vice president of global operations for Carpenter Technology Corp., a Wyomissing, Pa., maker of alloys and metals for aerospace, energy and medical industries.

The company has six plants spread across Pennsylvania, where one in four bridges is structurally deficient—the highest in the nation. The state Department of Transportation recently lowered weight limits on more than 1,000 bridges dotting the state to reduce wear and extend their service. As a result those bridges could be off-limits to big trucks and trailers.

Mr. Strobel is concerned the restrictions will result in circuitous routes and make it more difficult and expensive to directly transport ingots from a plant in Reading and another recently acquired near Latrobe, Pa., to a new mill in Alabama.

This important news story ought to be worth a Wall Street Journal editorial, too. 

A look at crumbling--literally, crumbling--infrastructure in Pittsburgh

The Business Insider has more, courtesy of Transportation for America. 

The newest frontier of infrastructure could be underground

If one takes the broadest definition of infrastructure--that is, "infrastructure is that which helps people do what they want to do"--then pneumatic tubes, snaking underground, for disposing of trash should be considered as infrastructure.  

Overall traffic fatalities are down, but bicycle fatalities are up--so what to do?

As the above chart, from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, shows us, overall traffic fatalities are declining, while deaths among bicyclists (referred to as "pedalcyclists") are rising.  

This increase in bike fatalities, while lamentable, is not surprising, given the proliferation of bicycles over the last few years.  

Just over the weekend, we learned that Montgomery County, MD (population, 989,000), is joining in the Capital Bikeshare program, one of many such bike-riding programs popping up around the country. Such programs are obviously popular, but it's quite possible that they will lead to more bicycle fatalities. 

As anyone observing the streets of big cities today--on foot, on a bike or motorbike, or in a four-wheeled vehicle--the transportation situation is getting more and more complicated, and dangerous. 

So what are some solutions?  How can new thinking help?  What new infrastructure, for example, do we need?  

Celebrating the pro-car, pro-infrastructure vision of Norman Bel Geddes--and noting a future anniversary of that vision

As The Wall Street Journal's Dan Neil observes, driverless cars are on their way--in fact, they are already here.  Still, the issues and questions surrounding them are manifold; including, as Neil puts it, not just the risk of hackers and terrorism and trial lawyers but also the risk of another Skynet.

But there's an upside, of course--and an inevitability.

In addition, Neil adds some useful historical context:

The idea of self-piloting cars has been around a long time, but the vision belongs to Norman Bel Geddes, the American utopianist who designed General Motors' Futurama exhibit for the '39 World's Fair in New York. In the future city (as per Bel Geddes' sprawling set piece of miniatures), cars would move in tight squadrons safely under the control of a central traffic authority. They would be in constant radio contact with each other and the road. They would be electronically crash-proofed in a way that rules out random collisions. Speeds could rise, proximities close and road carrying capacities increase.

A beautiful order would be imposed on interurban traffic, and the cascading efficiencies would include a smaller infrastructural footprint, lower per-mile energy costs and higher system productivity (this vision being from the 1930s, the era of scientific management).

As of 2013, almost everything technically necessary to enact a real-world version of the Bel Geddes dream has been invented. But the details are shaping up differently. For this first generation of autonomy, for example, cars will rely on their own wits—their own cameras, sensors and map-keeping—rather than cede control to some master computer.

As noted here at Hamilton21 in the past, the 75th anniversary of the New York World's Fair is coming up soon--on April 30, 2014, to be exact.  That's a date on the calendar with circling. 

Rep. John Delaney, Democrat of Maryland, on infrastructure

Read about it here.

In particular, Delaney's ideas on infrastructure bonds are worth noting.

"To the future" -- News story from ARTBA convention in Milwaukee

Here's the link to Allen Zeyher's insightful report, for Roads & Bridges, on my speech to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association last week. 

Tony Abbott aims "to be an infrastructure prime minister who puts puts bulldozers on the ground and cranes in the skies."

From a September 7 report in The Guardian. 

Victorious Australian Conservative Tony Abbott ran on four issues, one of which was infrastructure.

Tim Montgomerie of The Times of London spells it out:

3. His four-fold message has focused on immigration, tax, infrastructure and above all, the carbon tax: Most politicians get bored with repeating the same message. Pundits needing to fill their pages or broadcast slots with ‘new news’ certainly do. Abbott doesn’t get bored. A man famous for his physical fitness he has the stamina to conquer arduous bike journeys and marathons. Knowing that voters only start to hear a message when politicians are sick to death of hearing themselves repeat it for the squillionth time he has stuck relentlessly to four big themes: Scrap the carbon tax; Stop the boats (via which illegal immigrants enter Australia); Cut taxes; and, more recently, Build new roads.

"Computer-Operated Car Transports PA Congressman" -- Good for Bill Shuster!

The AP's Kevin Burgos has the details. 

"Russian rocket engine export ban could halt US space program"

Per this report from the Russian RT, the US might have to rethink its policy of relying on rivals/enemies for vital strategic materiel.

There's great wisdom in ensuring domestic manufacturing capacity, to safeguard against exactly these kinds of threats. 

A word from Raymond C. Ventrone, business manager of Boilermakers Local 154, in Banksville, Pennsylvania

Full text of his letter to the editor here.

And this was interesting, too--it's behind a paywall, but one can get the idea:

The U.S government’s Office of Surface Mining has announced that it lost 18,000 documents sought by coal miners as part of a suit to block new federal restrictions on mining. Environment and Energy has the story (subscription only).

Is the US ready for the next generation of supertankers? Short answer: No. And where does that leave us in international competition? Behind.

World's largest ship--cool.   It can carry 36,000 automobiles, 182 million iPads, etc.

But look closer at the graphic above"

So the Maersk Triple E is too big for either the Panama Canal or any US port.  In other words, it can serve five ports in Europe, four in China (including Hong Kong), and two in South Korea.  But not the US.  This is how you lose the battle of international economic--and perhaps strategic--competition.  

If there was ever an issue that leaders of both parties ought to be able to agree upon, it's rebuilding American infrastructure so that we can enjoy continued prosperity all through the 21st century.   

Better Infrastructure Means Saving Lives

A British tourist lost a leg in New York City today when she was hit by a cab that was apparently trying to avoid--or maybe not avoid--a bicyclist on Sixth Avenue.  The New York Daily News has the details, which, of course, will now be sorted out in court.

In the meantime, it's clear that as bicycles play a larger role in America's transportation system, something will have to be done to make the motor vehicle/bicycle/pedestrian ecosystem safer for all concerned--that is, travelers and bystanders.  Perhaps that means designated bike lanes, with curbs.  And who knows what else.

But in any case, a reminder that the right infrastructure can shape life for the better.  And lack of the right infrastructure can leave things getting worse and worse.