The Infrastructure Thread (formerly BI: America's infrastructure is decaying)

[Supernatural24]

America’s infrastructure has been in decay for over 40 years. Coronavirus has people now seeing it.

[China]

Cool time-lapse video:

 

May 20, 2020 -- City of Ann Arbor hydraulic and pedestrian culvert installation under the state-owned accelerated railroad corridor. This project had a 37-hour continuous work window and will improve local drainage as well as provide a safe pedestrian crossing underneath the railroad corridor.

 

 

[PleaseBlitz]

Also Michigan infrastructure 

 

 

[DCSaints_fan]

On 4/10/2020 at 8:40 AM, Rdskns2000 said:

Just develop Star Trek beaming technology and shuttle crafts and you won’t need much infrastructure.

 

Terrafugia is supposed to release the TF-X next year. 

 

 

Price is estimated to be ~$300k, so not really for general population yet.

[China]

7 hours ago, DCSaints_fan said:

 

Terrafugia is supposed to release the TF-X next year. 

 

[Flying Car]

 

Price is estimated to be ~$300k, so not really for general population yet.

 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  Unless automated, flying cars are a terrible idea.  People have enough problems driving in two dimensions, adding a third will make things worse and we'll have lots of people crashing into houses (if you have any doubt about this then go watch some dash cam videos).  Not to mention that I'm sure our air traffic control infrastructure couldn't handle it.

[DCSaints_fan]

38 minutes ago, China said:

 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  Unless automated, flying cars are a terrible idea.  People have enough problems driving in two dimensions, adding a third will make things worse and we'll have lots of people crashing into houses (if you have any doubt about this then go watch some dash cam videos).  Not to mention that I'm sure our air traffic control infrastructure couldn't handle it.

 

Yes, the TF-X will be fully automated.

Edited May 23, 2020 by DCSaints_fan

[China]

4 minutes ago, DCSaints_fan said:

 

Yes, the TF-X is fully automated.

 

So you're saying they've made a fully automated car plane before fully automated cars are commonly available?  Perhaps they could make some money by putting their automation technology into cars then.

 

Edit:  And why don't they put their automation into the airline industry then if it's so good?

Edited May 23, 2020 by China

[DCSaints_fan]

57 minutes ago, China said:

 

So you're saying they've made a fully automated car plane before fully automated cars are commonly available?  Perhaps they could make some money by putting their automation technology into cars then.

  

Edit:  And why don't they put their automation into the airline industry then if it's so good?

 

In the air its much simpler to automate flight, as they're is much less to avoid.    Since this is VTOL taking off and landing would be much easier, as well.   Except possibly in adverse conditions strong winds/fog.  If that is the case, the car could simply refuse to take off. 

 

The aircraft industry is very close to full automation.  The only difficulty, as I understand it, is landing in certain conditions.   

 

Aircraft are already becoming so automated, that it is becoming harder and harder for human pilots to understand what is going on (see Boeing MAX incidents, Air France flight)

 

[Dan T.]

Something I learned in the aftermath of those Michigan dam failures. 

 

They were privately owned. 

 

And unlike roads and bridges, most of the dams in the U.S. are privately owned, including 75% of those in Michigan. Their average age is 56 years. Many owners don't finance regular rehabilitation of the structures. If they lose their federal licensing to generate power, or become obsolete because they no longer run mills, owners have no incentive for upkeep.

 

The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation's dams a D rating in its most recent infrastructure report card.  As the two dams in Michigan showed, they are ticking time bombs.

Edited June 18, 2020 by Dan T.

[China]

Florida bridge at ‘risk of an imminent collapse’

 

STUART, Fla. – A Florida bridge has been closed because it is at “risk of an imminent collapse,” according to TCPalm.com.

 

The Roosevelt Bridge in Stuart, and Dixie Highway, which runs under it, were both closed Wednesday due to a huge crack on the south side of the bridge.

 

The Coast Guard began warning boaters via scanners just after 2 a.m. Wednesday.

 

“All stations, all stations, this is United States Coast Guard Center Miami, Florida. All vessels are required to keep clear on the new Roosevelt Bridge until further notice, due to the risk of imminent collapse break,” the message blared.

 

A safety zone has been established to stop all commercial martitime traffic from going under the bridge.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Coronavirus Brings American Decline Out in the Open

 

Without fixes for infrastructure, education, health care and government, the U.S. will resemble a developing nation in a few decades.

 

The U.S.’s decline started with little things that people got used to. Americans drove past empty construction sites and didn’t even think about why the workers weren’t working, then wondered why roads and buildings took so long to finish. They got used to avoiding hospitals because of the unpredictable and enormous bills they’d receive. They paid 6% real-estate commissions, never realizing that Australians were paying 2%. They grumbled about high taxes and high health-insurance premiums and potholed roads, but rarely imagined what it would be like to live in a system that worked better.

 

When writers speak of American decline, they’re usually talking about international power -- the rise of China and the waning of U.S. hegemony and moral authority. To most Americans, those are distant and abstract things that have little or no impact on their daily lives. But the decline in the general effectiveness of U.S. institutions will impose increasing costs and burdens on Americans. And if it eventually leads to a general loss of investor confidence in the country, the damage could be much greater.

 

But the consequences of U.S. decline will far outlast coronavirus. With its high housing costs, poor infrastructure and transit, endemic gun violence, police brutality and bitter political and racial divisions, the U.S. will be a less appealing place for high-skilled workers to live. That means companies will find other countries in Europe, Asia and elsewhere a more attractive destination for investment, robbing the U.S. of jobs, depressing wages and draining away the local spending that powers the service economy. That in turn will exacerbate some of the worst trends of U.S. decline -- less tax money means even more urban decay as infrastructure, education and social-welfare programs are forced to make big cuts. Anti-immigration policies will throw away the country’s most important source of skilled labor and weaken a university system already under tremendous pressure from state budget cuts.

 

Almost every systematic economic advantage possessed by the U.S. is under threat. Unless there’s a huge push to turn things around -- to bring back immigrants, sustain research universities, make housing cheaper, lower infrastructure costs, reform the police and restore competence to the civil service -- the result could be decades of stagnating or even declining living standards.

 

And a biggest danger might come later. The U.S. has long enjoyed a so-called exorbitant privilege as the financial center of the world, with the dollar as the lynchpin of the global financial system. That means the U.S. has been able to borrow money cheaply, and Americans have been able to sustain their lifestyles through cheap imports. But if enough investors -- foreign and domestic -- lose confidence in the U.S.’s general effectiveness as a country, that advantage will vanish.

 

Click on the link for more

[China]

Golden Gate Bridge makes ‘screeching’ sound some say caused physiological distress: report

 

Officials in San Francisco are working to figure out a way to quiet a low hum coming from the famed Golden Gate Bridge that has become annoying to some residents.

 

SFGate.com reported Wednesday that the noise was first reported on June 5. The culprit is reportedly the northwest winds hitting the bridge's sidewalk railings that have recently been installed in a retrofitting.

 

 

The Marin Independent Journal reported earlier this week that some residents at a meeting on Friday said the noise that was produced sounded like torture and caused them physiological distress.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

On 5/23/2020 at 11:53 AM, DCSaints_fan said:

 

In the air its much simpler to automate flight, as they're is much less to avoid.    Since this is VTOL taking off and landing would be much easier, as well.   Except possibly in adverse conditions strong winds/fog.  If that is the case, the car could simply refuse to take off. 

 

The aircraft industry is very close to full automation.  The only difficulty, as I understand it, is landing in certain conditions.   

 

Aircraft are already becoming so automated, that it is becoming harder and harder for human pilots to understand what is going on (see Boeing MAX incidents, Air France flight)

 

 

Autonomous Boats

 

Today, we’ll talk about something that is barely covered in the Autonomous Tech world…

It’s also something I’m not familiar with, so I’ll just be able to talk about it. Technology has enabled us to build self-driving cars, but actually, the most impactful changes will be around flying cars, and sea navigation.

 

How to start?

If we’re to build a startup, you must solve a problem that is Difficult, Urgent, and Recognized. After searching on Google, I found out that the biggest problem around boats is collisions.
Does that surprise you?

Over 90% of the world’s trade is carried by sea, the whole world is relying on the oceans, and the country which is the most concerned is the US. The U.S. economy is accounting for more than $352 billion in GDP and 3.1 million jobs, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The biggest risk of collisions is at the port, or in crowded places.

Here is what happened between 2011 and 2016, in Europe only.

 

 

I took this picture in a report from EMEA, just take a minute to read it here.

It’s full of fascinating facts.

Now, let’s see more precisely what we’re talking about.

 

 

Today’s article is about solving this particular problem.

This problem costs millions (in reparations, and lost cargo) and continues to happen, that is growing with the number of boats. It’s also a problem we all acknowledged watching TITANIC sink.

It’s time we solve it.

 

Autonomous Boats

Avoiding an accident when you’re driving a car is easy, you just turn the wheel a bit. Avoiding a cargo accident is much harder. Although I’ve never been in a cargo accident, my father has his boat license and I know how hard it is to maneuver in emergency situations.

Definition
So, how do we make boats autonomous? To be able to understand this, we must first define what“autonomous” means.

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Michigan steps up dam oversight after Midland disaster, but much work remains

 

Luke Trumble was there when the Edenville and Sanford dams failed on May 19, 2020.

 

“I don’t know if I can repeat my reaction,” he said. What he could say that was safe to print was, “scary.”

 

Trumble is one of Michigan’s two dam safety engineers. When the Edenville Dam and then the Sanford Dam failed in May, it triggered massive flooding in the Midland area that destroyed hundreds of homes, businesses and caused the evacuation of around 11,000 people.

 

In the weeks that have followed the disaster, the state filed a lawsuit against the owner of the dams, Boyce Hydro. In Lansing, lawmakers have held hearings with the federal agency that used to oversee Boyce Hydro’s operation of the dams and other agencies. In Washington D.C., lawmakers have opened an inquiry to try to get to the bottom of who is responsible for the catastrophic failure of the two dams.

 

But while the efforts continue to determine what fully caused the Edenville and Sanford dams to fail, there are more than 1,000 dams across the state, many of which pose similar grave risks if they fail.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Warhead36]

Route 50 into Main Street in Fairfax has road work literally every day and nothing ever gets fixed.

[China]

Seattle cancels plans to repair five bridges after costs soar 991%

 

When you remodel or retrofit your home, you really don’t find out how much it’s going to cost until you start ripping out walls or looking at the foundations. That’s the case in Seattle, where plans to fix 16 important bridges are now in jeopardy due to skyrocketing costs after more intense study.

 

Imagine you’re planning a kitchen remodel and the original estimate goes up 991% once the contractor starts digging deeper behind the walls and under the floor. That’s the situation the City of Seattle is in now, having looked at the soils and foundations of the 16 bridges it promised voters it would seismically upgrade and strengthen in 2015 with the Move Seattle Levy.

 

The Seattle Times reports the original estimate to retrofit the bridges has ballooned from $67 million to $731 million.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Riggo-toni]

On 4/8/2020 at 9:59 PM, PokerPacker said:

I'm a small government person, but one thing I do think government should be spending on is infrastructure.

Ditto. That and scientific research for me.  The infrastructure loan program that Obama set up, where the federal government would lend to states at no interest was ideal, but congress killed it because it diluted the power of Incumbents to get federal funds for their home district/state thanks to their seniority.

[China]

California’s aging dams face new perils, 50 years after Sylmar quake crisis

 

It was a harrowing vision of the vulnerability of aging California dams — crews laboring feverishly to sandbag and drain the lower San Fernando Reservoir, as billions of gallons of Los Angeles drinking water lapped at the edge of a crumbling, earthquake-damaged embankment that threatened catastrophe on the neighborhoods below.

 

Although the 1971 San Fernando earthquake and the near failure of the Lower Van Norman Dam have given rise to construction improvements — the much newer Los Angeles Dam survived an equivalent shaking in the 1994 Northridge quake — the overwhelming majority of California dams are decades past their design life span.

 

And while earthquakes still loom as the greatest threat to California’s massive collection of dams, experts warn that these aging structures will be challenged further by a new and emerging hazard: “whiplashing shifts” in extreme weather due to climate change.

 

“The biggest issue facing dam safety in California is aging infrastructure and lack of money to fund repairs and retrofits of dams,” said Sharon K. Tapia, who leads the Division of Safety of Dams at the California Department of Water Resources. “Many older dams were built using construction methods considered outdated by today’s standards.”

 

Federal engineers have found that three major dams in Southern California — Whittier Narrows, Prado and Mojave River — are structurally unsafe and could collapse in a significant flood event and potentially inundate millions of people downstream.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[redskinss]

You'll never hear me complain about investment in infrastructure.

🙂

[China]

Boston To NYC Shortcut? High-Speed Rail Plan Includes 16-Mile Underwater Tunnel

 

President Joe Biden is promising to improve the nation’s infrastructure and that is renewing interest in the idea of a high-speed railroad connecting Boston and New York.

 

The North Atlantic Rail plan, developed at the University of Pennsylvania, would run through a 16-mile tunnel under Long Island Sound. The trains would travel over 200 mph and the trip would take just an hour and a half – a reduction of nearly two hours from the current trip time.

Amtrak trains currently can go 150 mph but rarely do because of aging tracks. The project would take about 20 years and cost more than $100 billion.

 

“This probably should have been done decades ago,” said Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, who is a co-chair of the coalition of interests pushing the plan. “But we now have a president that has made rail infrastructure a centerpiece of his campaign. We hope that Congress will rise to the moment and embrace the kind of initiative that America has done in the past and needs to do again.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Biden administration preparing wider economic package for U.S. infrastructure beyond virus relief

 

Looking beyond the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, President Joe Biden and lawmakers are laying the groundwork for another top legislative priority — a long-sought boost to the nation’s roads, bridges and other infrastructure that could run into Republican resistance to a hefty price tag.

 

Biden and his team have begun discussions on the possible outlines of an infrastructure package with members of Congress, particularly mindful that Texas’ recent struggles with power outages and water shortages after a brutal winter storm present an opportunity for agreement on sustained spending on infrastructure.

 

Republicans say if the White House approach on the COVID relief bill — which passed the House Saturday on a near party-line vote and now heads to the Senate — is a sign of things to come for Biden’s plan on infrastructure and other initiatives, it could be a difficult road ahead in Congress.

 

A White House proposal could come out in March.

 

“Now is the time to be aggressive,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a former South Bend, Indiana, mayor who knows potholes.

 

At a conference with state and local highway officials Thursday, he referred to the often-promised, never-achieved mega-initiative on roads, bridges and the like from the Trump administration.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Opinion: Republicans are laying a ‘Trojan horse’ trap on infrastructure

 

Heads I win, tails you lose. That is Republicans’ ominous warning to Democrats working to design and (to their credit!) actually pay for an infrastructure bill.

 

“I think the Trojan horse will be called infrastructure, but inside the Trojan horse will be all the tax increases,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said this week. “They want to raise taxes across the board.”

 

For those struggling to decode these comments, here’s the trap McConnell is laying.

 

Any major upgrade of America’s roads, bridges, broadband network, water systems and other infrastructure will be expensive. That’s part of the reason “Infrastructure Week,” though much hyped in recent years, still hasn’t happened, despite the obvious need for more infrastructure investment and the popularity of such proposals. If Democrats try to undertake this expensive project without paying for it, Republicans will no doubt accuse them of running up the debt and thereby stoking out-of-control inflation.

 

How do we know? Because that’s the critique McConnell and other Republicans levied against the recently enacted $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[The Sisko]

The Dems’ response to the Grand Oligarch’s Party’s rediscovery of the national debt ought to be “ **** you. The massive revenue increases from your tax cuts should kick in at any minute now so we can use that to pay for it...right?”

[Chump Bailey]

We're a nation in steady decline and has been for decades. I don't see things getting better sadly. We're too ignorant and embattled. The GOP's gaslighting has been tremendously effective in that government and taxes are the root of all evil and businessmen, capitalists and the unicorn that is the 'free market' is the silver bullet to all our woes. Other nations understand and embrace community, society and the need for funding public services, infrastructure and they do not try and commoditize everything. Even much of our toll roads are privatized. There are massive disproportions among the winners and losers in our current political economy. Until we grow up as a nation and stop the exploitation of workers of who millions each day get up and commute to 'jobs' that are not even worth filling the gas tank for perhaps things will get better. We want innovation? Stop forcing people to work BS jobs for poverty level wages. This is where a basic income can make a huge difference. I'm not holding my breath however.

[China]

Manchin calls for 'enormous' infrastructure package paid for with new taxes

 

en. Joe Manchin said Wednesday that he favors a large infrastructure package that would be paid for in part by raising tax revenues — a point of contention between the two parties.

"I'm sure of one thing: It’s going to be enormous," the West Virginia Democrat, who is seen as a swing vote in a chamber divided 50-50, told reporters at the Capitol.

 

While he didn't predict a price tag, Manchin said Congress should do "everything we possibly can" to pay for it. He said there should be "tax adjustments" to former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax law to boost revenues, including by raising the corporate rate from the current 21 percent to at least 25 percent.

 

The tax benefits in the Republican law were "weighted in one direction to the upper end," Manchin said. He also suggested an "infrastructure bank" paid for with revenues, potentially a value-added tax, that would be used for "rebuilding America."

 

Click on the link for the full article