Tag Archives: infrastructure

Examples of old infrastructure in America

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Popular Mechanics has some examples of “the oldest working infrastructure” in American cities:

Water System: Philadelphia Water Department. The City of Brotherly Love has one of the oldest water systems in the United States. While the pipe that broke two weeks ago was built in 1895, the average age of a Philly water line is 78 years, and the wastewater lines average 100 years old, according to the city’s water department. Eighty-seven percent of the more than 3000 miles of water mains are made of cast iron, which was the preferred building material until the 1960s. Drawing water from the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers, the system supplies 1.5 million Philadelphia residents. The mains are supposed to function properly for 100 to 120 years. The Philadelphia Water Department is still investigating what caused the most recent break…

Concrete Road: Court Avenue, Bellefontaine, Ohio. Using concrete as a road surface was unheard of in the late 1800s, until George Bartholomew pioneered its use by paving Court Ave. in Bellefontaine, Ohio. Bartholomew learned about cement production in Germany and San Antonio, then moved to Bellefontaine because of the neraby deposits of limestone and clay, the two main ingredients in cement. He had to fork over a $5000 bond to convince the city council to let him pave the square around the town’s courthouse, guaranteeing that the concrete would last at least five years. To preserve the historic avenue, Bellefontaine closed the street to traffic in the late 20th century but reopened it because of the traffic and parking problems the closure caused. Court Avenue is still open to light-vehicle traffic, but a statue of Bartholomew at the end of the street keeps trucks off the concrete…

Hydroelectric Power Plant: Mechanicville Hydroelectric Plant. The Mechanicville Power Station sits perched on the Hudson River about 20 miles east of Schenectady. It was built in 1897 to provide power to Schenectady’s burgeoning industry, and today is the oldest three-phase power plant still in operation in the United States. The system uses two three-phase, 40-cycle 32,000-volt circuits, and each of these operates at 6000 kw. These circuits are each capable of handling the station’s entire output, so that service is uninterrupted if one of them goes down. Each of the seven generators runs at 40 Hz and provides 750 kw.

Old infrastructure isn’t necessarily bad if it is well maintained and still meets modern needs. Why, those Romans built aqueducts that have lasted thousands of years – can’t some of our infrastructure do the same? Actually, this brings to mind the David Macaulay book Motel of the Mysteries where a future archeologist discovers a long-lost American hotel room and comes to some interesting interpretations. What exactly will survive from our society?

More on luxury basements under London properties

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The building of luxury basements under London properties continues:

A lack of room and strict planning laws dictate that the facade of many of London’s picturesque Victorian, Edwardian and Georgian-era neighborhoods must maintain their original character and outward appearance…

“The price per square foot (of basement extension) in areas we work in is probably £400 to £500 per square foot (between $660 and $830 per sq ft). The extra space this brings is probably worth double that,” he added…

“I think for any property with a value over £2 million ($3.2 million) a basement extension is certainly a consideration for the owners,” explained Rob Atkins of London estate agency, Domus Nova. “If you’ve lived in a house for 15 and 20 years and you cannot get a move for the right value then it is an option that can suit that growing family…

“Therefore I wouldn’t be surprised if you see that kind of basement living incorporated in houses for example in Paris, Rome, Vienna or Moscow in the future,” he added.

Without much regulation, it sounds like the incentives are generally there for wealthy owners to create these basements rather than move.

Many of these basements are being built in neighborhoods that are not the oldest in London. At the same time, I would be interested to hear about how such work could interfere with other underground services, whether that is sewers or the Underground or other properties.

Is there any place where this might work in the United States? It would likely have to be in a super-dense area where housing is in high demand. Perhaps Manhattan or San Francisco?

Chicago suburb of Long Grove wants to privatize almost half of its public roads

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Maintaining roads is expensive and the Chicago suburb of Long Grove has a potential solution: privatize a lot of its public roads.

Facing an annual funding gap of more than $1 million, Long Grove trustees have twice in recent months affirmed a plan that could privatize nearly half of the village’s public roads — transferring the cost of upkeep and plowing to the residents in the process…

Experts in public planning and municipal finance agree that Long Grove has hit upon an unusual potential solution to a commonplace problem. They say other communities also struggling to make ends meet could follow suit as aging roads deteriorate and revenue streams dry up. Yet such plans could eat away at the public’s trust in local leadership even as they mitigate public deficits, warned Joseph Schwieterman, a DePaul University transportation professor.

“It’s going to create resentment that city hall has broken its contract to fix the roads, and that could lead to turmoil that tears at the social capital of a community,” he said.

What has surprised some in and around well-to-do Long Grove is that the community — with its spacious home lots, ample green space and refined, rural character — finds itself in the situation at all. Recent census figures count it among the wealthiest villages in the Chicago area based on median income. Yet having more affluent residents doesn’t necessarily equate to a strong tax base, especially in towns that have little or no industry…

Local leaders first realized in the 1970s that to pay for maintaining roads without a property tax, something had to give, said Long Grove Village Manager David Lothspeich. After that, the board allowed public streets in new subdivisions only if they were main roads, and eventually entire subdivisions sprang up without a single public road, he said.

It sounds like a set of trade-offs: the community has a particular image and character involving big lots, nice homes, and no property taxes but to help maintain that character means limited commercial development. However, having less commercial or industrial development means fewer sources of property and sales taxes that can be used to maintain the community’s infrastructure. The money has to come from somewhere…

However the money is raised in the future for roads, it will be interesting to see how this affects the community’s character and image. Will people move away? Will it be as attractive?

Another suburb dealing with a similar issue is Winfield. The village has had difficulty paying for road maintenance and the debate in recent years has been whether to allow commercial development along the Roosevelt Road corridor that passes through the southern part of the community but it currently limited to larger lots.

Five case studies of major demolitions

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Building large objects is often a Herculean task. But what about the demolition of bridges, dams, aircraft carriers, supercomputers, and rocket hangers? Here is some of the points for tearing down the Bay Bridge between San Francisco and Oakland:

Control the Tension

The piers of the cantilever truss aren’t holding the bridge up. They’re holding it down. “This is like a highly strung bow,” says senior bridge engineer Brian Maroney. (A bow made of 50 million pounds of steel.) “You don’t want to just cut the bow because the thing will fly off in all directions.” So crews will first remove the pavement on the upper deck to lighten the bridge’s load and reduce the tension. Next they’ll isolate steel supports, jacking them out of tension until they can be cut without whipping apart. Then they’ll slowly release the jacks.

Cut the Truss Spans

Named for their length in feet, the 504 and 288 truss spans are not under as much tension as the cantilever, so there’s less chance they’ll explode in your face when you cut into them. Still, caution is called for: The 80-year-old steel is not like modern steel; crews must be prepared for differences in strength and hardness.

Cart the Pieces Away

The steel beams are coated with greenish-gray paint, under which is a coat of lead-based stuff. To avoid contaminating the bay, all that metal has to be trucked away and cleaned, after which it will be resold as scrap.

Build a Monument

The massive art-deco column of pier E1, near Yerba Buena Island, may be preserved as a monument to the bridge that served the Bay Area for 77 years. The E2 pier will also likely remain and be converted into an observation platform for the new span.

And then the piers still have to be demolished. Impressive operation all around. It would be interesting to see all of the costs and manpower associated with such demolitions.

Roads still susceptible to potholes

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A Google News search for the last week brings up hundreds of news stories about potholes. It is a familiar cycle: water gets on the roads, freezing temperatures cause the water to expand, potholes emerge on lots of roads. See diagrams and video about pothole formation here.

Is there any way to build roads that don’t have these problems? Here is one answer:

Which holds up better — concrete or asphalt? “Asphalt can sometimes be a more porous material than concrete depending on the depth of the asphalt surface. As a result, it can be more prone to a freeze-thaw cycle,” Shuftan said.

However, DuPage County Transportation Committee Chairman Don Puchalski said it’s all about maintenance. “The condition of the pavement keeps moisture from penetrating the riding surface,” Puchalski said.

Can’t we build pothole-proof roads? Engineering professor Imad Al-Qadi thinks we can do better. “Through better engineering of the materials and pavement systems, roads can withstand extreme temperatures and cycles of freezing and thawing,” Al-Qadi wrote in an email.

For asphalt, using proper binder and aggregate materials that aren’t susceptible to moisture, freezing or thawing can minimize damage.

For concrete, using the right chemical mixtures can control freezing and thawing. Proper spacing and using more steel in the concrete slabs can also control warping, Al-Qadi said.

This makes it sound like the best pothole solution might be more monitoring and money when roads are originally built. Who is going for pay for that? Surrey, England has gone with “pothole-proof” roads that have a 10 year guarantee:

But in an attempt to find a more permanent solution, the council has begun a five-year, £100 million plan to re-lay the county’s worst roads with new materials which carry a decade-long “no pothole” guarantee…

At the moment the council says it is carrying out a pothole repair every five minutes but the new roads, which have more flexible watertight surfaces, should overcome the problem…

About 300 miles of road will be repaired and the 10-year warranty means any potholes would be repaired by contractors Aggregate Industries and Marshalls.

So there might still be potholes but at least the road-builder will take care of it.

If the roads always have this problem, you could instead with a car that stands up better to potholes:

Honda cars are the most resilient to pothole damage, saving drivers hundreds of pounds in repairs each year, according to research by Potholes.co.uk.

The road maintenance campaign website analysed about 150,000 policies issued by Warranty Direct over three years to reveal the cars most and least susceptible to damage caused by the nation’s biggest bugbear – potholes…

After Honda, the most “pothole-proof” manufacturers are Toyota and Hyundai, with less than two per cent of their cars suffering axle and suspension damage attributable to potholes and other road defects.

Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz and Land Rover models are the most likely to suffer, with more than 10 per cent suffering damage each year.

Or you can just pay for some pothole-resistant tires.

All together, this is an annoying reminder that maintaining roads can be quite difficult. If they all have problems, it is very difficult to fix them quickly.

Discovering underground Roman aqueducts

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A group of amateurs have been tracing portions of Roman aqueducts hidden from view:

The group, which has been exploring underground Rome since 1996, has completed about 40% of its mission to map the aqueducts.”The famous arched, over-ground aqueducts we see today are just the tip of the iceberg; 95% of the network ran underground,” says Marco Placidi, head of the speleologists group, which is sharing its results with Italy’s culture ministry…

Dropping into the hole, Baldi disappears down the Anio Vetus aqueduct, a 3-foot-wide, 5-foot-high tunnel lined with pristine Roman brickwork. As frogs, spiders and grasshoppers scatter, Baldi reaches a maintenance shaft, complete with good-as-new footholds dug into the bricks that lead up to a narrow opening in the woods 10 feet above. Beyond him, the tunnel vanishes into the darkness…

“We have found Roman dams we didn’t know about, branch lines taking water to waterfalls built in private villas, and even aqueducts driven underneath” streams, Placidi said. “We are able to get up close and [feel we are] right back at the moment the slaves were digging.”

As the article notes, the level of construction here is quite amazing to survive roughly 2,000 years. But, without such underground aqueducts, the city of Rome may not have survived long.

What might happen to these infrastructure marvels? Perhaps they could be turned into tourist opportunities like the tunnels under Paris.

“Have We Reached Peak Road?”

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With the decline in driving, perhaps it is time to consider whether we have reached peak road:

At his Transportationist blog last week, University of Minnesota scholar David Levinson pointed out that Department of Transportation estimates of public roads and street mileage in the United States — paved and unpaved alike — leveled off between 2008 and 2011 (the latest year given, with data missing for 2009 and 2010). Levinson charted the plateau (the y-axis mileage is in thousands)…

Like vehicle miles traveled, paved road mileage steadily increased for decades, from roughly 1.23 million miles in 1960 to 2.6 million in 2011. (Unpaved roads followed the opposite trend, declining over time as many became paved.) The paved peak might have occurred in 2008, when mileage reached above 2.7 million. The 2011 mileage, meanwhile, is about the same as that of 2005.

Given that the statistical peak coincided with the Great Recession, it’s probably too early to call things. It’s also important to keep in mind that there are multiple ways to measure a road. There is its end-to-end length (known as “centerline miles”) and there is also its total capacity (known as “lane miles”) — the latter calculated by multiplying the length by the number of lanes….

Levinson thinks the following factors will guide whatever subsequent shifts occur in centerline and lane miles: rural gravelization (converting paved roads into unpaved ones to reduce maintenance costs), tearing down urban freeways, designing complete streets and implementing road diets, and converting general lanes into exclusive bus lanes. Even further ahead, autonomous cars should enable cars to use the existing roadway far more efficiently.

I wonder how much this is tied to sprawl and population growth. Opponents of sprawl would want denser cities and suburbs and this doesn’t necessarily require adding new roads. But, expanding metropolitan regions can lead to new roads and highways.

The call here to use existing roads more efficiently ignores one overarching concern that may be on the mind of a number of local officials as well as taxpayers: who is going to pay for new roads? Here are the pieces involved:

1. Building the roads in the first place. If these roads are constructed in dense areas, the costs rise sharply in order to purchase land. If major roads are desired, we may see more public-private partnerships or toll roads.

2. Maintaining the roads for a long period of time. These costs include everything from filling potholes to adding capacity to complete rebuilds.

If we have reached peak road, perhaps we should continue to celebrate the massive highway building project the United States embarked upon and successfully completed in the second half of the 20th century.

One final thought: when exactly can we declare peak anything? If the data shows not much change over an eight year period, is this enough knowledge to predict no more future growth? I would be very hesitant to stake a lot on such a claim…

Chicago’s once-thriving streetcar system

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Like many American big cities, Chicago once had a large streetcar system:

Those cable cars were preceded by horse-drawn streetcars, which began service in 1859, and were replaced by electric-powered trolleys, beginning in 1890. By the mid-1930s, 3,742 streetcars were running on tracks laid along 529 miles of streets in a grid that provided Chicagoans a streetcar stop within a few blocks of where they lived, worked or shopped. Trolley wires extended into vast areas of the Northwest, Southeast and Southwest sides far from the nearest “L,” making it the adventurous Chicagoan’s system of choice for exploration…

For their part, aldermen and legislators knew the value of changing a “no” to a “yes” vote on a streetcar-line franchise. Each innovation in motive power brought with it safety concerns, upon which politicians could hang a price tag for overcoming their reservations.

The advantage of streetcars compared to the “L” or railroads, both of which helped make Chicago famous, was that it could cover more land and fill in the development gaps between the more infrastructure intensive types of transportation. While the streetcars were eventually replaced by cars, which could serve the same function and allow drivers more independence and privacy, streetcars helped kick off mass suburbanization in the late 1800s.

See more about Chicago streetcars here on this page about Chicago Surface Lines which operated Chicago’s streetcars until 1947. According to this, Chicago had quite the system that quickly went from peak to bust:

The continuous reorganization was finally completed by the Unification Ordinance of 1913, which stipulated that all lines would come under the management of a single operating association called the Chicago Surface Lines (CSL), and unified operations commenced in 1914. Four companies formed the CSL: the Chicago Railways Company, Chicago City Railway, Calumet and South Chicago Railway, and Southern Street Railway. At this time, Chicago had the largest street railway system, the longest one-fare ride, the longest average ride, and the most liberal transfer privileges in the world.

The 1920s saw continued growth despite the increasing competition from the automobile, and while the 1933-1934 World’s Fair and wartime demand supported ridership, the underlying companies were bankrupt. Creditors’ bills were filed against the Chicago Railways in 1926 and the Chicago City Railway and Calumet and South Chicago in 1930, resulting in the appointment of receivers and bringing their property into the custody of the Federal District Court. In 1944, the proceedings were converted to those under the Bankruptcy Act, and trustees were appointed. By 1958, the Chicago Transit Authority, which took over the Chicago Surface Lines in 1947, had abandoned the remaining trolley lines, which were “bustituted.” Before that, CSL had introduced gasoline buses for light routes in 1927,and trolley buses to the northwest side starting in 1930.

In Crabgrass Frontiers, a classic on American suburbanization, historian Kenneth Jackson gives reasons for the decline of streetcars: the automobile started taking away customers and many streetcar lines were locked into municipal contracts that didn’t allow them to raise fares even as they needed money to maintain infrastructure and compete with the automobile.

Beyond technological advances: “50 Social Innovations that Changed the World”

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After reading The Atlantic‘s recent list of the 50 greatest inventions, one reader sends in a list of the most important social innovations. Here is the top 10 – in chronological order:

50 Social innovations that changed the world more or less in chronological order.  Rank order in top 10 shown in [ ]

1. Irrigation that
2. created a structured bureaucracy, land measurement and administration in Egypt and Mesopotamia
3. mathematics [3]
4. creation of nations as workable structures
5. empires based  on bureaucracy and military discipline
6. writing, instructions could be sent over distance – Incas used knots [1]
7. written rules and laws – the lawyers and courts as independent
8. alphabet [11]
9. agriculture and and animal husbandry skills that could be recorder and spread
10. history as peoples myths and lessons…

One could argue that these social skills made other technologies possible. It provided a social infrastructure. Imagine trying to large social groups without bureaucracy. While it often gets a bad name today, you couldn’t have the Roman army or city-states or the modern welfare state without bureaucracy.

I’m a little surprised that language isn’t included here – writing makes it but perhaps language predates the beginning of this list. It is also intriguing that economics and political science make the end of the list – perhaps this betrays the opinions of the author but few other academic disciplines make the list.

The Pyongyang Metro

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What does the subway look like in North Korea? See pictures here.

The underground stations are ornate but dimly lit: patrons squint to read posted newspapers while patriotic music echoes faintly across the stone floor. Most of the 16 public stations (there are rumors of secret, government-use-only networks) were built in the 1970s, but the most grandiose halls – Puhoong and Yonggwang – were constructed in 1987. Mosaics and metallic reliefs extolling the virtues of North Korean workers and landscapes line the walls.

The subway cars were acquired from Germany, and despite a green and red makeover, the remnant graffiti scratched into windows and paneling belies their past lives. And as with every other public and private space throughout the country, portraits of past leaders Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il look down from the ends of each car, smiling and ever-present.

It would be interesting to hear more about the number of people who use this system and what parts of the city are served. In theory, shouldn’t more socialistic/totalitarian states have better mass transit systems? Countries that emphasize individualism and consumerism, like the United States, might be more open to transportation options, like cars, that support or enable these values. But, countries that have more communal or equality rhetoric could pour more resources into methods that would help move great numbers of people efficiently.