Smart Roads. Smart Bridges. Smart Grids

From the Wall Street Journal online:

The tens of billions of dollars that will soon be pouring into infrastructure needs to be allocated wisely. "Smart" technology could assist the transportation industry with becoming more efficient and effective within the next few years. One of the first solutions being researched involves providing real-time traffic information to drivers in their cars. In order to do this, the transportation industry will need to stay more informed with regard to how many cars are on the road. Another solution is to predict traffic patterns. IBM is working on a software that can predict traffic up to 45 minutes into the future. According to Naveen Lamba of IBM, "You have to see into the future to minimize the impact of what's going to happen." Finally, attempting to better prevent and inform emergency medical services of traffic accidents through wireless communications should increase the adequacy of infrastructure. Smart technology is also assisting with making bridges safer. A number of companies are pursuing technologies similar to the one used on the Minneapolis bridge that replaced the collapsed I-35 structure, which is now equipped with more than 300 sensors that analyze corrosion, temperature fluctuation, and ice. Read the article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123447510631779255.html

Diamonds Just Might Be a Driver’s Best Friend

The Show Me state likes what it sees in the new freeway interchange design known as a Diverging Diamond Interchange. A congested intersection in Springfield, Missouri is vying to make history as the nation's first diverging diamond interchange (DDI). The $12.5 million project, which will convert the National Avenue-James River Freeway interchange to a diverging diamond design, is slated to begin this fall. Missouri is so bullish on the benefits of the DDI design that it has plans for three more.

Interest in the DDI is also growing in the Midwest. OHM, a Livonia, Michigan-based engineering advisory firm (owners of this blog!), has evaluated DDIs at two locations for the Michigan Department of Transportation.

One of the most compelling benefits of the DDI design is that it increases safety. It does so by eliminating left turns crossing opposing traffic. This can equate to as much as a 50% reduction in crashes. Here's how it works:

Drivers travel for a limited distance, then cross back to the traditional or right side of the road. This unconventional aspect promotes left turn movements and allows traffic to move from the freeway ramp to the intersecting roadway without ever turning across the path of opposing traffic. Traffic signals are installed at the crossovers.

Stephen Dearing, a professional traffic operations engineer with OHM, lists more benefits of the DDI:

▪ Moves traffic more quickly, because the number of places where traffic must stop is reduced.
▪ Increases capacity at an intersection, because the left turn lane/signal phase is eliminated.

Best of all in these financially challenging times, a DDI is typically cheaper than a conventional diamond interchange because it requires fewer lanes to provide the same capacity.

More about DDIs and how they work: http://www.ohm-advisors.com/ddi/index.cfm

Senate Budget Resolution Stiffs Transport Infrastructure

From the Architects, Engineers & Constructors Network, a Linkedin Group:

Congressional Budget Committees have finally filled in the numbers in the 2010 budget resolutions, and sent the bills to the floors of the respective houses for debate. Although budget resolutions lack the detailed breakdown of spending that appears in appropriation bills with their attached earmarks, we can see in the differences between the House and Senate budget resolution proposals a dangerous trend for heavy civil construction over the next five years.

Both committee resolution proposals have essentially the same numbers for 2009 spending authority and actual outlays, since they include the appropriations already made in the stimulus legislation. However, the Senate version lags way behind the House version in every year 2010 through 2014 with respect to the spending Senators expect to authorize for road, bridge, railway, transit and waterway construction projects. The Senate version of the resolution cuts down the spending authority provided in the House bill by $12.9 billion for 2010, by $13.7 billion for 2011, by $14.1 billion for 2012, by $15.1 billion for 2013 and by $16.1 billion for 2014. These cuts represent a total slashing of over $72.1 billion from surface transport construction over the next five years.

Of course, as the legislative process works its way forward, the final result will likely fall somewhere between the present House and Senate versions, but it is frightening that more than $72 billion in construction appropriations is now at risk in the legislative arena.

For more details follow James G. McConnell's blog at: http://chicagoconstructionlaw.blogspot.com/