Missouri DOT Explores Solar Roads
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INFRASTRUCTURE
Maps of U.S. Infrastructure
The
Washington Post has an online article that includes six informative
maps about U.S. infrastructure. We encourage readers to check
it out.
Missouri Gets F for Road Safety
That National Safety Council gave Missouri
an F for road safety in its recent State of Safety: A State-by-State Report. Missouri’s low score
is a result of the lack of laws relating to child passenger protection, texting
while driving, seat belts and other transportation safety
issues.
The state
received and overall grade of F and was ranked lowest in the country (ranked 51st
out of all states and the District
of Columbia and ranked 49th for road safety) . In addition to
road safety, the report considers safety issues in workplaces, homes and
communities. You can find the Missouri
scorecard here, as well as NSC’s
scoring methodology.
Missouri Still Contender for
Hyperloop
We previously noted that a Kansas City
to St.
Louis route was entered into a competition for Hyperloop One
as it considers routes for a high-speed, tube magnetic levitation system.
Apparently the 240 mile route across Missouri to connect the two Midwestern
metropolises is still in the running. You can find more here.
Here is a link to another articles on a potential hyperloop in Missouri:
Missouri Transportation
Improvements Stalled
The
Columbia Missourian recent published an evaluation
of Missouri Governor
Eric Greitens’ campaign promise to improve state transportation infrastructure.
Though the governor recommended supplemental appropriations
for the transportation
agency in his fiscal year 2018 budget,
he has not proposed new or increased funding sources and generally has opposed
increased taxes.
Recent bills in the state General
Assembly that would increase fuel taxes have also failed to pass.
Here are some additional articles on Missouri’s transportation funding.
Texting Lanes Coming to Miami
Apparently it is hard for some people to put down their cellular phones
and pay attention to something else. The Miami Dade Express Authority has
decided it is easier to change the roads than change behavior. It is planning
to install to install bumpers on one lane of a highway and designate it for texting
use.
Infrastructure Watch usually passes on thing like this without comment,
but this seems like a bad idea. It may keep texters from wandering into other
lanes, but it seem like they can still get into a lot of other troubles. In
addition, it does nothing to address texting while driving in other lanes or on
other roads. IW believes there is a role for technology in addressing this
issue and that we have to be realistic about human behavior, but on the whole
this does not seem like a very expensive way to address just a small part of
the problem.
For all of you texters who won’t be driving Florida’s
bumpered, baby lanes: STOP IT!
At any rate, you can read more about this here.
Incidentally, Florida got a F for road safety in the NSC State of
Safety report, where it ranked 44th. It’s overall grade was a D,
with a rank of 40th. You can see the Florida
scorecard here.
Philadelphia Unearths Wooden
Water Pipe
Recently a construction crew digging in Philadelphia
came across segments of wooden water pipe that were probably installed in 1812.
Fortunately, Philadelphia is not still using these pipes. When they were
installed, they would have carried water from the Schuylkill River that was
pumped up by steam engine. You can read
more about it here.
The Poop Engineer: Wastewater
Blog
IW welcomes another engineering and environment blog to the web, The Poop Engineer. IW is not
associated with The Poop Engineer, though the author worked at the same company
for a while. Good luck, Andy.
Water Weirdness
Apparently some UK utilities uses dowsing rods to find water
pipes. IW does not recommend this, but
it’s interesting that people cling to it. Here are links to articles on the
practice.
