Low and Slow: The Journey Begins on I-95
Mayor Francis X. Murray of Rockville Centre, N.Y. gets infrastructure making capital improvements and the purchasing of equipment for it a priority. He�s walking the streets in the early morning inspecting our work, explains the mayor�s public work�s superintendent. As a result, the village�s main street businesses are thriving. Occupancy in the downtown has gone from 82% to 98%, says the mayor.
Photo by Dan McNichol
Public works department director Bill Howlandi inspects the flagships of the department's fleet from the backseat of Mrs. Martin. Bill oversaw the official ceremonies launching the Low and Slow Across America�s Infrastructure tour on the first day of National Public Works Week.
Photo by Dan McNichol
Mayor Muriel Bowser officially proclaimed the Low and Slow tour launch as the official reading of the D.C. Public Works Week Proclamation. After so much officiating Low and Slow crept out of D.C. and into the mountains of West Virginia along the nation�s first interstate highway, The National Road.
Photo by Dan McNichol
Harry Weed, head of the Dept. of Public Works in Rockville Centre, N.Y, on Long Island, offered to house Mrs. Martin, and guided me to her lodgings by way of the Throggs Neck Bridge. Built in 1961, the bridge is the 'newest' one over the East River. Another bridge, a tunnel, more capacity, is needed. Harry warned me that my window to get over the crossing was between 10 am and 1 pm. When during my drive a police officer at the toll plaza shouted at me, I thought I was deemed unfit to cross the bridge because of the perceived danger of breakdown. Turns out he wanted to know what year Mrs. Martin was born.
Photo by Dan McNichol
Improvements beget improvements. The arrival of super cargo ships called for action, especially since each one sent nearly 300% more containers per shipment into port. The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, in relatively short time, is raising the Bayonne Bridge�s road deck to allow the massive vessels to sail beneath. Concrete segmental viaduct sections like this are being placed by two self-advancing gantry cranes. Like many of the Super Panamax ships, the cranes sailed from their fabrication plants in China.
Photo by Dan McNichol
The Village of Rockville Center�s DPW, bedroom community for New York City, hosted Low & Slow by garaging Mrs. Martin. Here Bart Ney, former Caltrans spokesman on The San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge, joins our tour for its kickoff. Bart is leaning on Bub, a vintage pickup truck that�s working past retirement age. �We can see potholes in the road through the Bub�s floor boards,� bemoaned one of Bub�s mechanic caretakers. DPWs are challenged further by expending limited resources holding together the equipment that keeps the infrastructure together.
Photo by Dan McNichol
A neighbor's send-off. Over the past four years I�ve been working with my buddy Per, who I call the Hudson Whisperer, to rehabilitate the '49 Hudson that Aileen and I are using to cross the country. Per and I are shade-tree mechanics and the neighbs has taken part in the project, too. Most have been curious, following our journey on TV, radio, newspapers and the Internet. The photo on the left shows our neighbor Margaret, who lives across the street from Per�s garage. She came out the morning I departed on the Low and Slow Tour to give me a bottle of water. In thanks I offered up a cookie form the mega-batch my fiance Elizabeth baked for the journey. Leaning on Mrs. Martin, Margaret wished me well and asked, Why are you driving that rusty car across the country � again!?
Photo by Dan McNichol
Rebuilding the Bayonne Bridge: A rare example of necessary investment in infrastructure along the East Coast. Jammed between businesses and homes construction crews remove the 1930s poured concrete and steel railings on the bridge�s approach as the new segmental concrete viaducts raise the bridge's standards - especially its height.
Photo by Dan McNichol
All infrastructure is local � even in the nation�s capital. Eager to seek out local issues in design, construction and maintainance of the country�s vital systems, I admit overlooking Washington, D.C. and its local element. On Public Works Week 2015, Washington, D.C.�s public works director, Bill Howland, Jr., kicked us out of town, officially beginning the Low and Slow Across America�s Infrastructure tour. In order to allow Mrs. Martin to inspect Washington, D.C.'s public works department fleed, Emanuel E. Scott Sr. attaches a GoPro to his head in order to be a human camera. ENRs Senior Editor Aileen Cho looks into Mrs. Martin.
Photo by Dan McNichol
Fits and starts, bumper to bumper. ENR Transportation Editor Aileen Cho and I headed to Washington, D.C. along the dreaded, traffic-clogged I-95 corridor. And we're riding in a 1949 Hudson Commodore. Why? To send the message that "America’s infrastructure is as old, rusty and as energy defunct" as the car.
If we’re successful, we’ll travel 5,000 miles to the West Coast in Mrs. Martin, the nickname I've given my Detroit lead sled. Aileen and I will be journaling the lack of investment in vital infrastructure and how that is putting the U.S. in the slow lane while the world economy is riding in the fast one.
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