The High Line is getting longer. The second section of the innovative elevated park, which is built on the roadbed of an old freight railroad on Manhattan’s West Side, is scheduled to open in June. Related Links: Rail Trestle-Turned-Park Doubling in Length Landscape Architecture Puts a New Spin On Natural Systems The High Line was built in the 1930s to serve the meatpacking and other industries. It passed directly through several industrial buildings, allowing firms to load and unload freight directly.The High Line’s design team consists of landscape architecture and urban design firm James Corner Field Operations (the project lead);
Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency plan move to forward with rule making procedures on a controversial new air quality standard, despite industry claims that the agency's data used to develop the rule is flawed. Related Links: Florida Pols Fight EPA Over Pending Water-Quality Rule EPA: New Rule Limits Mercury Emmissions From Cement Kilns Gina McCarthy, the EPA's assistant administrator for air and radiation, says the issues raised about the EPA's data will not cause any delays in moving forward with the Mercury and Air Toxic standards rule.In a May 18 letter to the Utility Air Regulatory Group (UARG), McCarthy
Municipal and plant officials continue to look for the cause of the May 16 collapse of a 100-ft wall at the wastewater treatment plant serving Binghamton and Johnson City, N.Y. The event triggered a 580,000-gal spill of partially treated wastewater into a local creek and the nearby Susquehanna River. Four of the plants 20 filtration cells were destroyed when the 15-ft tall, 18-in thick wall fell.A post-construction quality audit of the plant, issued in February by LMK Engineers LLC of Pottstown, Pa., found more than 150 deficiencies that it blamed on inadequate construction management.Design and configuration control during construction and
Orlando, Fla., city commissioners voted to allow construction to begin on the delayed $383-million Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, or DPAC, after board members stepped forward to personally guarantee a $16-million letter of credit that will replace tourist tax dollars if projected revenues of $43 million fall short. Courtesy DPAC Construction will begin in June on the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, shown in an architect's rendering above. “For more than 20 years this region has struggled to build a new performing-arts center,” says Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer (D). “But unwilling to give up and wanting
Prospects for carbon-free power is getting a double boost in Europe. France is about to procure an estimated $14-billion of offshore wind farms. And the U.K. is setting itself tough greenhouse gas targets, increasing its reliance on renewable and nuclear energy. Photo: Tudor Van Hampton For ENR A lack of federal legislation for renewable energy is holding back the market for wind power and green jobs, supporters say. Related Links: Offshore Support for Onshore Wind Booms, Busts Stunt Growth of Wind Power Three of France’s biggest engineering companies have formed an alliance to bid this month or next for a
In summer 1858, when foul odors from the polluted River Thames forced the British Parliament to suspend its activities, legislators allocated funds to build London's first main sewers.
Construction is racing into the homestretch 35 kilometers outside of Delhi in preparation for India’s first Formula One grand prix, on Oct. 30. India’s first Formula One race track, known as the Buddh International Circuit, is expected to be homologated by August. JPSI German architect and racetrack designer Hermann Tilke designed the $400-million Buddh International Circuit. JPSI The course track features long, fast straightaways, complex slower sections with open, flowing corners and unusual gradients. Homologation is the approval process a race track must go through to be part of a league or series. The regulations and rules that must be
For the second year in a row, Florida legislators have raided the state's transportation trust fund in order to help close a multibillion-dollar budget gap, and again the state's governor is apparently considering vetoing the measure. This year's session, which finished work on May 6, included a “sweep” of $150 million from the trust fund's cash reserves into the general budget. That was nearly identical to the $160 million that state politicians raided from the road fund last year, only to have former Gov. Charlie Crist (R) veto the action after considerable lobbying from the transportation construction industry.Robert G. Burleson,
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is using a variety of measures, including opening three massive river diversion features—the Bonnet Carré, Birds Point-New Madrid and Morganza floodways—to relieve pressure on the Mississippi River watershed. Graphic courtesy USACE Water spewed skyward at the rate of 10,000 cu ft per second on May 14 as the first vertical-lift gate was opened on the Morganza Floodway. It was the Corps' third big control measure in the flood fight and marked the first time that three main control structures on the lower Mississippi were opened at the same time.The Corps' first move was blasting
Engineers and emergency planners from northern California to British Columbia say the massive undersea quake and tsunami that recently assaulted Japan gives clear warning about the danger that lurks just off the Pacific coast like a mad dog sleeping by the bed: A 630-mile-long geologic feature that was identified in 1984 is believed to be very similar to the one that broke with such violence off the coast of Japan in March. Evidence of violent breaks in the featurecalled the Cascadia Subduction Zone, or CSZhas been found in sediment layers left by prehistoric tsunami. On April 25, 1992, a 7.2-Mw
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