Trying to control nature is a human trait, and engineers have much to say about how to do it. There will be many lessons drawn from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, but one issue that should receive greater attention is the failure of land-use rules to protect coastal communities. It would be surprising if this factor were overlooked, given how much thought is devoted to sustainability and preserving nature, not to mention how much is already known about the way population density increases the destruction caused by tidal waves. Plainly, better land-use rules could have saved
The arguments that in decades past helped produce record-breaking surface transportation authorizations don’t work any more. Not even the gas tax and the Highway Trust Fund, which make drivers pay and keep the money separate from other taxes, are sacrosanct. Transportation now needs a plan just to get by. After that, we should invigorate the user-fee concept with an eye toward replacing it with a vehicle-miles-traveled tax plan. If we require another sign of the need for change, we received it on the first day of the new Congress. The GOP-dominated House of Representatives adopted new rules that will allow
As young Gabe Spencer pictured here joins his mother for a construction jobsite ceremony, his hardhat isn’t regulation. But his clear fascination with the building process at age five might encourage us to think that the construction industry still has fans in the next generation. Hopefully, we can convince these kids that construction will continue as a good place to pursue a career when they grow up. Photographer/Submitter: Marc BarnesSubmitted while Barnes was with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; he now works for the new U.S. Army Community Hospital at Fort Belvoir, Va. Gabe Spencer watches intently as his
For many small and medium-sized firms, 2010 might be remembered as a long reality show similar to TV’s “Survivor.” Faced with the possibility of elimination amid a fragile economy as construction unemployment hovered around 18%, many companies rethought market plans and business approaches. Almost everyone’s top line shrank, but that was fine if it meant staying in business and minimizing layoffs. Image: Slaved-fotolia.com Bigger companies found opportunities in the downturn to plot new strategies. Consolidation didn’t rest. AECOM Technology Corp. and URS Corp. led the industry in big acquisitions. In June, URS Corp. outlasted CH2M-Hill in a bidding war for
Many times we’ve written that engineers should unite around causes such as the need for more spending on infrastructure and qualifications-based selection. When it comes to other matters, such as the importance of licensed practice and licensed engineering professors, we’re reminded that engineering is divided among numerous disciplines with their own needs and agendas. Engineering is sprawling and diverse, more like India than Switzerland. Engineers can never be as culturally coherent or politically unified as physicians, attorneys or architects. But this state of affairs doesn’t mean engineering has split into so many loosely related camps that one sector has no
New Jersey Gov. Christopher Christie (R) has thrown an ice-cold bucket of water on the heads of the sleeping Rip Van Winkles in New York and New Jersey. These folks trusted the planned commuter-rail Hudson River tunnel was somehow beyond the reach of the current backlash against government spending and deficits. However, that exemption has turned out not to be the case in the bitter election season just concluded. The project’s construction packages, several of which had been awarded, included an underground addition to Manhattan’s Pennsylvania Station and a bridge on the New Jersey side. We believe the project eventually
Airline passengers bearing one-way tickets often elicit a closer look from airport security. Thus, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials at San Francisco International Airport considered it a routine search when they stopped a man with a one-way ticket from China. Stuffed in his suitcases were 1,500 circuit breakers, all counterfeit. According to industry experts familiar with the case, the man was a former employee of Square D, a large manufacturer of electrical components in Palatine, Ill. Officials later discovered that another shipment of one million counterfeit Square D breakers had slipped past security, spreading through the marketplace like a
If ever there were a dispute in which the outcome depended on the details, it is the question of whether a union may legally display banners or inflatable rats or hold mock funerals outside of businesses that use open-shop contractors. Is it free speech or an illegal boycott under the labor law? With one exception, we think the highly politicized National Labor Relations Board got this decision right—the 3-2 vote that supported the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Local 1506, in Arizona. Photo: AP/Charlie Nye There are at least 10 other cases pending involving the use of
In September, the Ohio Dept. of Transportation will award an estimated $450-million design-build contract to construct the I-90 Innerbelt Bridge in Cleveland. Three design-build teams will be waiting anxiously for the results to come in. For one team, it will be a major coup. The two other teams can console themselves with a sizable stipend for all their work drafting plans. Or maybe not. The Innerbelt Bridge is one of the first major design-build projects undertaken by ODOT. The three short-listed teams are composed of high-profile firms. The Federal Highway Administration estimated the total design costs for the project would
The little-noticed passage by Congress of relief for multi-employer pension plans as well as President Obama’s signature on the bill on June 25 provide much-needed breathing room for these types of union pension funds. The bill, paired with measures related to Medicare benefits, allows the plans to amortize losses sustained in the stock-market downturn of 2008 over 30 years rather than the previous limit of 15 years. By allowing the longer period of amortization, Congress and the President temporarily remove the possibility that multi-employer plan assets will slip further behind their future liabilities and require even more drastic relief measures.