Author Archives: Mike Roselli
What does it mean when the economy discourages investing, designing, and building? A general lack of development interest, which is exactly what we’re seeing here in the U.S. It shouldn’t be a surprise. If you see a lack of employment in the engineering and design sector, it usually means the pipes are sealed on new projects and the lights are off on new construction.
Well, in terms of supply and demand, this means that demand for construction materials is at a large low at the moment, and with an increased supply, it seems prices have dropped significantly. An article posted in The American Surveyor today caught my attention. The U.S. Labor Department released a producer price index (PPI) report on the 20th of October saying construction materials prices are down 8.2 percent since September 2008. Continue reading
It should be of no surprise to anyone in the transportation industry to see state transportation departments short on cash at the moment. To make matters worse, previous legislation (pre-recession) was planning on cutting back funding, ultimately nullifying some attempted cash influx that was expected to come from stimulus.
The unemployment rate in this sector is still waiting to see the light at the end of this tunnel because of a lack of projects, ultimately caused by a lack of funding and state budget concerns.
What’s being done about it? It seems the good folks at AASHTO have written a nice letter to the US House and Senate, urging them to repeal the $8.7 billion rescission of funding. So, If you’re looking for a job in this sector, definitely keep tabs on this as it develops. Maybe you should write your local congressman!
For the full story, or to read the letter sent to congress, see this AASHTO press release.
Did you know that some Departments of Transportation are installing automated tweeting scripts to their traffic reports for use on Twitter.com? If you live in North Carolina, check out @NCDOT, and if you’re in the Raleigh area, get your traffic reports from @NCDOT_Triangle and some from @NCDOT_I40.
One of the great things about our information age is the ability to not only get information quickly, but from a variety of sources. Here is an article that was written when NCDOT enabled these features last month.
If you live in another state, run a search on your Department of Transportation and see if they Tweet. Find out, and share in the comments below! Oh, and please don’t tweet and drive.
With the technology we’ve had up to today, it’s been very difficult to account for the weathering of our bridges, buildings, and other structures. State Departments of Transportation spend millions of dollars every year in testing, but current methods include many assumptions and are not always accurate. Thus accidents happen like the collapse of the Minneapolis I-35 Bridge that crosses the Mississippi.
New sensors to monitor performance are starting to become more common, but they only help if the sensor is placed at the source of a potential problem. I remember when I was working at the Constructed Facilities Laboratory at NC State, we would place sensors on key areas of beams and columns and test them for failure. Fortunately, we knew where each column and beam would fail, but bridge-systems are slightly more complicated.
New funding from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Michigan DOT is being spent on next-generation monitoring systems like “skins”. These skins can be painted on or exist in a layer of concrete. New wireless technology will help bring the cost of these systems down significantly, and wireless sensors have performed well in the East. You can read the full article that goes further in depth at Scientific American.
“You cannot have big-league quality of life with little-league quality transportation.” – Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR)
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) speaks in an interview with TransportationTV about building funds for trasportation in a by-partisan way. By speaking to financial professionals and municipalities about new attractive ways to raise funds, they developed “Build America Bonds” that would have a federal government tax-credit placed on them.
The bonds are part of the Recovery Act and will help fund transportation projects over the next two years. A very exciting prospect for engineers in the next two years. Check out the full video below. Continue reading