Back in 2016, both presidential candidates promised a massive spending bill to rebuild America’s aging infrastructure. In February 2018, the White House released what it referred to as a “blueprint” that would invest $250 billion in public funds, with…
New Tricks Result in Treat for I-95 Commuters: Collaboration Key to Early Project Completion
On Halloween, Oct. 31, 2017, commuters who use the heavily congested I-95/395 highway in Virginia received a special treat: a new 2-mile-long reversible…
Madison Square Park Tower: Slender, Inverted, Remarkable
The last decade witnessed a global boom in tall building construction, and, like every year since 2014, 2017 set another record for tall building construction…
From the Editor: Managing a $10 Trillion Construction Industry
Several years ago, the trillion-dollar global construction industry (projected to hit $10 trillion by 2020) caught the eyes of Silicon Valley and Wall Street. Much has been written (including in this column) about the industry’s inefficiencies, and there’s…
Auto Auto Parking: It’s About More Than Just Parking Your Car
When it comes to discussions of moving people around, self-driving cars, ride-hailing services and bike-sharing companies are grabbing all the headlines. These industries and associated technologies certainly are interesting: for a long time we’ve dreamed…
From the Editor: Where Do You Go When You’ve Reached the Peak?
For the last 17 years, I’ve worked with surveyors, contractors, and engineers to help them lower their costs and increase profits. In doing so, I’ve seen many firms get to the point where they’ve reached “peak efficiency.” It’s exciting when an…
From the Editor: Bridges to the Future
Every time my sister crosses a bridge, she gets anxious. This has happened her entire life, and, although not quite panic-attack-inducing, the anxiety is palpable. The fear of crossing bridges is common enough that it has a name: gephyrophobia. Trained as…
A High-Visibility Project: Examining the Historic and Beautiful New Portageville Bridge
By Mark Scacco, P.E. In 1852—the year women were being arrested for wearing pants (Emma Snodgrass in Boston) and the first edition of Peter Roget’s Thesaurus was published—the Erie Railroad Company built the first bridge to cross the Genesee River Gorge…
From the Editor: Old Habits Die Hard
I have a theory, and I wonder what you think about it. It has to do with ancient pyramids, spaceships, artificial intelligence, robots and self-driving cars. No, this doesn’t have anything to do with “ancient astronauts” or Chariots of the Gods; it's…
From the Editor: Predicting the Present: Yesterday’s Future and Tomorrow’s Past
In the classic original The Terminator movie from 1984, an advanced artificial intelligence (AI) wages war against humanity. A fierce band of human resistance fighters battles back and eventually tips the scales in favor of the humans. In a last, desperate…
