Heavy rains lead to flooding, power outages | 4 engineering teams named for Chicago rail project | US builds out EV charging infrastructure across the map
August 25, 2023
News for and about the civil engineering community
Heavy rain in Ohio, Michigan and Nevada caused flooding that inundated the Las Vegas Strip, closed tunnels to the Detroit Metropolitan Airport in the suburb of Romulus and required several people to be rescued from their cars on a section of Interstate 90 in Lakewood, Ohio. Power is out for 700,000 people across Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania as thunderstorms came through with 85 mph winds in some parts.
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Four engineering teams will work to design the single biggest part of a plan to eliminate Chicago area railroad bottlenecks caused by crossing tracks. The project will replace or rehabilitate bridges and other structures as part of a larger plan, with Parsons Corp. heading two of the design package teams and Hanson Professional Services and Gannett Fleming each leading one team.
President Joe Biden wants electric vehicles to account for 50% of all new car sales by 2025, but that can't happen without ample EV charging infrastructure -- and many groups are working to make that happen. The US has added more than 1,200 fast-charging points over the last 12 months, including four at a visitor center in Lamar, Colo. This addition is significant because it means EVs will now be able to traverse Highway 50, also known as The Loneliest Road in America, with relative ease.
Factory assembly provided all the parts for a bridge on County Highway V in Eau Claire County, Wis., shortening the normal assembly time of as much as three months to four weeks. It's the first application in the US of the method employed by InQuik Bridging of Australia, offering the additional claimed advantage of a 25% cost saving.
Southern California crucially depends on three massive aqueducts to deliver water but needs, figuratively speaking, a fourth to meet climate change challenges, according to Adel Hagekhalil, general manager of the region's Metropolitan Water District. Hagekhalil explains that an array of projects making use of local water supplies is needed to provide the volume of water equivalent to another aqueduct to adjust for water cycles disrupted by the changing climate.
Renovations valued at $300 million are underway at the Regional Water Quality Control Plant in Palo Alto, Calif., but staff may acquire nearby land for expansion to add an industrial facility and future-proof the facility for the next 50 years, said Karin North, assistant director of Public Works.
The history of storm damage strongly suggests that building codes will prove even more crucial for saving property and lives as the climate continues to change. Critics say that code implementation and enforcement will raise construction costs, but the evidence to date doesn't support that, write Scientific American editors.
A study in Minnesota focusing on possible equity implications for managed lanes on roadways found that users are slightly more racially diverse than the general population. However, there was a lower proportion of people with disabilities.
Rebel Concrete Strength Sensors, invented by Purdue University professor Luna Lu, aim to prevent premature concrete failures on interstate reconstruction projects. The sensors eliminate the need for concrete samples and are being tested in several states, including Indiana and Texas, before an anticipated commercial debut later year.
This photo of the forthcoming LAX People Mover was submitted by SBCE reader Ronald J. Watson from RJ Watson Inc. The 2.25-mile long, $2 billion structure is scheduled to open later this year and was built by the LINXS Design-Build team. Watson supplied 98 disk bearings for this project.
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