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The Great Lakes are often called the nation’s third coast, and the past five years in the region have been the wettest on record. While the lakes don’t exactly correlate to rising sea levels, Chicago now sits in just as precarious a position as oceanfront cities. Heavier rainfall and more frequent droughts are now causing extreme swings in the water levels of Lake Michigan and the Chicago River, wreaking havoc on the city and prompting urgent action to find a fix. — CNBC
Climate change is having an increasingly marked effect on Chicago, which sits right along Lake Michigan and is dissected by the Chicago River. CNBC highlights the growing risks the city faces as one that is so vulnerable to its surrounding water bodies. In the winter of 2020, Lake Michigan reached... View full entry
Late last month, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) announced a 15-year, $191 million plan to make New York City a leader in the offshore wind industry. Called the Offshore Wind Vision (OSW) plan, it ensures the city meets its... View full entry
Construction will be an engine of global economic growth in the decade to 2030, with output expected to be 35% higher than in the ten years to 2020, according to a new global forecast. — Global Construction Review
The report, titled Future of Construction, by Oxford Economics and Marsh McLennan subsidiaries March and Guy Carpenter projects that growth in construction output will average 3.6% per year from now until 2030, outpacing that of the manufacturing and services sectors. According to the study, this... View full entry
Swiss-American transportation technology company Swisspod has announced the development and construction of a new hyperloop testing facility in Pueblo, Colorado. This initiative follows Swisspod’s construction of Europe’s first operational test track in July. Swisspod has partnered with... View full entry
The Afghan countryside is littered with abandoned and decaying power plants, prisons, schools, factories, office buildings and military bases, according to a watchdog agency, the legacy of the U.S.’s 20-year effort to fund the establishment of a modern Afghan state that could provide security and basic services for its citizens — The Wall Street Journal
A reported $145 billion went to infrastructure projects and construction equipment alone. In March, an American taxpayer watchdog group called SIGAR released a report which estimated $6.6 billion worth of buildings and vehicles went misused or were abandoned since the 20-year war began... View full entry
A group of researchers from Northeastern University and Tufts University has called for funds from President Biden’s infrastructure bill to be diverted to dismantling “racist infrastructure” which is currently disproportionally impacting minority neighborhoods in the United States. The... View full entry
The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to have the Department of Water and Power transition to 100% renewable energy by 2035, as well as develop a long-term hiring plan for nearly 10,000 “green” jobs. The 2035 deadline is a decade earlier than the city’s previous goal. — Los Angeles Daily News
The plan was passed in a 12-0 vote. It also tasks the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) to report every six months on the transition to renewable energy to the City Council’s Energy, Climate Change, Environmental Justice and River Committee. In March, the city of Los Angeles... View full entry
The $14.5 billion flood-protection system built around New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina seems to have succeeded at keeping the city from going underwater again. — The New York Times
The abject failure of the levee system during Hurricane Katrina was the primary cause of the devastation that eventually cost the city a minimum of 1,800 lives and over $81 billion in property damage. Ida represents the first test of the system since it was completed in 2018. The levees were... View full entry
Italian construction and civil engineering company Webuild Group’s U.S. subsidiary, Lane Construction Corporation, has begun excavating a 2.7-mile, 18.1-feet diameter water storage tunnel in Seattle. The $570 million undertaking is titled the Ship Canal Water Quality Project, an environmental... View full entry
The AIA is applauding Congress as the latest iteration of the bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed the Senate this week includes for the first time key provisions that it says will help modernize the built environment at a critical junction for building safety and adaptability nationwide... View full entry
The $1 trillion package is far smaller than the $2.3 trillion plan that President Biden had originally proposed and would provide about $550 billion in new federal money for public transit, roads, bridges, water and other physical projects over the next five years, according to a White House fact sheet. — The New York Times
A proposed $20 billion in aid to communities of color that have been historically impacted by past infrastructure projects was reduced to $1 billion as part of the dealmaking process. New York Senator Chuck Schumer has promised an additional $3.5 trillion package that will address climate and... View full entry
A new study published in Accident Analysis & Prevention shows how biometric data can be used to find potentially challenging and dangerous areas of urban infrastructure before a crash occurs. Lead author Megan Ryerson led a team of researchers in the Stuart Weitzman School of Design and the School of Engineering and Applied Science in collecting and analyzing eye-tracking data from cyclists navigating Philadelphia’s streets. — Penn Today
As explained in a piece by Penn Today, current federal rules for making safe transportation interventions require the notation of crashes. This reactive approach relies on previous human cost before new considerations are made. Seeking to minimize harmful events altogether, Ryerson and her team... View full entry
According to New York Times restaurant critic, Pete Wells, who “loves outdoor dining,” the Big Apple is in the process of another makeover with a “third wave” of Open Restaurants being added to the city’s already bustling streets. Nevertheless, as more parking spaces are given over... View full entry
Zaha Hadid Architects has signed an agreement with Hyperloop Italia to co-design the next phase of development for the transformative transportation system. Hyperloop Italia is a start-up born from an initiative by Bibop Gresta, the founder of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), to... View full entry
With the Memorial Day deadline now passed for President Biden’s massive new $2.25 trillion infrastructure bill, architects and planners are watching closely and with interested eyes to see what is included in any future version of the bill that has the potential to make outsized impacts in... View full entry
