Author: Thomas A. HallPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 436
Book Description
Engineering 21st Century Highways
Author: Thomas A. HallPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 436
Book Description
Rethinking America's Highways
Author: Robert W. PoolePublisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022655760X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 376
Book Description
A transportation expert makes a provocative case for changing the nation’s approach to highways, offering “bold, innovative thinking on infrastructure” (Rick Geddes, Cornell University). Americans spend hours every day sitting in traffic. And the roads they idle on are often rough and potholed, with exits, tunnels, guardrails, and bridges in terrible disrepair. According to transportation expert Robert Poole, this congestion and deterioration are outcomes of the way America manages its highways. Our twentieth-century model overly politicizes highway investment decisions, short-changing maintenance and often investing in projects whose costs exceed their benefits. In Rethinking America’s Highways, Poole examines how our current model of state-owned highways came about and why it is failing to satisfy its customers. He argues for a new model that treats highways themselves as public utilities—like electricity, telephones, and water supply. If highways were provided commercially, Poole argues, people would pay for highways based on how much they used, and the companies would issue revenue bonds to invest in facilities people were willing to pay for. Arguing for highway investments to be motivated by economic rather than political factors, this book makes a carefully-reasoned and well-documented case for a new approach to highways.
Engineering 21st century highways
Author: The Road Ahead
Author: Philip TarnoffPublisher: Strategic Book Publishing
ISBN: 1612045324
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 197
Book Description
America's future depends on a vibrant highway system capable of supporting industry and the travel needs of its citizens. The country's highway system can trace its roots to the movements of major armies in colonial times, such as British General Braddock using George Washington's assistance in a disastrous attack of French forces defending Ft. Duquesne. These early roads developed into the engineering marvels of today's modern highway system. But this system is in serious trouble. Inadequate funding and poor management are responsible for its gradual deterioration, and along with it, the U.S. economy. A broad range of solutions can solve this problem, some of which involve transforming public transportation agencies into privately operated utilities. Many of these exciting solutions also offer the potential to solve America's funding problems. This book is must-reading for anyone concerned with America's future, as it shows us The Road Ahead... About the Author: Philip Tarnoff received an electrical engineering degree from Carnegie Mellon University and a master's degree from New York University. He is retired from his most recent full-time job as director of a research center at the University of Maryland. Tarnoff was the president of a major transportation systems integrator and is currently working part-time as a consultant. He is also chairman of the board of a start-up company that produces devices for measuring traffic flow. He lives in Rockville, Maryland http: //SBPRA.com/PhilipTarnoff
Engineering 21st Century Highways
Author: Thomas A. HallPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 444
Book Description
Divided Highways
Author: Tom LewisPublisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801467829
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 412
Book Description
"Anyone who has ever driven on a U.S. interstate highway or eaten at an exit-ramp McDonald’s will come away from this book with a better understanding of what makes modern America what it is." – Chicago Tribune "A fascinating work... with a subject central to contemporary life but to which few, if any, have devoted so much thoughtful analysis and good humor." – Minneapolis Star-Tribune "Divided Highways is the best and most important book yet published about how asphalt and concrete have changed the United States. Quite simply, the Interstate Highway System is the longest and largest engineered structure in the history of the world, and it has enormously influenced every aspect of American life. Tom Lewis is an engaging prose stylist with a gift for the telling anecdote and appropriate example."—Kenneth T. Jackson, Harvard Design Magazine "Lewis provides a comprehensive and balanced examination of America’s century-long infatuation with the automobile and the insatiable demands for more and better road systems. He has written a sprightly and richly documented book on a vital subject."—Richard O. Davies, Journal of American History "Lewis describes in a convincing, lively, and well-documented narrative the evolution of America’s roadway system from one of the world’s worst road networks to its best."—John Pucher, Journal of the American Planning Association "This brightly written history of the U.S. federal highway program is like the annual report of a successful company that has had grim second thoughts. The first half recounts progress made, while the second suggests that the good news is not quite what it seems."—Publishers Weekly "Lewis is a very talented and engaging writer, and the tale he tells—the vision for the Interstates, Congressional battles, construction, and the impact of new highways on American life—is important to understanding the shape of the contemporary American landscape."—David Schuyler, Arthur and Katherine Shadek Professor of the Humanities and American Studies at Franklin & Marshall College, author of Sanctified Landscape: Writers, Artists, and the Hudson River Valley, 1820–1909 In Divided Highways, Tom Lewis offers an encompassing account of highway development in the United States. In the early twentieth century Congress created the Bureau of Public Roads to improve roads and the lives of rural Americans. The Bureau was the forerunner of the Interstate Highway System of 1956, which promoted a technocratic approach to modern road building sometimes at the expense of individual lives, regional characteristics, and the landscape. With thoughtful analysis and engaging prose Lewis charts the development of the Interstate system, including the demographic and economic pressures that influenced its planning and construction and the disputes that pitted individuals and local communities against engineers and federal administrators. This is a story of America’s hopes for its future life and the realities of its present condition. Originally published in 1997, this book is an engaging history of the people and policies that profoundly transformed the American landscape—and the daily lives of Americans. In this updated edition of Divided Highways, Lewis brings his story of the Interstate system up to date, concluding with Boston’s troubled and yet triumphant Big Dig project, the growing antipathy for big federal infrastructure projects, and the uncertain economics of highway projects both present and future.
Highway Engineering
Author: Martin RogersPublisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118378156
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 434
Book Description
The repair, renovation and replacement of highway infrastructure, along with the provision of new highways, is a core element of civil engineering, so this book covers basic theory and practice in sufficient depth to provide a solid grounding to students of civil engineering and trainee practitioners. Moves in a logical sequence from the planning and economic justification for a highway, through the geometric design and traffic analysis of highway links and intersections, to the design and maintenance of both flexible and rigid pavements Covers geometric alignment of highways, junction and pavement design, structural design and pavement maintenance Includes detailed discussions of traffic analysis and the economic appraisal of projects Makes frequent reference to the Department of Transport’s Design Manual for Roads and Bridges Places the provision of roads and motorways in context by introducing the economic, political, social and administrative dimensions of the subject
Transportation Strategies for the 21st Century
Author: Thomas D. LarsonPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Environmental monitoring
Languages : en
Pages : 24
Book Description
Highways and Agricultural Engineering, Current Literature
Author: The Road Taken
Author: Henry PetroskiPublisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 163286360X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 337
Book Description
Renowned historian and engineer Henry Petroski explores the past, present, and future of America's crumbling infrastructure. Physical infrastructure in the United States is crumbling. The American Society of Civil Engineers has, in its latest report, given American roads and bridges a grade of D and C+, respectively, and has described roughly sixty-five thousand bridges in the United States as "structurally deficient." This crisis--and one need look no further than the I-35W bridge collapse in Minnesota to see that it is indeed a crisis--shows little sign of abating short of a massive change in attitude amongst politicians and the American public. In The Road Taken, acclaimed historian Henry Petroski explores our core infrastructure from historical and contemporary perspectives and explains how essential their maintenance is to America’s economic health. Recounting the long history behind America’s highway system, Petroski reveals the genesis of our interstate numbering system (even roads go east-west, odd go north-south), the inspiration behind the center line that has divided roads for decades, and the creation of such taken-for-granted objects as guardrails, stop signs, and traffic lights--all crucial parts of our national and local infrastructure. His history of the rebuilding of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge reveals the complex and challenging interplay between government and industry inherent in the conception, funding, design, and building of major infrastructure projects, while his forensic analysis of the street he lives on--its potholes, gutters, and curbs--will engage homeowners everywhere. A compelling work of history, The Road Taken is also an urgent clarion call aimed at American citizens, politicians, and anyone with a vested interest in our economic well-being. The road we take in the next decade toward rebuilding our aging infrastructure will in large part determine our future national prosperity.