Infrastructure Archives - The Handbuilt City

Business & Economics Culture & Language Transit infrastructure Travel Infrastructure

The Three-Martini Greyhound: The Future of Corporate Travel?

July 19, 2021July 16, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments amtrak, amtrak michigan, corporate travel, flying, greyhound, in-flight wifi, intercity buses, intercity trains, new normal, optimization, productivity, reopening, surplus value, the dog, travel, tsa, tsa precheck, wolverine service

In June, my partner took a three-day business trip– her first since before the pandemic hit- to Chicago. I threw

Public Safety Infrastructure Small Business Streetscaping

New Grand River Streetscaping: Safer, Slower, Greener

May 4, 2021May 4, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments bike lanes, black-owned business, crosswalk, crosswalks, Detroit, effect of streetscaping on public safety, garden stores, gardening, gardening store, gilmour garden tools, grand army of the republic building detroit, grand river, grand river avenue, grandmont-rosedale, highland park, home depot, local business, maumee lake region, native plants, neighborhood investment, north rosedale park, pages bookshop, pedestrian safety, public safety, raised crosswalks, street safety, streetscaping and public safety, tina castleberry, traffic violence

New streetscaping improvements have turned portions of Grand River Avenue, on Detroit’s West Side, from a street-level freeway into something more closely resembling a real city street that people might be able to safely hang out and shop on.

Business & Economics Urban Planning Transit infrastructure Infrastructure

Michigan Population Numbers: How Long Before We Just Admit That This Strategy Isn’t Working?

April 27, 2021April 27, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments 1837 border war, add lane miles, aging population, big two and a half, chaldeans, chrysler, Congress, congressional seats, fca, fiat chrysler, Ford, ford motor company, funding infrastructure, general motors, GM, Gretchen Whitmer, growth, infrastructure, infrastructure and economic growth, infrastructure investment, japan, level-of-service, matt maddock, mdot, meshawn maddock, michigan, michigan legislature, ohio, population decline, population growth, rail, rail infrastructure, refugees, rightsizing, rightsizing cities, rightsizing infrastructure, shrinking cities, stellantis, tokyo, toledo border war, transit, trucks, trump, US Congress, vmt, vmt reduction, whitmer

The census numbers are in, and we’re unsurprised to learn that population growth is stagnant in parts of the great,

Urban Planning Mobility Infrastructure Tech

Webinar: Tech To Reduce Guesswork for Safer Streets

April 26, 2021April 26, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments amazon, amazon web service, Amazon Web Services, AWS, big tech, break up big tech, breaking up big tech, CASE, cloud computing, congestion, connected, connected autonomous, connected autonomous shared electric, cycling safety, Detroit, distributed structures, elizabeth warren, intelligent transportation systems, intersections, ITS, jeff bezos, jeff bezos rocket ship, joe biden, mobility, pedestrian safety, public safety, redundancy, roadside unit, rsu, safe streets, sensors, smart transportation, switching costs, tony geara, traffic, traffic management, traffic safety

Traffic technology has improved by leaps and bounds in recent decades. While the ultimate solutions to ending traffic violence must come with better street designs and a reduced reliance on single-occupant automobiles, there are some interesting developments in technology that are allowing better modeling to understand driver behavior, intersection safety, and more. We learned about it from a webinar co-hosted by Canadian tech company Miovision.

Culture & Language Energy Infrastructure

American Meltdown: The Popular Imagination of Energy Disasters

April 20, 2021April 20, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments apocalypse, chernobyl, city of quartz, cold war, disaster, disaster movies, don delillo, ecology of fear, Mike Davis, mutually assured mass destruction, postapocalyptic, soviet union, susan sontag, the imagination of disaster, white noise

Disasters plague systems that are designed or lauded as “too big to fail.” And, according to the wealth of cinema on the subject, we love to see it.

Policy Energy Infrastructure

Biden Infrastructure Plan: What All Is Included?

April 2, 2021April 2, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments anna clark, biden administration, biden infrastructure bill, biden infrastructure plan, biden transportation policy, bridges, broadband internet, civilian climate corps, department of transportation, federal budget, federal deficit, federal spending, gretchen bakke, high-speed broadband, high-speed rail, infrastructure, infrastructure investment, joe biden, mdot, mobility infrastructure, nonmotorized infrastructure, nonmotorized transportation, pedestrian infrastructure, policy, port, ports, ports of entry, road safety, roads, USDoT, waterways

We must remind critics of the Biden infrastructure plan what all is included in the term “infrastructure.” It’s a little bit more than just cars.

Policy Mobility Infrastructure

Buttigieg Suggests VMT Tax. Here Are A Few Alternatives.

March 31, 2021March 31, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments air pollution, biden infrastructure plan, biden transportation policy, cap-and-trade, carbon tax, daily signal, david ditch, elon musk, F-150 Super Duty State of Mind, f150, f150 super duty, gas consumption, gas prices, gas prices under biden, gas station, gas stations, gasoline, george saros and her emails, infrastructure funding, infrastructure spending, oregon carbon tax, oregon VMT, pete buttigieg, secretary of transportation, tesla model 3, tesla model s, un agenda 21, UN Agenda 21 Globalist Conspiracy, Utah VMT, vehicle miles traveled, VMT tax

VMT is a tough sell for a variety of reasons. Can’t we just get it over with and get a national carbon tax?

Infrastructure Utilities

Centralization: Economy of Scale? Looming Disaster? Lil Bit of Both?

March 26, 2021March 26, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments 1.21 jiggawatts, ann durkin keating, blair kelley, centralization, charles perrow, chicago streetcars, coal power, decentralization, detroit edison, detroit public lighting, detroit public lighting authority, distributed generation, DTE Energy, electrical generation, georg leidenberger, hazen pingree, hazen s. pingree, history of street lighting, invisible networks, mehrsa baradaran, mistersky power plant, municipal streetcar systems, municipal water systems, municipalization, networks, normal accidents, power grid, power grids, private responsibility, public responsibility, samuel insull, social contract, solar power, street lighting, streetcar systems, Streetcars, texas winter storms, the detroit edison, transit systems

Streetcars, gas and water pipes, power lines, and other “invisible networks,” to borrow a line from the title of Ann Durkin Keating’s book, make up a vibrant history of infrastructure in which centralization vs. decentralization is a big debate.

Business & Economics Transit infrastructure Infrastructure

Black Ocean Strategy? Private Firms Are Looking To Cut Themselves A Slice Of The Infrastructure Pie.

March 25, 2021March 25, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments ann arbor, anthony townsend, austerity, autonomous cars, BRT, CASE, cavnue, chicago parking meter deal, chicago parking meters, daley the lesser, diane cross, EVs, fast bus, finance 101, ford mustang mach-e, free market, google, highways, hudson yards, infrastructure, Infrastructure Partners, invisible hand, jeff cranson, LRT, mach-e, mark de la vergne, mdot, michael heller, morgan stanley infrastructure partners, MSIP, mustang mach-e, PAV, privatization, privatization of transportation infrastructure, privatized, richard j. daley, richard m. daley, roadways, Sidewalk, sidewalk labs, SMART, smart city, smart roadways, subways, transportation infrastructure

Wall Street and Silicon Valley are looking for access to infrastructure as they seek out new markets and sources of reliable revenue streams and growth potential. It’s good work … if you can get it.

Environment Infrastructure Ecology

Rivers and Roads (and the World’s Largest Dam Removal)

January 14, 2021January 14, 2021 Vishva Nalamalapu 0 Comments clallam county, coast salish, dam removal, elwha, elwha river, elwha river dam, glines canyon, glines canyon dam, jefferson county, lake aldwell, lake mills, lower elwha klallam tribe, olympic peninsula, pacific northwest, salish sea, strait of juan de fuca, washington, washington state

In the Olympic Peninsula, dam removals on the Elwha River and resulting road washouts lead us to question the compatibility of changing ecosystems and unchanging infrastructure.

← Previous