Subway Station Modernization: Design-Build Team Upgrades Six NYC-Area Transit Stations
In two projects, New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and a design-build team of Urbahn Architects, HAKS (now Atane Consulting) and Citnalta-Forte Construction completed renovations to six subway stations as part of MTA’s multiple-station renovation program throughout the city. MTA’s renovation program is the first design-build contract in the subway system’s history. The logistics of the project were creative as well, as MTA was, for the first time, closing one stat...
Excerpts from an Interview with the CEOs of Bentley Systems and Topcon
In October 2019, Informed Infrastructure Editorial Director Todd Danielson went to Bentley Systems’ Year In Infrastructure conference in Singapore. While there as an award juror for the Buildings and Campuses category, he was able to interview Greg Bentley and Ray O’Connor (above), the CEOs of Bentley Systems and Topcon Positioning Systems, respectively, about their companies and the joint venture they launched at the event: Digital Construction Works Incorporated (DCW). Danielson: How did t...
Distributed Water Management Marks A New Way Forward
For more than 100 years, the United States has relied on an ever-growing massive network of centralized water-treatment facilities. This is the standard model for both public and private investment. As a result, more than 85 percent of the U.S. population is served by large number of “mega water systems” with capacities greater than 1 million gallons per day (bit.ly/2yVwovI). Centralized Networks In Trouble But aging water infrastructure is forcing these utilities to spend more each year. B...
A Cool-Looking Chiller: New Core Infrastructure at UMass Amherst Is Sustainable, Educational and Beautiful
The northwest corner of the chiller plant shows rhythmical façade patterns in channel glass and metal panels above ground level. Oxford’s “dreaming spires” (subject of the famous poem), Harvard’s Widener Library (home to one of the world’s few perfect Gutenberg Bibles), the University of Michigan’s 102-year-old Michigan Union, and Bard College’s Fisher Center for the Performing Arts (a $62 million, acoustically tuned and geothermally heated Frank Gehry masterpiece); for several centurie...
How Steel Deck Is Shaking Up Cold-Formed Steel Framing Design
All too often, we get stuck in the mindset that the way we currently do things is the way we must continue to do them. An example that hits close to home is the way steel deck is underutilized by designers in the low- and mid-rise construction market. Current practice favors the use of plywood or oriented strand board (OSB) sheathing on cold-formed steel (CFS) floor and roof trusses, because that’s how things have been done for years. But why not shake things up and consider using steel deck...
Brick Sewer Rehabilitation in the Nation’s Capital
The Washington, D.C., sewer system (managed by DC Water) is a mix of pipe systems that includes large-diameter brick structures. Following an alert from the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), DC Water’s engineering group carried out a pipe entry inspection to verify the integrity of a 72-inch-diameter brick sewer on the F Street NW block between 12th and 11th streets. A 72-inch brick sewer required rehabilitation in downtown Washington, D.C. Repair of the brick sewer was com...
We’re Not Bluffing: Erosion Is a Serious Issue
By Matt Welch, CPESC, CESSWI, and Adam Dibble, CPESC, CESSWI The North American Great Lakes account for roughly 21 percent of the planet’s surface freshwater and 84 percent of North America’s surface freshwater. If you haven’t had a chance to look across one of these truly magnificent lakes, add it to your to-do list. Not only are these lakes beautiful, biodiverse and full of rich history, but they provide a resource that will only become more important as population increases, polluted w...
Supercomputing that Supports Infrastructure
Argonne National Laboratories Makes Climate Modeling Practical for Regional Infrastructure Asset Management Argonne National Laboratory, located in Lemont, Ill. (just outside Chicago), has some of the trappings of an outstanding Bond villain lair, including its own 0.7-mile-circumference electron storage ring (a bit like a CERN-style particle accelerator); the Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS), which is the “first superconducting linear accelerator for heavy ions at ener...
Bridge Rehabilitation and Replacement: Engineers Explain Methods Used on the Seabrook Strauss Bascule Bridge
By Gregory P. Taravella, P.E., and James W.H. Costigan, E.I. The Seabrook Bridge is a Strauss Heel-Trunnion Bascule Bridge located in New Orleans and owned by the Port of New Orleans. Built in 1923, the through-truss bridge originally carried two railroad tracks inside the trusses and two single-lane roadways cantilevered outside the trusses. The bridge is one of three duplicate bridges that cross the Inner Harbor-Navigation Canal (IH-NC), which links the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain...
An Olympian Achievement: Los Angeles Zeroes in on Emissions-Free Bus Fleet
When Los Angeles hosts the Summer Olympic Games in 2028, city officials are hoping its zero-emissions bus fleet will share a bit of the spotlight with the world’s best athletes. Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) is starting the journey to create a comprehensive Zero Emissions Bus Program through an analysis of its network of 165 bus and bus rapid-transit routes and 12 maintenance facilities. The goal is to convert to a complete zero-emissions bus fleet by 2030. To achie...
Stormwater Interview with Robert Page, P.E., Vice President, HNTB
Santa Barbara County North Branch Jail Expansion
February Issue 2026
