Improving Americas Urban Infrastructure Race and Race Relations

Improving America’s Urban Infrastructure Race and Race Relations: Final Project

Background on me Third year student in Mechanical Engineering Completed two co-op terms in Toyota’s Production Engineering division Worked in facilities engineering on energy efficiency projects Introduced me to civil engineering topics Overview of this project Topic strikes good mixture of class focus and personal knowledge/talents Bring awareness to problems the average person may not even know are issues

How does this relate to this class? A high percentage of underprivileged and economically disadvantaged individuals tend to live in cities Failing urban infrastructure in the coming years is likely to have adverse effects on their lives Public institutions vital to the success of such individuals are in terrible shape. Schools and transit are rated as D+ and D-, respectively. This particular issue has gained very little traction in the media Not a hot-button issue until disasters happen Oroville, California dam Economic effect of failing infrastructure is distributed to all people, hitting low income peoples the hardest

Catastrophic Failure in Engineering. Hurricane Katrina

Catastrophic Infrastructure Failure. Example Post-disaster analysis of Hurricane Katrina showed the following engineering oversights “The engineers responsible for the design of the canal levees and the I-walls embedded in them overestimated the soil strength, meaning that the soil strength used in the design calculations was greater than what actually existed under and near the levee during Hurricane Katrina”-ASCE “That decision [to use results of a flawed loading test for flood wall pilings, burying pilings 17 ft instead of >35 ft] saved approximately US$100 million, but significantly reduced overall engineering reliability”-World Water Council Army Corps of Engineers was set in 1965 to recertify and/or replace all levees and dams in the area over the following 14 years. By the time Katrina hit (2005), the project was still unfinished (60 -90% estimated complete)-US Govt. Accountability Office ASCE called it the “Worst engineering disaster in US History”

Defining the problem Urban Infrastructure Identified by the National Academy of Engineering as an Engineering Grand Challenge Infrastructure across the world is aging, but in the United States it is deteriorating at an unprecedented rate Problem is worse in cities, as cities usually contain growing populations that strain societal support systems and (NAE) America’s infrastructure as a whole currently has a rating of D+ as graded by the American Society of Civil Engineers http: //www. infrastructurereportcard. org/ America’s grades

Challenges (continued) Much infrastructure in use today has properties that impede maintenance Buried Missing or incomplete plans and drawings Energy and Utility Distribution Growing demand for energy, water, sewer, ect. Transportation Public transportation Bridges and Roads Integration and synergy of multiple modes of transportation

Impact on Citizens Health and Safety Pollution and Waste Management Clean Energy Catastrophic Infrastructure Failure Economic D+ rated school infrastructure hurt student’s chances of success According to ASCE, infrastructure problems could cause the following: $3. 9 trillion in losses to the U. S. GDP by 2025; $7 trillion in lost business sales by 2025; and 2. 5 million lost American jobs in 2025. On top of those costs, hardworking American families will lose upwards of $3, 400 in disposable income each year – about $9 each day.

Possible Solutions “A major grand challenge for infrastructure engineering will be not only to devise new approaches and methods, but to communicate their value and worthiness to society at large. ” –NAE The average citizen needs to be aware that infrastructure is a necessary and important use of public funds Pressure should be place on politicians to allocate funds to infrastructure reform before failures (catastrophic or otherwise) occur Ethics in Engineering Educating engineers to instill good ethics habits Make sure engineers know their loyalty lies to the people first, and to their company second

Possible Solutions Build for tomorrow, not just today Longer, more thoughtful project development Govt. should judge bids based more on longevity and environmental impact and less on price Utilize new engineering methods, technologies, materials as they emerge Advances in technology will need to be used as they arrive to combat the infrastructure problems as they appear

Sources http: //www. infrastructurereportcard. org/ http: //www. engineeringchallenges. org/challenges/infrastructure. aspx http: //www. governing. com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/six-ideas-for -fixing-the-nations-infrastructure-problems. html’ https: //web. archive. org/web/20110807184732/http: //levees. org/2/wpcontent/uploads/2010/06/American-Society-of-Civil-Engineers-What-Went. Wrong-ERPreport-1. pdf http: //www. gao. gov/new. items/d 051050 t. pdf http: //levees. org/2/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/WPOL-V 17 -NO 4 -21051. pdf

Questions?