Move by Rosabeth Moss Canter

The major elements of America’s transportation infrastructure and policy frameworks are six decades old (or older in the case rail). We haven’t even kept up with the maintenance since then. In addition to taking care of what we have, we need to adapt to the changes in technology, culture and the economy that have occurred. Our policies haven’t been keeping up.

In Move, Harvard business professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter explores how we got here and how we can move forward. We got here by adopting a defense-oriented policy that emphasized cars (especially interstate highways) and air travel, largely ignoring rail, public transit and intermodal development.

The path forward has several elements. First is a focus on mobility. Transportation infrastructure is a technical, bureaucratic realm of deep silos. Mobility changes the focus to moving people and products around communities and the nation in whatever ways make sense. Physical mobility and economic mobility are tied, and if we want to strengthen our economic leadership on the world stage, we need to break down internal policy barriers to advancing the way people move.

That means developing a national strategy. Of course, a rigid approach won’t work because we have varied nation. However, national priorities and frameworks can make room for regional priorities, adaption and leadership.

Money is always in issue. There are potentials in public-private partnership (PPP), and that can be arranged in many ways. America has a world-leading freight rail system that has very limited public investment. Airports are generally owned by governments, and attempts to privatize them have meet a cool response from possible investors. However, there are examples of successful PPPs in which there is something for everybody.

I already mentioned that technology has come a long way in the past several decades, especially in the realm of communication and data analysis. Some transportation industries, such as airlines, are taking advantage of the opportunities in new technology, while other are lagging. There are many ways our transportation system can be smarter, and we need sensible ways of incorporating technology in ways that are safe without losing out on the benefits through unnecessary delays.

This requires leadership and vision, especially in government. Politicians are often motivated by short-term wins, but mobility is a long-term investment. We need leaders who can see passed the next election and the boundaries of party.

Finally, citizen engagement is important. Plans can quickly fail if the people who are going to use, pay for and otherwise feel the ultimate effects of new transportation policies and infrastructure are not informed, involved and empowered to take action that works for them.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Big Roads by Earl Swift

Bottled Lightning by Seth Fletcher

1939 by David Gelernter

The Powerhouse by Steve Levine

Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. Move: Putting America’s Infrastructure Back in the Lead. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015.

What's New April 17, 2009

Action Packed (10)

Alternative Fuels and Energy Resources Articles and Links (Updated)

Asset Management Presentation Available

Bill Would Limit Greenhouse Gas Considerations in Endangered Species Decisions

Bridge Bill Could Require States to Address Corrosion

The busy googleganger: Keenan Patterson - Silicon Valley, CA Facebook
, Widgetbox › Keenan Patterson commented on the group 'Website Owners', April Fools Day Around The Web Keenan's Blog, New Theme » Keenan Patterson’s Blog, Keenan Patterson (keenanpatterson) on Twitter

Congress Considers Dam Safety Bills

Economic Stimulus Funds 2000 Transportation Projects (Infrastructure Watch, Apr. 14, 2009)

Infrastructure Watch can now be reached at www.infrastructurewatch.net

Infrastructure Watch has a New URL

Missouri Gets Economics Stimulus Fund for Clean Diesel Projects

More Federal Environment and Infrastructure Appointees Announced

Missouri Selects Transportation Projects for Economic Stimulus Funding

Missouri to Hold Public Meeting on Economic Stimulus for Weatherization Program

New Chief of Natural Resources Conservation Service Named

New Commissioner Appointed to Missouri Highways & Transportation Commission

Pharmaceuticals in Water (Updated)

Progress ReportProposed House Resolution Supports National Public Works Week

Transportation Headlines for Wednesday, March 18, 2009

What I Read

What's New March 27, 2009

www.keenanpatterson.net now redirects to Keenan’s Book Reviews

Pascal's Wager by James A. Connor

Blaise Pascal had a great impact on mathematics. He laid the foundations of our mathematical understanding of probability. A computer programming language was named for him.

Pascal was also a deeply religious man and philosopher. His book Pensées is read as a devotional by many Christians. His argument that the belief in God is rational is widely known.

James A. Connor takes the name of that argument for the name of his biography of the man, Pascal’s Wager. Connor considers both Pascal’s life in science and math and his religious convictions.

For many, there is no conflict in scientific study and religious devotion, but there was for Pascal. He was a Jansenist, though somewhat at odds with the leaders of the movement because of his interests in science and philosophy. The Jansenists were deeply concerned with sin and living a life of penitence; to pursue anything else was to embrace worldliness. Pascal loved the discoveries he made by reason and experiment, but he also longed for a life of purity and closeness to God.

Pascal was seen as a bit of a mathematical prodigy, especially in his youth when his father led a secular life by the standards of the day. He published a pamphlet on conic sections when he was 16 years old. He invented a calculating machine, the Pascaline, when he was 19. He was still fairly young by modern standards when he developed a theory of probability in a series of letter he exchanged with Pierre Fermat.

He had a mystical experience in 1654 that changed his focus in life. He told know one about it, but wrote a note about it that he kept pinned in his coat to carry with him the rest of his life. The note was discovered by his nephew shortly after his death.

After his experience, he devoted more of his time to supporting Jansenism, which his entire family had come to follow, especially his sister, Jacqueline, a nun. Jansenists were in conflict with other Catholics over their views on original sin and election, especially with the Jesuits. Pascal became an apologist for Jansenism, and especially mocked the Jesuits in The Provincial Letters.

Politics and religion were deeply linked in 17^th Century France, and the conflict between Pascal’s sect and the wider French Catholic church became a conflict with Louis XIV. He felt that the Jansenist leaders capitulated to the king and the Jesuits, which brought him into conflict with them as well.

Though religious debates had been part of his entire life, this heating up of the conflict to such a level occurred toward the end of his life. He expressed his devotion to God in self-imposed poverty and care for the poor; which in one case took the form of establishing the first public transportation system. He did not abandon math, though, and published a paper on the cycloid as well. He had been sick most of his life and passed away in 1662 at the age of 39.

Connor’s book is approachable for most readers. Though Pascal’s fame today probably rests more on his accomplishments as a mathematician, Connor shows how his life was shaped by his religion and both the religious and secular traditions of his time (Connor is a former Jesuit priest).

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Chance by Amir Aczel

The Drunkard’s Walk by Leonard Mlodinow

How Not to Be Wrong by Jordan Ellenberg

The Language of God by Francis S. Collins

On a Grander Scale by Lisa Jardine

The Unfinished Game by Keith Devlin

Connor, James A. Pascal’s Wager: The Man Who Played Dice with God. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006.

The Big Roads by Earl Swift

Swift, Earl.  The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.

The American interstate system is often thought to be a product of the Eisenhower administration.  It’s named for him.  However, the nearly 47,000 miles of interstate were conceived largely before Eisenhower’s presidency.  Even as he observed the Army’s 62-day, cross-country convoy of 1919, engineers were laying the political and technical foundations of national highways.  Earl Swift tells this longer history of the interstates in The Big Roads.

When Americans began calling for better roads, the typical road was mud.  The loudest calls for better roads at the beginning of the 20^th Century were cyclists, especially the colorful Carl Fisher.  Fisher’s most famous work is the Indianapolis Speedway, where a popular 500-mile race continues to be run.  His promotion of the Lincoln Highway, the first coast-to-coast highway (at least on paper), provided an important antecedent to the interstates.

The Lincoln Highway Association operated on a system that informed later highway development.  Rather than build a huge new highway, it selected existing roads for improvement, joining them together in a highway.  New roads were built only if necessary.  The association, a private organization that raised private funds for road improvement and route promotion, was a model for later systems in another way.  The Lincoln Highway was built and improved in pieces by a number of local and state agencies.  The association provided a route, coordination, promotion, encouragement, and sometimes funding, but the road improvements were mostly local works.

Thomas MacDonald, an Iowa highway engineer, was using a similar model as he worked for that state.  He worked with city and county road departments to coordinate improvements leading to a statewide system of decent roads.  When he became director of the Office of Public Roads, he brought this model to the federal highway program, institutionalizing it in the Federal Aid system that began in 1916.

Of course, the U.S. highways that developed under this system were not like modern interstates.  They were open to anyone along them.  In rural areas, they might have been and often still are long ribbons of pavement crossed by the occasional farm road.  In cities, they became crowded with business, especially restaurants and gas stations, that slowed traffic to a crawl.  This problems gave rise to the concept of a limited-access highway, first proposed by Benton MacKaye, the conservationist who conceived the Appalachian Trail.

MacDonald and his engineers began working the concept.  His office produced a report, authored primarily by Hubert Sinclair Fairbanks, that laid out most of the current interstate system in 1938.  Fairbanks supported that idea that better roads might solve problems related to slums and blight in cities.  The recommendations of this report and a follow-up commission were largely implemented in law in 1944, when the term “interstate” first appeared in legislation.

The plans for an interstate system languished during World War II and the years immediately following.  Eisenhower comes into the picture at this time because he strongly supported funding for the interstate system.

Highway engineers saw themselves as providing a good and giving the people what they wanted.  Along the way, as Fairbanks suggested, they could clean up the cities.  As they began to implement their plans in earnest, opposition arose.

Swift gives particular attention to two interstate opponents.  Critic Lewis Mumford provided the intellectual and philosophical foundation for the Freeway Revolt.  Joe Wiles, a black professional and veteran, organized opposition to Interstate 70 in Baltimore which resulted in changes to the plan and help unite the white and black communities in that city.  The federal and state governments began to take seriously the possibility that interstates could have a negative impact on the communities near them

The intestate system, finally completed in the 1990s, is the largest public works project in history.  Now that it is built, it needs to be maintained.  It will be expensive: $225 billion a year for the next 50 years to keep it in good shape.  That is more than twice what we’re spending.  In addition, improved fuel efficiency and reduced driving prompted by the economic downturn has reduced gas tax revenues for the Highway Trust Fund.  In the near future, we may need to find new ways to pay for maintaining our transportation marvel.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Brooklyn Bridge by Judith St. George

Canals and Their Architecture by Robert Harris

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

The Great Bridge by David McCollough

On the Mainlines by William B. Claycomb

Google

Whats' New Jan. 27, 2011

A Real National Infrastructure Bank Proposal
Bill Watch - 112th Congress
Bill Would Require Public Employee Inspection of Federally-Funded Transportation Projects
Book Review: Into the Depths of God by Calvin Miller
Conspiracy Theory Notes
Exodus
Glossary (Updated)
Infrastructure Stimulus
Interesting Stuff Jan. 27, 2011
Still Trying to Axe the Plaques
What's New Jan. 19, 2011

Contents Under Pressure by Sylvia F. Munson

Regular readers of this blog may recall that about two and a half years ago I read several books about utility depreciation. This was part of my preparation for a new job at the time. I recently changed jobs, and that is starting a new round of reading.

A book that came highly recommended by my new supervisor is Contents Under Pressure by Sylvia F. Munson. In this book, Munson describes the business processes and operations of natural gas pipelines.

This book provides a very straightforward description of the process. It is complicated. Munson does not avoid the complexity, but neither does she get bogged down in trying to describe every situation that may arise.

Readers of this book can gain an understanding of how the business of a natural gas pipeline is set up. It shows how the industry and regulators have solved a lot of practical problems. How does a customer of a pipeline (shipper) tell the pipeline how much gas it wants to transport (nomination)? How does the pipeline figure out how to balance the gas available and wanted and how to move it (scheduling)? How does the pipeline reconcile what was schedules with what actually happens (allocation) because gas moving in a pipe is a complex thing? Munson describes these processes and the regulations and standards that govern them.

Munson does not try to be excessively comprehensive. Anyone who works doing this type of work for a pipeline or shipper will need to become familiar with a lot of rules, standards and company-specific procedures. However, Contents Under Pressure is a place to get started. It is also a book that shows the process from beginning to end so one can see how one step leads to the next.

The book has several short segments that are contributed by other authors. These contributors have experience in the energy industry and most are connected to the North American Energy Standards Board through positions of leadership or committee service.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Depreciation Systems by Frank K. Wolf & W. Chester Fitch

Public Utility Depreciation by NARUC

Munson, Sylvia F. Contents Under Pressure: The Complete Handbook of Natural Gas Transportation. Houston, TX: Farris Ventures.

STEM Books

I’ve reviewed 39 STEM-related books (and counting).  STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  As you may have seen in the news, there is a push to improve STEM education, interest students in STEM fields, and grow the number of workers in these fields.  The idea is that these will be the skills needed by workers of the future.  If you’re a STEM educator or a student considering a career in STEM fields, you might like to take a look at some of these books.

I’ll confess that I’m not an educator, but I think most of these books will be accessible to high school and college students, and a few to middle school students.  The list is also a reflection of my career and interests in engineering, public health, policy, and history.  Even with these biases, I think it is a good list for someone looking for STEM-related books.

How to Build an Android: The True Story of Philip K. Dick’s Robotic Resurrection by David F. Dufty

I was fascinated by robots as a kid.  I enjoyed reading Isaac Asimov’s robot stories.  I longed for the Omnibot 2000 in the Sears Wishbook.

Robots have come a long way.  In How to Build an Android, David F. Dufty describes the short strange life of a very complex robot made to look and talk like science fiction author Philip K. Dick.  The robot had a very sophisticated and lifelike head and complex artificial intelligence.  As with most complex things, it was the work of many people who had to solve a lot of problems.

If you’re interested in robotics, this is an interesting nontechnical book.  In addition, you’ll get introduced to some freaky sci-fi.  You may even get as (somewhat) legitimate reason to use the word “Dickhead” (capitalized, it refers to a fan of PKD, so don’t go using it on anyone).

The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways by Earl Swift

The Interstate highway system in the United States is one of the most enormous structures built.  Some of the prospective STEM students who read this may actually be younger than the Intestate system, though in some sense it is never complete because it needs constant repair and maintenance.  The Interstates were completed in the 1990s, but the Federal-Aid Highways go back to 1916.

Earl Swift wrote an accessible history of the Interstates in The Big Roads.  If you interested in automobiles or transportation, it’s a good read.

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

Deborah Cadbury describes seven wonders of engineering in Dreams of Iron and Steel.  It covers almost a century of history, but many of the events are concentrated in the Victorian Era.  That was a time of great technological innovation.

Though the book is history, many of the structures still stand.  Railways, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Suez and Panama Canals, and Hoover Dam stand testament to an age of big engineering.

The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios

Though the memory of Professor Wragg’s sneer prompts me to not make this confession, part of my interest in science and technology came from comic books.  Iron Man was cool.  Spider-Man’s web shooters were very cool.  Superhero comics are full of fantasy, admittedly, but the strange, unrealistic science and technology they depict have inspired many to study STEM in reality.

Physicist John Kakalios uses examples from comic books to explore real physics in The Physics of Supeheroes.  Sometimes comics get there science right.  Even when they get it wrong, it can be instructive.  If you know what people are talking about when they refer to the “New 52,” you may find this book to be a great introduction to physics.

1089 and All That: A Journey into Mathematics by David Acheson

Here is another confession: I’m not especially interested in math.  I endured a lot of math classes to study engineering.  Reading David Acheson’s 1089 and All That did not require such endurance.  For one reason, it is a short book.  For another, Acheson doesn’t expect his readers to be mathematicians; it is enough to follow the outline of the math he discusses.

I recommend this book because so many people have a fear of math.  1089 can be followed by many high school students and older folks with math phobias.  Just take a deep breath, relax, and follow along as well as you can.  You’ll see that math can be interesting, useful, and even beautiful in a way.

The Brooklyn Bridge: They Said it Couldn’t be Built by Judith St. George

Judith St. George’s The Brooklyn Bridge is a short history of and iconic bridge.  Written for the bridge’s 100^th anniversary, it is also the story of the engineers who sacrificed life and health to see it completed: John Roebling and his son Washington.  John Roebling was a German immigrant who built many suspension bridges and owed a wire-making business.  He gave his son and extraordinary education in bridge engineering for the time, and before beginning work on the Brooklyn Bridge he served as an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Why should a cutting-edge STEM student read about a bridge that is almost 130 years old?  It’s because we still use and rely on very successful, centuries old technologies.  Improving and rebuilding our infrastructure will be an important part of our economy.  As recently as 2010, New York City and the federal government committed $500 million to repair and repaint the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems by Henry Petroski

STEM lumps together science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  Is there a difference between science and engineering?  Is it important?

Henry Petroski, a professor of civil engineering and history and author of The Essential Engineer, believes there is an important difference.  At heart, science is about increasing knowledge.  Engineering is about invention.  Of course, new knowledge makes new invention possible.  Just as often, though, engineering runs ahead of science.  Sometimes science didn’t advance until someone invented the instruments to conduct new observations and experiments.  The invention of the microscope made possible the science of microbiology.  Steam engines were built and greatly improved before we had a modern scientific understanding of thermodynamics.  In fact, thermodynamics was to a large extent born out of desire to understand steam engines. In this sense, it is an engineering science (study of manmade things) as much as a natural science (study of natural things) or branch of physics.

Petroski’s focus in the book is the importance of engineering to policymaking, where it is often overshadowed by science.  Policy, science, and engineering play off of each other a lot.  Most of my career as an engineer has been related to government, policy, and regulatory compliance.

The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson

The Ghost Map by science writer Steven Johnson is the story of the birth of epidemiology.  Epidemiology is a medical science that uses statistics to help us understand how diseases operate in a population.  Using various statistical and geographic tools, long before we had computers and GIS, physician John Snow demonstrated that cholera, once a recurring plague that wiped out hundreds of thousands of people in some outbreaks, was a waterborne disease.  This understanding, initially met with much skepticism, allowed officials to intervene to prevent the spread of the disease.  For those who say of their math classes, “I’ll never us this,” here is a case where math (and science and policy) were used to make a great difference.

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose

It is not much publicized today that the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804 to 1806 had a partly scientific mission.  Captains Lewis and Clark were charges with bringing back samples of the flora, fauna, and culture of the western territories.  It was also hoped that they would find a water passage to the Pacific Ocean.  In Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose writes about the scientific mission as well as the policy, diplomacy, and commercial hopes the expedition carried.

Of course, what attracts most people to the Lewis and Clark expedition is that it was a great adventure.  There is a place in STEM fields for thoughtful adventurers and explorers. 

Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear by Jan Bondeson

A list like this deserves something strange, creepy, and more fun than you care to admit.  Right now, thousands of very young future STEM workers are catching bugs and snakes, breaking their toys to see what is inside, or staring into space with a weird expression of vacancy and concentration.

Jan Bondeson’s Buried Alive is not a morbid book.  It is sometimes humorous, especially in consideration of topic.  From a STEM point of view, Bondeson shows how knowledge accumulates over time.  The fears and activities of our forefathers may seem strange to us, but they sometimes made sense in light of what they knew.  Buried Alive doesn’t simply play off our fascination with the grotesque and death, though the book might not have been written if we lacked that fascination, I think it reminds us to approach our ancestors with a touch of grace and humility.  Maybe our progeny will show us the same courtesy.

If you’re looking for something for a younger student, check out this post→ from Joanne Loves Science or these recommendations→ from STEM Friday.  By the way, I also write about engineering, infrastructure and the environment at Infrastructure Watch.

Google