In an Architectural Record article entitled “Why Building Information Modeling Isn’t Working…Yet,” Ken Sanders, FAIA, Principal/Managing Director for Gensler (San Francisco, CA), wrote of building information modeling (BIM), “A decade ago, the technology seemed two or three years away; today, it still seems two or three years away.”

 He wrote this in 2004.

Sanders is widely recognized as a leading voice on the AEC industry’s transition from 2D to 3D. His groundbreaking 1995 book, “The Digital Architect: A Common-Sense Guide to Using Computer Technology in Design Practice,” predated by two years the founding of Revit Technology Corporation, developer of the first parametric building modeler for the AEC industry.

When asked his view on the state of BIM adoption during a recent interview for this publication, Sanders said, “I believe we’re still in the early to middle innings of change.”

In some ways, the coming of BIM is reminiscent of the scene from the 1970s comedy classic “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” in which John Cleese’s Sir Lancelot character is shown charging a castle. Despite the apparent speed and intensity of his approach, in frame after frame he never gets any closer to his target.

Ten years after Revit’s seminal BIM product became available, and through the decade-long refrain since that it would revolutionize the AEC industry, the simple truth is that the transformation has yet to take hold.

In a 2009 SmartMarket Report entitled “The Business Value of BIM,” McGraw-Hill Construction reported that “almost half of the industry is now using BIM.” Logically then, when the survey took place anyway, more than half the AEC industry was not using BIM.

This begs a number of questions: If building information modeling (BIM) is such a game changer for the AEC industry, as its advocates claim it is, why aren’t more firms using it? Why isn’t everyone using it? In short, why is the “BIM Revolution” taking so long to win?

These questions are at the heart of what we’re calling “The BIM Dilemma.”

What is the BIM dilemma?

Two basic groups stand out among the many perspectives on BIM and its place in the industry: believers and non-believers.

For believers, BIM is the only way to go. These folks say that BIM is the future of the industry and if you’re not on board now – or at least very soon – you will be left behind. (Note that many of these people work for software vendors and resellers.)

The non-believers are wary of how BIM is changing the design and construction process and uneasy about issues such as liability, interoperability and loss of design creativity and control. They may be wading in, but they aren’t yet ready to take the plunge. Or, equally, they contend that they don’t want or need BIM.

The issue is much more complex than this, of course. As black-and-white as the conflict is on one level, the edges of the argument are tinted gray. This is where the dilemma gets deep. Firms across the industry have many questions about BIM, but the answers that eventually emerge are often confusing or unsatisfying. No nagging question is asked more often than “What can BIM do for me?”

Perhaps more to the point, the question should be “What can BIM do for my client?”

Architects, for example, struggle with the transition to BIM for two primary reasons. First, at its core, modeling technology benefits the design process by improving efficiency in areas that account for much of the architect’s design fee under the current compensation system. Thus, a move to BIM requires a sea change in the way architects are rewarded for their services.

Further, while owners and contractors may reap significant benefits from the problems avoided and efficiencies gained through the use of BIM, designers may gain little financial advantage – at least under the existing compensation structure.

Sanders nailed this point in his Architectural Record article in explaining the caution of some design professionals: “It’s challenging to confront the risks inherent in implementing new processes that seem to reward one party for costs and risks incurred by another. Indeed, one might argue that it’s easier and cheaper for our profession to continue to practice using our traditional methods.”

Second, the greatest promise of BIM is in its ability to foster collaboration earlier in the project process, as well as throughout that process. This cuts into the architect’s traditional “territory” while significantly raising the potential for misuse and abuse of the architect’s design – as least as seen through the eyes of architects reticent to share their models with team members further down the traditional project timeline. In an industry known for its litigiousness, this is an understandable source of apprehension.

Engineers, depending on their discipline, may share these concerns or have different reasons for their “BIM-phobia.” Structural engineers may bemoan the lack of interoperability among the various programs, while MEPs complain that the technology isn’t advanced enough in their area of expertise for them to invest the time and money into it. And for civil engineers, the fact that the term is building information modeling often, and understandably, leaves them on the outside looking in.

General contractors and subcontractors have varying levels of familiarity with and fondness for BIM. As it is with architects, BIM can change the way contractors do business. Unlike their designer counterparts, however, BIM presents a clearly positive change for contractors – certainly for exceptional contractors, anyway – as they grow more involved in the design aspects of a project and gain a clearer picture of design intent before investing time and resources into construction.

In this way, the dilemma not only runs deep into issues related to BIM’s collaborative process and the modeling technology that facilitates it, it spans broadly across the industry. Owners, designers and contractors often battle over how and when to share files (just as they have for years with CAD files, but perhaps with even more trepidation and concern because the technology is that much more advanced and data-rich). Preferred technologies can also create conflict among team members, particularly when interoperability is lacking (i.e., the technologies don’t play well together).

BIM – with its ability to drive greater cooperation and collaboration – offers the industry a new paradigm. But the old hierarchy dies hard. In case you hadn’t heard, new isn’t always synonymous with welcome in the AEC industry.

The publication goes on to explain the basis for the ”BIM Dilemma” and offers suggestions and advice for how the industry, and individual firm leaders, can help break the logjam and come to terms with this promising, but controversial technology. 

If the topic interests you, go to www.psmj.com for ordering information. — jg

With all these training and information sources (and more) out there, who needs another? What does the Association of A/E Business Leaders (AEBL) offer the industry that all these sources can’t provide?
 
The answer lies in a few key words in AEBL’s mission statement – “AEBL is an unbiased, not-for-profit, member-supported organization that exists to strengthen and support the A/E industry by promoting best practices, corporate stewardship, effective leadership and free exchange of ideas.”

“Unbiased, not-for-profit, member-supported.” Every group and company dedicated to any aspect of business management or the A/E industry has an agenda. This is not a criticism; it is a fact. Each group’s agenda makes it what it is. For example, the AIA exists to promote the best interests of its member architects, a job it does well. For-profit companies exist to make money. For each organization, there is an undertone to everything they do that helps drive their agenda.

AEBL is not agenda-free; it wants to gain members and improve its offerings. It wants events to draw well, primarily because the sessions are better for everyone when they do. Financially, its minimum goal is to break even so it can survive and grow.

But AEBL has no bias toward any profession, role or discipline. It is not trying to make anyone rich and it isn’t preoccupied with cross selling or product pushing. Board member John Cowdery, who moderates a session called Key Operations Metrics for AEBL’s flagship training program “Step Up to Leadership (SUTL),” says, “This is the only forum where they’re not trying to sell you something.”

“Strengthen and support the A/E industry.” The key term is “A/E.” AEBL is the only not-for-profit group that targets the full breadth and depth of the A/E industry – all disciplines, sizes, management levels and roles.

Christopher Parsons, founder and president of technology consulting firm Knowledge Architecture, Inc., wrote on his blog, “I’ve consistently seen a great mix of CEOs, COOs, CFOs, marketing and human resources directors, project managers, architects and engineers from A/E firms of all sizes at AEBL events. The cross-functional, cross-discipline discussion is what makes the roundtables so compelling. Attending the events is a great way to network with your peers, partners and competition.”

By encompassing the entire A/E industry, AEBL offers a comprehensive range of viewpoints, while reducing the likelihood of competitive pressure inherent in the professional societies.

“Best practices, corporate stewardship, effective leadership and free exchange of ideas.” AEBL is all about improving the ability to manage, lead and succeed through effective business practice. But the “free exchange of ideas” is what makes this possible. AEBL’s focus on honest, open dialogue truly differentiates the organization.

Matt Henry, CEO of transportation consulting firm Fehr & Peers and moderator of the SUTL session Developing a Vision, says, “The unique aspect of AEBL is that it is industry practitioners sharing real stories of what they are actually doing in their organizations.”

AEBL’s predecessor, the Professional Services Management Association (PSMA), flourished in the 1990s and early 2000s before losing its way and contracting significantly. Pockets of PSMA chapters continued to thrive, however, illustrating that the industry’s need for a broad, unbiased organization never waned.

At its core, AEBL is people from all corners of the A/E industry fearlessly sharing ideas with the singular goal of helping to improve the management abilities of its members, its session participants and the industry as a whole. It is a unique resource that offers industry leaders and future leaders the greatest opportunity to gain practical knowledge and insight through proven management techniques, without the distraction of high-pressure sales, professional prejudice or ulterior motive.

No other professional organization or company can honestly make this claim – there is simply nothing else out there like AEBL.

And while this asset would be welcome in any industry, it is absolutely essential for architects and engineers (and planners, environmental scientists, etc.) who so often struggle with the business aspects of running a business. For all these reasons, AEBL more than validates its existence within the spectrum of A/E industry groups and resources.

AEBL’s Step Up To Leadership is ongoing in Orange County – the next session is June 3 (2pm – 4pm) at Harris Associates in Irvine, where Laurie Dreyer will moderate a session on workplace trends – and scheduled for a two-day session June 17-18 at the office of Merrick & Company in Aurora, Colorado.

Linden Homes residents will enjoy improvements to the complex and lowered utility costs thanks to some careful reading by Malden Housing Authority executive director Stephen Finn, who spearheaded a plan to federalize the public housing facility, making it eligible for millions in stimulus funds.

The federalization of the Linden Homes complex, which is located at the intersection of routes 60 and 99, was announced last week by city and state officials. The complex, which contains 220 units, was formerly subsidized by the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development.

The city’s efforts to federalize the complex began after Finn noticed a clause in the federal stimulus bill authorizing public housing authorities to use federal funding to “construct or acquire” new federal units. The clause appeared to circumvent a Congressional act limiting the number of federally assisted properties an agency maintains in their portfolio.

The money will go toward several projects, including drainage improvements, accessibility upgrades, updated bathrooms and kitchens, new basement windows and revamped electrical and ventilation systems. The state also committed $1 million for the renovation.

The weekend storm that flooded basements and closed roadways all across New England caused barely a ripple on Somerville Avenue, which has historically been a watery nightmare for city residents and area businesses during even moderate rainfalls.

A vital commercial roadway that connects Porter Square and Union Square, Somerville Avenue is undergoing a massive reconstruction project that has included replacement of its antiquated underground infrastructure. Design of this major roadway improvement project, led by Somerville-based Design Consultants, Inc. (DCI), was completed in 2007 with construction anticipated to end this spring.

The $20 million project passed its first major test last weekend when the oft-flooded roadway held up remarkably well under almost 10 inches of rain. This on a street that many once called “Lake Somerville” during major storms, and that experienced manhole covers blowing off due to the pressure on the drains, sinkholes, and frequently flooded businesses all along the route.

While everyone can see the results of the reconstruction project in terms of beautification, traffic flow and now flood mitigation, the unseen aspects of the work may be even more important, says David Giangrande, president of Design Consultants.

The old combined sewer system was over 100 years old, and it couldn’t handle a heavy rainfall,” says Giangrande, whose business has been in Somerville since its founding in 1980. “The water would push right through the manhole covers and catch basins, resulting in untreated sewerage flooding onto the street. I hate to think of what would have happened on Somerville Avenue in this storm if we hadn’t rebuilt the system.”

DCI’s design work for Somerville Avenue included the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the existing brick arch combined sewer system, a new five- to seven-foot drainage system, new water mains and rehabilitation of separated sewers, full depth roadway reconstruction, and sidewalk and pedestrian improvements. The roadway drainage and signal improvements were paid for by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, while the sewer and water improvements were funded by the City of Somerville through MWRA.

In recent years, many other documented incidences of serious flooding occurred during storms that were far less intense than the one this past weekend. In a 2005 report to the City of Somerville, DCI reported that “between 1994 and 2000, a partial history of DPW records indicates that significant flooding occurred at least 18 times over a six-year period. In recent year, it has been observed that significant flooding still occurs at an approximate rate of three times per year.”

Conversely, following the weekend storm, a local newspaper blog reported: “These past few days, Somerville Avenue didn’t turn into Lake Somerville. The intersection of Medford Street and School Street wasn’t a wading pool. Dozens of other locations across the city didn’t flood out roadways for the first time in many, many years. That’s progress.”

Introduction: Why You Should Care About IPD

When I first started writing about design and construction in 1993, a new concept in project delivery gripped the industry’s attention. Its passionate supporters presented it as the next big thing, an innovation that every large and mid-sized project would someday incorporate into the delivery process.

We saw the future of project delivery and its name was partnering.

I remember thinking that the idea of bringing together all key participants in a major project at the very beginning sounded good. In theory, it would allow everyone on the project team to understand the expectations and ideas of the others, while opening communication lines and creating personal relationships.

At the same time, I wondered if partnering would ever gain widespread acceptance in an industry where time and money are of such critical importance and at such a premium. How could architects, engineers, contractors and owners— people with barely enough time to return a phone call, with schedules booked solid for weeks and months ahead— drop everything for several days to live in huts and sing “Kumbaya” around a campfire (which is how partnering’s many skeptics often described these events)?

Seventeen years later, partnering hasn’t exactly taken the construction world by storm. Do a Google search on “partnering on construction projects”; you’ll find that most of the books and articles on partnering came out a decade ago or more (or that the word is used in an entirely different context). Few people in the industry, and almost no one in small and midsized firms, have ever participated in a partnering session as we then knew it.

It is true that some clients and projects still practice partnering in various forms and to varying degrees. It is even possibly an ancestor to other collaborative planning techniques, including Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), the subject of this publication. But partnering in 2010 is no more a staple of the design and construction industry than TQM (total quality management) or BPR (business process reengineering), two other ideas that sounded good in theory.

It’s fair to say that partnering didn’t live up to the hype.

The hype is now buzzing relentlessly around IPD. It is the increasingly frequent subject of seminars and webinars, conferences and workshops, articles and books, organizations and associations. If you’re not talking about, learning about or thinking about IPD, you’re living in a figurative cave.

“IPD is hot! IPD is now! IPD is the project delivery method of the future, so you better get on board now or the train will leave without you.”

Just wait until architects, engineers, owners and contractors actually start using it on real projects.

You see, despite the incredible “hotness” of IPD, relatively few projects in the U.S. have actually used this delivery method. And, depending on how you define IPD (more on that later), the “few” may be even fewer.

So while IPD is currently the toast of the industry, it is a distant, mysterious concept to the vast majority of professionals working in the estimated one and a quarter million AEC companies in the United States. Some AEC firms may even be working in IPD arrangements, at least as some define the term, and not even know it.

This begs the question, why write this treatise on IPD if it is possibly just another fad? Why should you, the reader, waste time learning about something that could wind up being this generation’s version of partnering?

First, it’s important to remember that not everything about partnering went the way of the Discman, Spuds McKenzie and other 90s fads. Many people credit the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) with originating partnering as we came to know it. And while the terminology has changed— the Corps now seems to prefer the term “Collaborative Planning”— remnants of partnering live on in some large USACE projects. They’re not alone on this, either.

Collaborative planning is a good term that strikes at the essence of both partnering and IPD, without the “touchy-feely” baggage that grew to accompany the former. In 2010, collaborative planning among project team members survives in a number of forms, including as a basis for some of IPD’s principles (e.g., collaborative innovation, mutual respect and trust, open communication).

So even if IPD eventually goes down the same path as partnering, some of its better elements may survive to help create the next industry trend.

More importantly, IPD is not partnering.

Partnering and IPD both grew out of the commonsense concept that projects benefit from the people involved cooperatively considering the process and the product before creating too much of either. Both are the backlash of an industry that has unintentionally built distrust, inefficiency, and finger-pointing into the system.

A major difference between the two is that partnering addresses mainly the “softer” side of the problem, where IPD can affect many of the harder elements of a project, such as the contractual terms.

The 65-page briefing delves into several aspects of IPD, including how it is defined, how IPD projects work, the history of IPD, some sample IPD projects, and the outlook for IPD.

As I wrote at the end of the intro, “The overriding charge of this PSMJ AEC Issue Brief is to offer an entirely unbiased, agenda-free perspective on IPD and the role it plays— and is likely to play— across the wide AEC industry.” I believe the document lives up to that mission and hope the readers agree.

WASHINGTON (AP) – A Republican that had been stubbornly blocking a stopgap measure to extend help for the jobless relented on Tuesday under withering assaults from Democrats and dwindling support within his own party.

Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky had been single-handedly blocking the $10 billion measure, causing federal furloughs and threatening the unemployment benefits of hundreds of thousands of people. He was seeking to force Democrats to find ways to finance the bill so that it wouldn’t add to the deficit, but his move sparked a political tempest that has subjected Republicans to withering media coverage and cost the party politically.

The bill is now slated to come to a vote Tuesday night. It passed the House last week and is likely to be signed into law immediately by President Barack Obama so that 2,000 furloughed Transportation Department workers can go back to work on Wednesday. They’re likely to be awarded back pay once the program is revived.

A law that provided stopgap road funding and longer and more generous unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for the jobless expired Monday. Without the extension, about 200,000 jobless people would have lost federal benefits this week alone, according to the liberal-leaning National Employment Law Project.

The measure to be voted on tonight would extend through the end of the month several programs that expired on Monday, including the jobless aid, federal highway funding and help for doctors facing cuts in Medicare payments.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_budget_impasse

In his 17 years pitching in the big leagues, Jim Bunning was known for his graceful curveball, his rising slider and his sidearm fastball. Now 78 years old and about to retire from the Senate, the Republican of Kentucky is apparently down to only one pitch: the screwball.

Bunning’s solitary opposition to an extension spending bill has, among other things, resulted in nearly 2000 DOT employees being told to stay home Monday.

In a press release, the DOT said it “will furlough nearly 2,000 employees without pay Monday, temporarily shutting down highway reimbursements to states worth hundreds of millions of dollars, national anti-drunk driving efforts, and multi-million dollar construction projects across the country. The action comes as a result of Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning’s decision to block key legislation that would have extended several critical priorities for middle-class families. That legislation covered tax credits for COBRA health coverage, unemployment insurance for 400,000 people, as well as the short-term extension of the Highway Trust Fund. The Fund supports all surface transportation programs for the nation—highways, bridges, transit and safety inspections.”

Here’s more of Milbank’s take on Bunning:

For four days, he has been on a one-man campaign to cut off unemployment benefits, kick the unemployed off of health insurance, cut Medicare payments to doctors, deny satellite TV to rural Americans, shut down federal flood insurance and highway projects, and furlough thousands of federal workers.

Democrats can hardly believe the gift Bunning has given them by single-handedly shutting down these popular programs. Bunning’s fellow Republicans are aghast. If this were baseball, the Hall of Famer would be on his way down to triple-A. But this is the Senate, where any one of the 100 members has the ability to bring proceedings to a halt, and Bunning continues to hurl his wild pitches.

The ornery Kentuckian said he was merely insisting that Congress find a way to pay for the $10 billion, 30-day extension, but that was difficult to square with his recent votes against attempts to rein in debt and spending.

This left people puzzling over Bunning’s motives. Was he taking revenge on his senior colleague from Kentucky, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who helped to push Bunning into retirement? Or was he just being, well, crazy? This second possibility cannot be dismissed out of hand. With the Phillies and the Tigers, he had enviable accuracy, boasting one of the best strikeout-to-walk ratios. But since his reelection campaign, in 2004, Bunning has had some serious control problems.

He said his opponent looked like one of Saddam Hussein’s sons. He suggested that he and his wife had been roughed up by “little green doctors” at a political picnic. He refused to debate in person, instead doing so by teleconference from Republican National Committee offices in Washington, where he used a teleprompter.

Just over a year ago, Bunning resumed his erratic form when he predicted in public that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would probably be dead from pancreatic cancer within nine months.

Yet, with the possible exception of that perfect game in ‘64, the events of the past week have been Bunning’s most visible.

You can read the full column here.

The USDOT, including fellow Republican Ray LaHood, also didn’t hold back its criticism of Bunning:

“As American families are struggling in tough economic times, I am keenly disappointed that political games are putting a stop to important construction projects around the country,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “This means that construction workers will be sent home from job sites because federal inspectors must be furloughed.”

Because of the shutdown, federal inspectors will be removed from critical construction projects, forcing work to come to a halt on federal lands. Projects span the country, including the $36 million replacement of the Humpback Bridge on the George Washington Parkway in Virginia, $15 million in bridge construction and stream rehabilitation in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, and the $8 million resurfacing of the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi. A full list of the FHWA construction projects affected by the furlough is below.

You can read the full release, including a list of affected projects, here.

From the St. Petersburg Times:

Construction is booming at the University of South Florida. Four projects will add nearly 475,000 square feet to the campus, about as much space as in a 35-story skyscraper. So how can USF afford $179 million in construction during a recession? Most is being paid for with state public education capital outlay funds, utility tax revenue budgeted years ago specifically for construction. Contractors are hungry, so “we really get to stretch the dollar,” provost Ralph Wilcox said. And USF needs the space, administrators say. They cite a state analysis projecting that in 2012 USF will rank last among Florida public universities for having enough classrooms, teaching labs and especially research labs.

Note the reference to “hungry” contractors, which is helping the school stretch its dollars. Could be a trend.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/college/article1076403.ece

High-speed rail supporter America2050.org said the investment is a ”critical step toward implementing the long-term infrastructure vision our nation needs to pull itself out of the Great Recession and position itself for long-term competitive growth.”

But it’s a only a very small step, according to a February 10, 2010, article by Steve Hargreaves of CNNMoney:

“Most of the $8 billion in high-speed rail funds that President Obama awarded last month will not be used for high-speed projects, but rather [for] improvements designed to make existing lines faster,” he wrote.

“Only $3.5 billion is being spent on truly high-speed rail, a sum that’s not remotely close to what’s needed to build a 21st century rail network. The money is going toward two projects — one in California and the other in Florida — that have yet to begin construction.”

Whether the effort to bring a high-speed rail network to the U.S. is too expensive or impractical remains to be seen, but it seems a worthy effort nonetheless. High-speed rail is a travel staple elsewhere in the world and has shown promise in its limited appearance in the Northeast Corridor (i.e., the Acela trains, which are currently as high-speed rail as we get in the U.S.). 

But, as Hargreaves writes, will the price tag be too much — $100 billion just to build out the DOT’s proposed network and possibly five times that if they want the trains to run in excess of 150 mph?

In the Hargreaves article, Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, is quoted, “Rome wasn’t built in a day. What you’re seeing is a growing program of pieces that fit together.”

But Ronald Utt of the Heritage Foundation, one of the nation’s most outpoken critics of the high-speed rail plan, told Hargreaves, “It’s the most expensive way to move passengers from A to B. Of all the things the government has to do, are they really going to say, ‘Yeah, let’s have high-speed rail.’ ”

Hargreaves reports that Utt is skeptical California or Florida will be able to raise the matching funds to get the projects done.

Supporters want to see $50 billion dedicated to high-speed rail in the next transportation bill, which is slogging its way through Congress.  In these economic times, that’s likely to be a tough sell.

It’ll be interesting to see the outcome of this debate. My guess is that one solid success story — particularly if it’s a high-profile project in Florida or California — will go a long way toward accelerating the push for high-speed rail in the U.S. If most or all of these initiatives falter, high-speed rail will slide back into the shadows of U.S. transportation planning policy. 

Below is an excerpt from the section on high-speed rail in PSMJ’s 2010 AEC Firm U.S. Market Sector Forecast (which, by the way, is PSMJ.com’s book of the month for February):

As part of the ARRA legislation, the Obama administration committed $8 billion to “jump-start the process of developing a comprehensive high-speed intercity passenger rail network.”

On October 6, 2009, Federal Railway Administration Commissioner Joseph Szabo announced that the agency received 45 applications from 24 states totaling approximately $50 billion – more than six times the available amount. California alone requested $4.7 billion.

High-speed rail, a major player in the transportation scene internationally, is hot in the USA – at least in theory. And if these projects take shape, it could mean significant work for firms across the spectrum of the AEC industry.

This newfound U.S. commitment to high-speed rail is not only attracting attention from cities and states across the country; the world is noticing.

Ansgar Brockmeyer, head of public transit business for Siemens (Berlin, Germany) told the New York Times, “[The U.S.] is a developing country in terms of rail. We are seeing it as a huge opportunity.”

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said that the U.S. expects significant private investment in high-speed rail in coming years, with firms from Europe and Asia factoring heavily in its development. “Companies involved in (overseas) high-speed rail are in the U.S. right now,” he said in July. “I think you’ll see private investment in high speed rail from Europe and Asia, not just the United States.”

Some of the 24 states that have submitted applications for federal high-speed rail funds are aggressively making a case for why they deserve the funds. Florida, for example, launched a marketing campaign dubbed “Life at 128 mph.” Officials say they could complete construction of a high-speed rail line by 2014.

Utah formed an alliance with three other western states to support its proposal. The group says projected population growth justifies high-speed rail service that would run between Salt Lake City and Denver.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report in mid-October entitled “Developing Viable High Speed Rail Projects under the Recovery Act and Beyond.” It offers guidance on effective use of the funds, potential challenges, and the government’s ongoing work on the issue.

“Several principles could guide the effective use of the Recovery Act funds and any future federal investments in high speed and other intercity passenger rail. These principles include establishing clear federal objectives and stakeholder roles, clearly identifying expected outcomes, basing decisions on reliable ridership and other forecasts, and reexamining how intercity passenger rail service fits in with other federal surface transportation programs,” the report states.

“In addition, determining which, if any, high speed rail projects may eventually be economically viable will depend on an accurate determination of such factors as ridership potential, costs, and public benefits. These projects also face many challenges, such as securing the significant up-front investment for construction costs, sustaining public, political, and financial support; and resolving outstanding liability issues.”

The GAO says its role is to ensure that states meet the guidelines established for successful implementation and to oversee the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) as it doles out and manages funds.

Not everyone is on board the bullet train bandwagon.

Ronald Utt, writing for The Heritage Foundation (Washington, DC), says that high-speed rail is a “fantasy.” Writing on the web site of the oft-called “conservative think tank,” Utt says the costs being floated in various high-speed rail proposals are understated and the need to upgrade infrastructure to accommodate the systems is financially untenable. He also complains that stimulus money designed for high-speed rail would likely be diverted to freight rail infrastructure and, indirectly, to Amtrak.

“Sooner or later voters catch on to the misrepresentations HSR proponents use to advance their cause: In 2000, Florida voters approved a ballot initiative (absent any cost estimates) to build an HSR, but in 2004 they reversed that vote once the excessive costs became apparent,” Utt wrote.

 This type of opposition doesn’t appear to be slowing the momentum of high-speed rail.

International Examples of High-Speed Rail
Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, High-Speed Rail Strategic Plan

The construction industry has been slammed with record-high job losses in recent months. The industry shed 75,000 jobs in January alone. Most of those cuts came out of non-residential specialty trade contractor positions, which plummeted by 48,000 jobs.

Of course, these massive job losses are nothing new for the construction industry. In December 2009, 53,000 construction jobs vanished. Since the dawn of the Great Recession in December 2007, the construction industry has lost a grand total of 1.9 million jobs.

Construction Workers Should Hold on to Their Hard Hats

Experts say construction job losses probably won’t come to an end anytime soon. That’s because the industry’s unemployment problems have created somewhat of a domino effect. In this tough economy, building owners can’t get financing from banks, which means they can’t afford to hire developers. Consequently, developers aren’t hiring construction companies to work on building projects. As a result, many construction companies aren’t earning enough to pay their workers, which leads to — you guessed it — countless job cuts. That means the construction industry likely won’t see employment increases until the economy finally bounces back.