Clarion Content

special to the Clarion Content
by: Denise Schreiner

If you park in the Measurement, Inc. lot to go to the Durham Farmers Market, you already know there’s a new set of railings on the main stairs with an entry arch at the bottom. It’s a collaboration between Liberty Arts artist, Jackie MacLeod, and Monkey Bottom Gallery owner and artist, Joe Galas.

Turns out there’s an interesting story behind these railings...


Photos courtesy of Jackie MacLeod

For years Dale Evarts and his wife Betsy had brought Dale’s mother, Audrey, to the Farmer’s Market Saturday mornings. Audrey had both a hip and knee replacement, so it was hard for her to navigate the stairs, and every week she would say "It would really be good to have a railing there." And every week Dale would say "Yeah, Mom, someday we’ll have one."

After Audrey died unexpectedly last fall, Dale and his sister began talking about it.

And one Saturday this summer when Dale saw the Durham Central Park booth, he went over and said “You know, those stairs over there need a railing and I would like to support that in memory of my mother.”

As it happens, DCP had wanted to install handrails ever since volunteers had built the three stairways down the hill. They’d already enlisted Jackie and Joe to come up with a design, but had only been able to raise half the cost.

When Dale saw the drawings he knew immediately that Audrey would approve. The reason for his enthusiasm was that for twenty years (1965-1985) Audrey had run Eastgate Hardware Store in Chapel Hill (most unusual for a woman at the time), and the recovered metal components in the design reminded Dale of the old hardware from factories and mills in the area. He wrote a check for the balance on the spot.

Now Audrey’s legacy will become a permanent fixture at DCP.


Photos courtesy of Jackie MacLeod


Photos courtesy of Jackie MacLeod

Labels: Art, Durham, infrastructure, Pop Culture

Have you heard about this fabulous program from the City of Durham’s Urban Forestry Division in partnership with Keep Durham Beautiful? The idea sounds terrific. It is called Adopt-a-Tree, basically, the city is matching grants from local groups and citizenry to sponsor tree planting.


This was once our city slogan...

While we have missed the deadline for this year's trees, and doesn't it just feel a little too cold to be planting trees today, the Clarion Content is excited to learn about Adopt-a-Tree and already looking forward to next year.

The city helps with size and suitability selections. They have lists of small, medium and large tree options, guidelines about everything from root balls and containers to overhead canopy space and distance that must be maintained from fire hydrants and manholes. It appears well thought out. Read all the details and apply to have a tree planted on your street here.

Tip of the hat to the Old West Durham resident who sent this our way, word is you can see new trees on several streets in Old West Durham, including Hale, Green, and Rosehill.

Labels: Durham, ecology, infrastructure, Living things

It is the return of an old school Clarion Content feature, Interesting Links and Links of Interest. You know, just in case you had not found enough ways to waste time on the inter-webs yourself. We have a few more places to kick it, read something you did not know, see something you had not seen, maybe get a laugh.

To see old Interesting Links posts click here and scroll down past this one.

Our first two links are about transit. We were going to go with a good news/bad news dichotomy. So what do you want first? The good news or the bad news?

Presuming in favor of your innate optimism, we are going to go with the good news first. India’s Tata Motors is working on a revolutionary new car, the Airpod. It runs on air. No kidding. It is part of Tata's line of super cheap nano cars that they hope to market and sell all over the less developed parts of the globe. They are built with pneumatic motors that use pressurized air to drive pistons. In May, the motor giant announced that it had completed the “first phase” of the Airpod cars, successfully testing out the engines in two vehicles. Its tank can hold 175 liters of air. Filling it up will cost about a dollar and get you 125 miles. Awesome!

Read the whole story here. Special thanks to a young reader from Pennsylvania for sending this our way.

The next transportation story is not such a happy one. But, it is important, especially if you are wondering why America doesn't have diddly for high speed rail, while all kinds of other countries do.¹

It is the same corruption, bureaucratic raj and systemic morass that is dragging down the rest of our economy. Stephen Smith offers up a fabulous expose in Bloomberg News. Here are a few of the nuggets. If the first segment of Manhattan’s Second Avenue subway opens on the current schedule in 2016, it will have only taken seventy-five years to get'er done. (Not a typo.) Smith says on average American mass transit projects cost as much as five times as much as similar work in Europe and Asia.²

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is spending $3.8 billion on a single subway station at the World Trade Center designed by Santiago Calatrava, a Spanish architect known for his costly projects. If New York could build subways at the prices that Paris and Tokyo pay, $3.8 billion would be enough to build the entire Second Avenue subway, from Harlem to the Financial District.---Bloomberg

Our next link falls more into the "What's grosser than gross category?"

Answer? Winning one of those storage wars, bidding on abandoned, rent unpaid storage units, and finding a stash of crudely preserved human organs inside, including hearts, brains and lungs, as a guy did in Pensacola, Florida last week. Most of the body parts found were not labeled, including a heart found in 32oz convenience store cup filled with formaldehyde. The AP reports the previous owner of the storage unit was Dr. Michael Berkland who worked for the state of Florida as a medical examiner. Find the rest of the story here. (Icky.)

The next one is actually an NPR story featuring a regular Clarion Content contributor, Storey Clayton, author and illustrator of Duck and Cover, director of the website The Blue Pyramid and in his day job, the Rutgers University debate coach.

In this article, he and Cornell University director of forensics, Sam Nelson break down the five most common argumentative fallacies likely to be seen this campaign season: Argumentum ad verecundiam, the appeal to authority, post hoc ergo propter hoc, meaning "After this, therefore because of this..." the familiar, argumentum ad hominem, "name-calling," and the rest of the lot.

In each case, they include explanations of what they mean, why they often work and an example from both presidential candidates. It is funny and an eye-opener. Read the whole story here.

One final one to blow you away. In case the military-industrial complex had drifted out of your subconscious; this will snap you back. Check out this article about the newest nano-drones from Lockheed Martin.



Notes
¹No, you can't simply keep blaming President Obama. It is more nuanced than that.

²The French rail operator SNCF told the California High-Speed Rail Authority that it could cut $30 billion off the project’s $68 billion estimated price tag!!! Repeat, the French.

Labels: Ethically questionable, infrastructure, interesting links, Politics, Pop Culture, technology

The Clarion Content is stoked to support the bus.

We are delighted to live in the kind of city that supports the bus. Free municipal bus routes are a fantastic public service. The bus is an old, school kind of throwback idea. It hearkens to an era when people knew their neighbors and front porch culture dominated.

The practical personal benefits of taking the bus are legion, from decreasing the propensity to drive drunk, to saving on gas, to safety. The societal benefits of taking the bus are extensive, too. The list includes decreased pollution and traffic congestion, less need for public parking and hence more open space. The bus encourages a pedestrian culture that helps local business. People walk when they get off the bus.





You should take advantage of the wonderful, free, Bull City Connector bus any and every chance you have. It hits all the spots on Main Street, it is a great way to get out to the Scrap Exchange, Liberty Arts, the Cordoba Center for the Arts, Goldenbelt, American Tobacco and more.

And while the bus makes sense every day, tonight we have a special opportunity for you. Do you want to be an extra in a fashion shoot? Would you like to highlight how easy it is to get to your place of business by Durham's free bus?

Then join the Clarion Content and our fabulous Fashion Drive-by team, photographer, Jessica Arden, and Creative Director, Cady Childs tonight at 6pm along the Bull City Connector route.

We are shooting our latest Fashion Drive-by. We will be photographing on the bus with the amazing fashions of the Independent's Men clothier of the year, Vert & Vogue.

We will be highlighting business along the route. Hoping off at stops to take pictures. There will plenty of opportunity for by-standers and patrons of your establishments to become extras. Wave at us through the windows of the bus and you may end up in the background of a high fashion shoot.


We would like to offer our special thanks to the good folks at the Bull City Connector and the Durham Convention and Visitor's Bureau who reached out to the Clarion Content about making this happen.

Labels: Duke, Durham, ecology, energy policy, Fashion, Fashion Drive-bys, infrastructure, Politics

The Clarion Content is delighted to announce, as some of you have already heard, that we are partnering with the Bull City Connector for our next Fashion Drive-by, Fashion in Transit. The clothes will be provided by the Independent's Men clothier of the year, Vert & Vogue.

We will have our usual superlative Fashion Drive-by team, photographer, Jessica Arden, and Creative Director, Cady Childs.



The Clarion Content is stoked to support the bus.

We are big believers in the ecological and communal returns of mass transit. The bus has so many rewards. There are obvious benefits; saving on gas, no parking issues, being able to knock back a tipple or two without driving. And there are subtler benefits; meeting your neighbors, understanding the geography of our community, the positive feeling of having played a part in reducing pollution and waste, helping push the mass transit mindset.

The Clarion Content is proud to be in and of Durham. We make a concerted effort to support the green¹ in our community and we believe Durham does the same.


Notes
¹We like green initiatives, ideas and projects of all ilks. If we are missing out on yours, please send it our way! Info@ClarionContent dot com. All one word dot is the symbol "."

Labels: Durham, ecology, Fashion, Fashion Drive-bys, infrastructure, Politics, Practical Advice, vehicles

Have you heard about the full-house art installation by Julia Gartrell and Julienne Alexander at #1102 Taylor Street?



Don't feel too bad, neither had we...

But we are all in luck, because there is one last fabulous opportunity to check it out.

Update, update... "The Dwelling" will be up for another week. It is a must see. Wild lifesize voodoo dolls, locks of hair pinned to the wall, bones and candles in dishes, painted sagging floors. It is interactive, participatory and spooky.

This past spring, the Durham Storefront Project partnered with Scientific Properties to fill an unoccupied house at #1102 Taylor Street with an art installation by Julia Gartrell and Julienne Alexander. Aptly called “The Dwelling,” the empty house has been transformed into a magical workshop from another era. The installation is comprised of 1,000 square feet of site-specific artwork and furnishings revolving around themes of alchemy, superstition, and magic. Tonight in a celebration of the start of Summer, and what Alexander calls a “psycho-social-spiritual alignment,” the artists are hosting an open house on summer solstice eve.

Visitors can stop by to view the installation – oversized voodoo dolls, raw painted floors, strange edibles, bones and human hair – and celebrate the first moments of Summer. Local musical celebrities will be on hand with moody tunes beginning at 8:30 PM. Alexander also mentions, “There will be a bonfire to promote goodwill with the lords of summer, as well as beer, wine, and herbal cocktails for balancing the humours.” The open house and celebration are free and open to the public.

“The Dwelling” exemplifies the Durham ethic; artists and the community working together to create a more dynamic place for us all.



As part of the development of Golden Belt, Scientific Properties acquired several historic houses in the surrounding neighborhood, restoring the exteriors, but leaving the interior as raw space for the future owner to design and restore. The Durham-based real estate development company connected with the Durham Storefront Project after seeing art installations the group organized in downtown Durham and recognizing the opportunity a vacant interior presents to an artist.

The Durham Storefront Project was started in 2010 to connect artists with empty spaces. The volunteer-run initiative continues to organize installation series in underutilized spaces, highlighting the history and architecture of Durham, providing new opportunities for artists, and adding vibrancy to downtown. Support from many local organizations, including Preservation Durham, the Durham Arts Council, The Scrap Exchange, Scientific Properties, Greenfire Development, Center Studio Architecture, Self Help Credit Union, Through This Lens, have helped make the project a success.

This Fall the Durham Storefront Project will present a new series of windows focusing on the past, present, and future of Durham. For more information on the artists and businesses involved, visit www.durhamstorefrontproject.org.

Labels: Art, Durham, infrastructure, Pop Culture

The way the train used to roll into Durham...
Photo courtesy of Old West Durham Neighborhood Association

Durham passed a half of a cent sales tax increase yesterday designed to augment mass transportation in the area. The program includes improvements to Durham's bus system beginning in 2012, including more buses on high rider-use routes, expanded regional bus service and expanded bus service to RDU Airport. Of course, the plan's authors sold it the public as a light rail program, knowing that despite its practicality and relatively low cost, nobody loves the bus.

The trains are in the plan, too. It calls for thirty-seven miles of commuter rail between Durham, RTP and Raleigh. This portion includes the construction of four new commuter rail stations in Durham, beginning as early as 2018. It also includes the much publicized seventeen miles of light rail between Durham and Chapel Hill, with as many as twelve stations scheduled to begin construction as early as 2025.

Long time readers know, that like many, the Clarion Content has a hard time advocating in favor of more taxes and increased government spending. But even in our limited government preferring hearts, we can see where a common good like mass transportation infrastructure is the kind of thing that the classic social contract calls for government to do. Build infrastructure so our individualistic, car-loving neighbors don't so clog the roads, and thereby pollute the air, that our little neck of the woods becomes the next sprawled out Atlanta or Los Angeles.

The Clarion Content gets especially edgy when the plan's advocates will not entirely disavow the use of eminent domain to construct the mass transit system they envision. We recall the very first time we heard about light rail in the Triangle, it was more than a decade ago, and it was because the word on the street was that they were going to close Sam's Blue Light.

We were opposed then and we are still concerned now and not just about our beer supply.¹ Eminent domain has a history of being used diabolically to help the strong take advantage of the weak. We believe in the good intentions of the authors of the Durham Bus & Rail improvement plan. We think they genuinely want to help the community. And our area needs the help, some projections show regional population is set to increase by nearly one million more people in the next twenty years. If folks continued to use their cars at the same rate that we do now, the Durham/Raleigh/Chapel Hill area would be among the nation's most congested.

And all those cars would continue to gobble up open space, encouraging development to spread further out. Conversely trains drive development to city and population centers, preserving outlying and rural areas by default. The Clarion Content is not totally sold on this rationale. This is especially because we have heard that existing plans call for the construction of a rail station in the heavily wooded area on Farrington Road between NC 54 and US 40. We can, again, see the good intentions and the utilitarian logic of building a station in this location. We cannot ignore geography or demography.²

The kicker, the tiebreaker as it were, is the economy. In good times, there might be better rationale to debate against this kind of government investment, but in these times of stagnation and persistently high unemployment, infrastructure spending that yields jobs is welcome. Initial estimates by the plans authors project both a significant number of new jobs related to years of construction, and permanent professional service jobs, perhaps as many as 6,400 new positions in total. These jobs would be huge boon to the community.

Furthermore, there is some smart planning that is part of what has us convinced of the good intentions and aims of the authors of the proposal. The buses are an important piece to the Clarion Content. Buses are disproportionately used by the neediest members of society. Additionally, in an effort to minimize the regressivity of the new sales tax, it exempts gas, food, housing, utilities and medical bills. This we approve of, and, it gives us a good opinion of those moving the plan forward.

The jobs and the economic impact combined with heading-off potentially gruesome sprawl and congestion are enough to tip the Clarion Content's scales in favor of this proposition. We will be watching and covering its implementation closely.

We would note that it is our contention that far too many Americas take lightly what we have, and we don't just mean the loot/material things that we call our "stuff." We mean the very houses that we live in and streets that we walk. America has a massive amount of infrastructure and development. Somebody³ built every bit of it: roads, bridges, sewer systems, the electrical grid, etc. Although he has been blithely ignored by Congress, we did agree with the gist of the argument that President Obama made in his now nearly forgotten jobs address.⁴




Our grateful thanks to Bo Glenn without whom this piece would not have been possible.


¹This plan, under the auspices of the Triangle Transit Authority, failed for lack of local government investment.

²This area has already seen a tranche of new homes built. And there will be far more downtown stations and downtown construction than there will be in rural and outlying areas.

³Immigrants.

⁴Three years too late, but right idea, finally.

Labels: 2012 presidential election, constitutional issues, Durham, economics, infrastructure, Politics

North Anna Power Station



Among the scariest elements of yesterday's East Coast earthquake, which was felt from Durham, NC to Boston, Mass., was how closely it occurred to the North Anna Power Station, a nuclear reactor complex, located about 10 miles from the quake's epicenter. As yet, the facility's reactors show no signs of cracks in their concrete containment centers. The nuclear facility is located 92 miles southwest of downtown Washington, D.C. An estimated 1.9 million people live within 50 miles of the plant's nuclear reactors.



The quake knocked out the plant's off-site power source. One of the four back-up diesel generators powering the auxiliary safety systems died within hours of the quake. Sound like Japan anyone?



The North Anna Power Station is designed to withstand quakes of a maximum of 5.9 to 6.1 on the infamous Richter Scale. Yesterday's quake was a 5.9. The North Anna power plant is notorious already. It has accumulated one of the largest concentrations of radioactivity in the United States. The L.A. Times reports that Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and a former assistant Energy secretary during the Clinton administration noted, the plant’s spent fuel pools contain four to five times more radioactive material than their original designs intended. The plant's reactors are thirty-one and thirty-three years old respectively.



Ahhh, nuclear power. What a country!

Labels: energy policy, infrastructure, nuclear issues

It was just the other day that the Clarion Content was lamenting the money pit that is NASA Space Shuttle program in all $200 billion has been poured down the drain. As if we needed one final demonstration, one more reminder of what it means to throw good money after bad, as gas creeps over $4 a gallon and more and more American children have to go hungry, NASA scrubbed the shuttle Endeavour's launch this weekend. Cost to scrub and reschedule $500,000 minimum for fuel alone!

They should have just cancelled. (the program twenty years ago...)

Labels: economics, infrastructure, Politics, technology

Storms raged across the American South last night leaving death and destruction in their wake. (Notice how no one jokes about 2012 and Mayans any more? We have been through a lot of late.) Reports indicate 170 souls lost their lives last night across several states.

And in a phrase that may sound all too eerily familiar from Japan, the storms knocked out power to three nuclear reactors, all located in Alabama and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Fortunately, unlike Japan, there was no damage to back-up systems. Diesel generators kicked in, cooling systems were maintained and core temperatures never moved. But don't let any of these nuclear power apologists tell you, "It could never happen here."

Bullsh*t. We are one unforeseen natural disaster away from sharing Japan's circumstances. America must move away from, not toward, nuclear energy.

Labels: energy policy, infrastructure, Politics, technology

The FAA has reported six incidents this year where FAA air traffic controllers have fallen asleep on the job. Nice. The latest was this week, when a Nevada air traffic controller fell asleep while landing a plane with a medical emergency on board. The near catastrophe has prompted the government to put an extra staffer on midnight shifts at more than two dozen control towers across the country, according to CNN.

The pilot of the Nevada flight attempted to contact their air traffic control tower seven times with no response. After repeatedly circling the field, the pilot elected proceed and landed safely anyway. The Feds says that in the twenty-seven major control towers staffed with only one controller during the midnight shift, it will be mandatory to add a second controller.

Hope so.

Labels: infrastructure

The Clarion Content warned more than a year ago of an impending secondary real estate bubble that could smack the American economy around, commercial real estate. We had read lots of analysis that said there were a ton of short term commercial real estate loans that were going to have to be refinanced, only with the new lower property valuations figured in. The slowing economy was also supposed to continue to hurt commercial occupancy rates.

This week we read that the less disastrous of these two dire predictions is indeed happening, this year malls and strip malls are supposed to see their highest vacancy rates in more than twenty years according to the Wall Street Journal. The paper reports, "Mall vacancies hit their highest level in at least 11 years in the first quarter." The expectation is that the worst is yet to come.

There is, as our sources suggested their would be, a glut of commercial real estate space. Reportedly, more than one billion square feet of retail space was built in the fifty-four largest American markets since the start of 2000. Many retailers that had been key mall and stripmall tenants, Borders, Blockbuster, Circuit City and Comp USA have nose-dived or gone out of business.

American cities already staggering under repeated economic body blows are losing lots of sales tax revenue as shoppers continue to migrate on-line. Big Box corporations are crushing mid-size competitors and specialty stores. The impact on the overall economy is very real. The base of pyramid that supports our massively indulgent and expensive lifestyles as Americans is having foundation issues. We must look at ourselves in the mirror carefully.

Labels: economics, infrastructure, thought

Tim Wu, the developer of Net Neutrality theory, has written a fascinatingly little article for io9.com. He documents the interplay between Bell Labs, the government and the profit motive of a corporation. Bell Labs, for some fifty plus years, was one of the preeminent research institutions and facilities in the world. Its scientists garnered seven Noble Prizes. They invented the transistor and Unix. But it was not a public facility, nor a wholly state-owned entity, it was a private actor with its own particular motives.

Wu shows what that wrought, in this brilliant nugget- here.

Labels: constitutional issues, corruption, infrastructure, technology, thought

SSDD

The reality and the political spin are a little bit different when it comes to North Carolina and high speed rail. We know, you are thinking, "News Flash: What? The spin and the political reality don't match!?! Say it isn't so..."

But seriously, dear readers, once again the claims of Washington do not exactly measure up to the reality on the ground. Our local Congressman, here in Durham, David Price, sent an email around to constituents, including some of the Clarion Content's staff, reading in part, "Recovery investments that will have a lasting impact are creating or sustaining thousands of jobs in the Fourth District...A $500 million recovery investment will make the twenty year-old dream of high-speed rail from Charlotte to Raleigh a reality."

On the website of the North Carolina Office of Economic Recovery & Investment the story reads a little differently, "Today [July 12^th, 2010], Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced that the U.S. Department of Transportation and the State of North Carolina have finalized a grant agreement for $20.3 million, the first installment of the $545 million awarded to the state."

Read that again.

Less than 4% of that $545 million authorized by the Feds is actually on the way to the state. This is not exactly what one would have garnered for ol' Congressman Price's email.

Moreover this money will not actually be used on installing high speed rail system, tracks, trains or corridors! Nope the North Carolina Office of Economic Recovery & Investment website continues, "The North Carolina Department of Transportation will use the $20.3 million to refurbish passenger coaches and locomotives to expand rail service across North Carolina. The Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration is actively working with the North Carolina Department of Transportation on additional grant agreements for the remaining $525 million to further develop the state’s high-speed rail corridor."

Read that again.

They are not spending a penny of this $20 million on high speed rail. They are using it to fix up and clean-up existing locomotives and passenger cars. A semi-worthy cause we are quite sure, but not forward looking or forward thinking, and certainly not high speed rail. These cars and locomotives likely won't even be compatible or usable on a high speed rail system. But that is where the bureaucratic inertia is sending our dough.

Unfortunately, this lack of vision, this inertia is endemic. The use of the stimulus funds and recovery money follows a strict routine: lofty promises, loftier pronouncements, limited distribution of funds in a backward looking manner that kowtows to status quo interests.

Change? Yeah, right!

Labels: infrastructure, Politics

Did anyone else hear anecdotal evidence of cell phone networks being strained on New Year's Eve? The Clarion Content had heard a little bit about it at the time, but over the last several months as we have asked around, more and more folks reported that their text messages lagged many, many hours behind, as everyone sent mass texts to everyone else in their phone, "Happy New Year!"

What does that tell us about the vulnerability of cell phone networks in crisis? How easily can those networks be overwhelmed? Does one need a landline or a CB?

Labels: infrastructure, technology

The Charles River, lovely, but not safe to drink.

This is an issue the Clarion Content has been banging on for some time. Infrastructure!!! Heads up America, we haven't done diddly since the Eisenhower administration to improve and maintain our infrastructure. The time to pay the piper is coming. (Which, of course, makes the warmongering of King George the II even more despicable.)

Among the most vulnerable parts of American infrastructure, even frailer and more vulnerable than our bridges and roads, is our water system. We saw a stark reminder of that last weekend as more than 2 million Boston area residents spent three days without drinkable tap water (or coffee). A break in 10 foot in diameter (3 meter) pipe triggered the emergency. The pipe in Weston, Massachusetts, a suburb about 15 miles west of Boston, burst last Saturday. The rupture, near the intersection of the Massachusetts Turnpike and Route 128, spilled more than 250 million gallons of water and pushed tons of soil into the Charles River. Most urban American water systems are built with infrastructure that is approaching 100 years old. Inevitably it ages and needs to be replaced.

To highlight how vulnerable we are to sudden disruption of our water supply, notice that, 136 miles away in North Conway, New Hampshire, the Hannaford Supermarket ran out of bottled water in the days following the disaster. Beware America, unless something is done this disaster is coming to a city near you. It is estimated that $8.5 billion is needed to update Massachusetts water infrastructure alone. Good thing America, didn't just waste more than a trillion dollars on rebuilding the infrastructure of Iraq, only to see it get blown up.

Whooops...

Labels: infrastructure, Politics

The Clarion Content was just railing the Obama administration recently about its lack of relative expenditure on building and repairing train infrastructure in America. We were reminded here in North Carolina, that this lack of spending has real costs in terms of safety, and consequently lives. At a local railroad crossing long renowned for malfunctioning signals and crossing arms, a mother and her five year-old son were killed by an Amtrak passenger train Christmas week. A three month-old daughter survived. Nearby office workers in the small town of Efland where the accident happened said the crossing's signals and arms malfunctioned so frequently that one kept the railroad company's number on her desk.

Another local citizen was quoted in the Durham Herald-Sun "They've [the crossing arms] been going just wacko, up and down up and down, and there's no train coming. We've made calls before [to the Orange County Sheriff's Office] to report the problem." The grieving father told the press in the days after the accident that his wife and kids were on the way to a dentist appointment for his son and running early for it. He believed there is no way his twenty-six year-old wife tried to beat the train or the crossing arms. In his view the signal or crossing arms must have malfunctioned again.

According to InjuryBoard.com, "In the last 10 years, there have been more than 30,000 railroad crossing accidents and more than 3,600 train accident deaths." Which in all honesty, the Clarion Content has to concede is not that many considering the amount of trains on the rails and cars on the roads. However, the need to modernize the American rail system offers an opportunity to attack any of these deaths, like those in Efland, NC that come from old, dilapidated, inadequate equipment.

In another tragic accident from faulty crossing arms, this one in Minnesota, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp was fined an additional $4 million dollars by the state for attempting to cover-up the equipment's failure. Much like their initial reaction to the Efland accident, the railroad immediately attempted to blame the deceased victim. This is exactly the kind of situation where the government has a role to step in and protect the American taxpayer from a corporation with far deeper pockets for lawyers in the land of liability.

We urge our readers to please exercise caution at railroad crossings.

Labels: economics, infrastructure, Politics

The glide path for Reagan National is right down the Potomac

One would think that with all the signs of America deteriorating underneath us that Americans would react more strongly to so many of our precious dollars being spent on foreign wars of choice. Maybe the time is coming, in another context the Los Angeles Times was just talking about the movement of Ron Paul's ideas toward the political mainstream.

The infrastructure failure that caught the Clarion Content's attention today was the hour long power outage at Reagan National Airport from 12.30pm to 1.30pm. The Associated Press reported that, "the problem originated at an airport substation." You will recall, dear readers, just last week a power substation failure was blamed for massive holiday train delays.

Today outbound flights were grounded for an hour and the FAA stopped flights leaving for Reagan National from taking off during the power failure because electric jetways weren't working and there was no way to offload passengers at the terminal.

The signs are everywhere, just look around.

The Clarion Content encourages readers to send their stories and/or images of aging and failing infrastructure in their local areas. We will attempt to collate and post as much of it as possible.

Of course, Americans, ourselves included, must bear in mind that our infrastructure complaints are relative as this post from a Beijing blogger in the aftermath of the city's heaviest snowfall since 1951 reminds us.

Labels: infrastructure, Politics

Taking the train? Unless one is heading to Kabul or Baghdad, President Obama is hardly more concerned about how one gets there than King George the II was. High speed trains were one of the Clarion Content's great hopes for things we might see come from the Obama administration. The country was and is mired in a deep recession. Train infrastructure is a works project that could be used in the fight against massive unemployment. Train infrastructure is a virtuous circle insofar as investing in more efficient transportation has knock-on benefits for all manner of American industries.

But alas. The candidate of change has spent $66 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first half of 2009 alone. This does not account for the troop surge in Afghanistan. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan for next eight years (again pre-surge) at $416 billion at the low end and $817 billion on the high end.

Over the next five years the Obama administration hopes to spend $8-13 billion on rail infrastructure, including high speed trains.

20 to 40 times as much spending per year on Afghanistan and Iraq than for rail infrastructure?

This is the change we could believe in?

Ralph Nader was right along. Pete Townsend was wrong.

Worse yet, America's rail infrastructure is in abysmal condition and is plagued by delays. The highways are no better, as you can ask anyone who traveled the I-95 corridor this Thanksgiving or Xmas.

The Associated Press reported many of the massive holiday week train delays were caused by problems at power stations and substations built in the 1920s near Philadelphia. 1920's!?! And Obama is pissing America's revenues into the soil of Afghanistan!?!

Labels: 2008 presidential election, economics, infrastructure, Politics

We were warning you, dear readers, just a few days ago about the massive backlog of infrastructure work America must do. Everything from bridges, to highways, to water mains are falling apart in this country and need a massive capital re-investment. Tragically, the repair work that could and should be done is trading off with America's wars and efforts at nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq. America is pouring the Cold War dividend into the sands of the Near and Middle East where it will disappear without a trace. The central example of failing and old infrastructure we used in this most recent article was the Bay Bridge from Oakland to San Francisco.

Unfortunately, the on-going infrastructure story of the Bay Bridge, the construction and repair issues, caught our attention again this morning in a most horrifying manner. The driver of a Safeway Grocery eighteen-wheeler perished driving the Bay Bridge late last night. He and his eighteen wheel truck plunged to their demise at one of the new S-curves caused by the on-going construction and repair work. According the California Highway Patrol, there have been more than 42 crashes in the curved area since it opened barely two months ago. This was the first fatality. About 3.30am last night, the driver attempted to negotiate the S-curve at too high a speed. He lost control of the truck, plunged through the safety railing, and crashed 200 feet below into Yerba Buena Island, spilling gasoline and produce over a wide area. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene.

Read the whole chilling story here in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Labels: Central Asia, cop stories, economics, infrastructure, Middle East, Politics