• It will cost $77 billion to shore up U.S. ground transportation infrastructure

    It would cost $77.7 billion to bring the U.S. mass transit systems, bus and rail included, into a state of good repair; most of the $77.7 billion backlog can be attributed to rail, but more than 40 percent of the U.S. buses also are in poor to marginal condition; in addition, an annual average of $14.4 billion would be required to maintain the systems

  • 150,000 U.S. bridges are rated "deficient"

    About 25 percent of the U.S. bridges remain “structurally deficient” or “functionally obsolete”; the deterioration of bridges in the United States is the direct result of a confluence of three developments: the system is aging; the costs of maintaining bridges is high; and traffic on these bridges is steadily increasing

  • Laser pulses to help in creating the most detailed map of California coastline ever assembled

    A $3.3 million mapping effort will see researchers in an airplane flying back and forth along the California coast shooting thousands of laser pulses per second at the rocks, beaches, and cliffs along the 1,200-mile shoreline from Mexico to Oregon, generating ultra-detailed 3-D images of the contours of the land in huge computer files; findings could be used to figure out where to build sea walls, or expand wetlands to reduce flooding, or where to move existing development