Road Building Project Research Articles

Rhetorical routes for development: a road project in Nepal

Rhetoric is adopted in this paper as a lens to look at the claims made by a road-building project in a region of Nepal characterised by ‘remoteness’ and underdevelopment. The notion that the road connecting to the infrastructure on the Chinese side of the border will improve the livelihoods of the poor on the Nepalese side is discussed with a range of people in different villages along the proposed route. By attending to vernacular articulations of poverty and globalisation, it is argued that a method of rhetorical sensibility offers greater ethnographic value for understanding development's entanglements with social life than does the notion of discourse.

Time, Cost, and Quality in a Road Building Project

Time, cost and quality are the three factors that play a significant role in the planning and controlling of construction projects. The main barriers for their achievement are the changes in the project environment necessitating cost, time, and quality trade-offs. Literature has mainly focused on analyzing time and cost with little or no reported research focusing on models for optimizing construction time, cost, and quality jointly. Government agencies have recently started using new types of contracting methods which have placed an increasing pressure on decision makers in the construction industry to search for an optimal/near optimal resource utilization plan that minimizes construction cost and time while maximizing its quality. In this paper, a 0-1 Integer Programming model which enables meeting quality output standards and time and budget objectives respectively is developed. The clever use of binary variables allows us to solve many interesting and difficult problems and our ability to model complex problems increases tremendously when we use binary variables. A version of the model to minimize time meeting quality and cost objectives is applied to a road building project. Two alternatives versions of the model which enable to minimize cost meeting quality and time and to maximize quality meeting time and cost, are shown in an Appendix.

Corruption perceptions vs. corruption reality

This paper examines the accuracy of corruption perceptions by comparing Indonesian villagers' reported perceptions about corruption in a road-building project in their village with a more objective measure of ‘missing expenditures’ in the project. I find that villagers' reported perceptions do contain real information, and that villagers are sophisticated enough to distinguish between corruption in a particular road project and general corruption in the village. The magnitude of the reported information, however, is small, in part because officials hide corruption where it is hardest for villagers to detect. I also find that there are biases in reported perceptions. The findings illustrate the limitations of relying solely on corruption perceptions, whether in designing anti-corruption policies or in conducting empirical research on corruption.

NEUROSCHISTOSOMIASIS PRESENTING AS BRAINSTEM ENCEPHALITIS

A 43-year-old British man, who had spent the last 18 months working on road building projects in rural Rwanda, presented to hospital in Kigali with a 2-day diarrheal illness, 1 month after swimming in the western shores of Lake Muhazi near Rwesero. Two days later he developed left-sided numbness and weakness and unsteadiness on his feet. HIV testing was negative and CSF examination was normal. No neuroimaging was performed. Dexamethasone, sulfadiazine, pyrimethamine, and broad-spectrum antibiotics were commenced. However, over the following 48 hours he developed worsening headache, diplopia, dysarthria, ataxia, and left hemiparesis. He was repatriated to the United Kingdom. On arrival he was drowsy, orientated, and afebrile. He had profound cerebellar dysarthria. Pupils and fundi were normal. Eye movements were abnormal with a left VIth nerve palsy and multidirectional gaze-evoked nystagmus. There were also left Vth and lower motor neuron VIIth nerve palsies, moderate left hemiparesis, bilateral ataxia, left extensor plantar response, and left hemisensory impairment. Functionally he was able to stand but unable to walk. Examination was otherwise unremarkable. MRI brain demonstrated extensive signal change with marked swelling throughout the pons and lower midbrain (figure, A and B) and patchy enhancement (figure, C and D). Figure MRI and histologic findings (A) Axial FLAIR sequence and (B) …

Experimental validation of passive permafrost cooling systems

In areas of warm permafrost, the thawing of interstitial ice in the permafrost layer can cause man-made infrastructure to suffer from thaw settlement damage and failure. For highway and railway embankments, thermosyphons and air convection embankment (ACE) layers are two methods that can be used to reduce embankment and foundation soil temperatures and prevent thaw settlement. These techniques utilize the low air temperature during winter to enhance freezing of the foundation soils and maintain the thermal integrity of the permafrost foundation. In the present paper we report on the application of these techniques in a full-scale field application, carried out as part of a new road building project near Fairbanks, Alaska. Three separate cooling techniques were utilized in the project, including hairpin thermosyphons, horizontal ACE layers, and ventilated shoulders in three different configurations. Each of the three configurations was instrumented with a thermal monitoring system in an effort to evaluate the cooling effectiveness and predict the long-term impact on underlying permafrost temperatures. This paper describes the cooling systems that were used in the project including the thermal monitoring system, and presents performance results for the first year of operation.

The Big Dig

From the beginning I was a big fan of the Big Dig. I did not grow up in Boston, but both sets of my grandparents lived in the area, so I visited frequently. In 1959, when I was fifteen and just beginning to imagine driving a car, the elevated highway that would serve for the next forty-plus years as the city's central artery for automobile traffic was completed. Even as a passenger I could see that the Southeast Expressway was ugly and noisy. When I started driving I learned that it was also crowded and dangerous. I thought of it as the Berlin Wall of Boston, an ugly barrier between downtown and the waterfront, dividing an otherwise inviting city. The expressway seemed part of an inevitable and inexorable process. In the 1960s, six lanes and two off ramps of the Massachusetts Turnpike tore apart Newton Corner, where my grandparents lived. The village has never recovered. But as it turned out, the Mass Pike extension into Boston was one of the last big road-building projects of the postwar boom. After the late 1960s, that kind of urban destruction was rarely politically possible. When my husband and I moved to the Boston area in 1975, we bought a house in Newton Corner. We still live there, on a leafy residential street that was truncated by the Mass Pike extension. In the 1980s a sound barrier was constructed at the end of the street. It helped us forget how close the turnpike was, and we enjoyed the convenience of being able to get into Cambridge and Boston so quickly. Also in the 1980s we began to read about plans to demolish the Southeast Expressway, relocate the central traffic artery underground, and build a new tunnel to Logan Airport that would relieve congestion in the grimy Callahan and Sumner tunnels, with their ominously missing tiles and frequent traffic jams. I liked the thought of whizzing directly from the Pike to the airport, but the really appealing idea was the demolition the

Local Perception of Public Goods: Recent Assessments of Willingness-to-pay for Endangered Species

I. INTRODUCTION Biological diversity has become a controversial issue in Orange County, California. Recent Endangered Species Act (ESA) critical habitat designations covering some 85,000 acres in the county have been subject several court cases. (1) Questions about both the direct and indirect costs of preserving endangered species are being raised, yet there has been little attention the benefits of biodiversity. This study offers contingent valuation estimates of local residents' willingness pay for several controversial species. It also provides estimates of the aggregate benefits from species protection for future policy discussion. The critical habitat for the Arroyo toad, (2) the Riverside fairy shrimp, the California gnatcatcher, and the tidewater goby (originally designated in 2000) covered a large swath of coastal sage scrub and other grasslands, vernal pools, rivers, and streams of southern California. Some areas overlap those relevant some of the other endangered species in Orange County, such as the Southern California steelhead trout, the Santa Ana sucker, the southwestern willow flycatcher, least Bell's vireo, and the Pacific pocket mouse, among others. Environmental organizations state that habitat designations are necessary prevent fragmented species habitat, severed wildlife corridors, damaged watersheds, and further urban sprawl. But clear opposition the designations has arisen from some landowners, developers, and tollway planners. They suggest housing or road building projects--which require federal permits--may be halted because the land in question, although private, is now critical habitat. This could reduce the number of newly constructed units and raise the price of permitted building. Additional consultation costs could follow. Broader debates about the future of the ESA are also emerging. The ESA, first passed in 1973, has aimed address the market failure of the underpriced social benefits of endangered species. The Act allows staff of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) or the National Marine Fisheries Service list an animal or plant species as endangered or threatened. Critical habitat designations are supposed follow promptly after listing (yet rarely do). These targeted species enjoy strong protections through the ESA's section 9 that prohibits any taking of the species; section 7 also requires federal agencies (or private parties obtaining federal permits) ensure that any action they authorize, fund, or carry out will not jeopardize the existence of the species or adversely modify its critical habitat. The FWS aims eventually delist endangered species through the implementation of recovery plans and restoration efforts written by scientists knowledgeable about species history, status, and threats. Currently, traditional cost-benefit analyses of listing or habitat decisions do not occur. A 1978 amendment the ESA requires some economic analysis at the critical habitat stage; areas may be excluded if the benefits of exclusion outweigh the benefits of specifying the area as habitat, unless the failure designate leads species extinction. Direct costs of species recovery appear quite modest in many of the published recovery plans. The recovery plans are vague regarding expensive private land acquisition with much of the cost secure pools and other lands to be determined. But the indirect (opportunity) costs of housing and transportation development opportunities forgone on critical habitat areas remain the largest source of controversy in the West. Changing land use designations represent a transfer of present producer/consumer surplus future generations, and calculation difficulties usually preclude including these opportunity costs in policy making. (3) Despite the press coverage of the spotted owl and Klamath River debates, little attention has been paid the potential benefits of species preservation in southern California and other areas of the West affected by the recent habitat designations. …

The White Russian Army in Exile 1920-1941 by Paul s> Robinson (review)

362 SEER, 8I, 2, 2003 replete with platitudes. (The FirstWorld War, we learn, is 'one of the more curious events in the history of mankind. Oceans of ink have been used to debate its causes', p. II.) Secondly, unsupportableand rambling generalizations on life, culture and national characteristicsmar virtuallyevery page of the text. Russians,apparently,are 'suspicious'of foreigners,but 'extraordinarily generous' and 'warm and wonderful to the individual stranger'. On the other hand, 'cruelty will surface in a Russian', but 'only under the sudden stresswhen he is threatened. Then he will sometimeslash out with animal-like fury, only to become gentle again when the threat has passed' (p. 9). Finally, the author'sprejudices,while entertaining,add nothing to our understanding of the past. Soldiers on leave in Paris, for instance, came into contact with 'hostile and bitter' expatriates, 'malcontents', 'members of questionable organizations' who, having 'plied' them with drink 'planted the seeds of discontent against their sojourn in France and against their officers'(p. 79). Thus corrupted, many later became 'Russian Leftistsof some sort who were prostitutingthemselvesfor German gold, as Lenin did' (p. 240). This could have been a competent study of a mildly interestingepisode of the GreatWar.But it is not. Department ofSlavonic Studies CHRIS WARD University ofCambridge Robinson, Paul. The WhiteRussianArmyin Exile I920-I94 I. Oxford Historical Monographs. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 2002. x + 257 pp. Notes. Glossary.Bibliography.Index. ?45.??. MOST accounts of the Russian emigration, as Paul Robinson points out in his preface, have tended to concentrate on the political and culturalelements of the exiled community. Most historiesof the White Russian armyend with its defeat in the Civil War. This book follows the fortunes of the White Russian militarymovement in the twentyyears following its evacuation of the Crimea in November 1920. The author'sthesis is that despite their defeat, exile, and the eventual dispersalof troopsacrossEurope, the armymanaged to maintain a cohesive structure and a common set of ideals throughout the inter-war period. This unity and sense of purpose had positive effectsboth on the life of the emigration as a whole and on the experiences of individual soldiers in exile. The author has made extensive use of the correspondence of key figuresin the militaryemigration, the archivesof emigre militaryorganizations,and his treatment of the subject is very thorough. There is a great deal of detailed narrative in the book, but this seems necessary given that there is no establishedliteratureon the subject. The early chaptersset the scene, recounting events up until the evacuation of the Crimea, and placing the armyin the context of the Russian emigration as a whole. In chapter three the author addresses the popular myth of the 'Gallipolimiracle';the belief that thefirstarmycorps,duringtheirinternment in Gallipoli, underwent a moral and spiritual regeneration under the strict discipline of General Kutepov, and emerged numerically weaker but united REVIEWS 363 around their leaders with a renewed commitment to their cause. The army was then graduallydisbanded, and soldierswere obliged to find civilianjobs, often in mines or on road building projects, in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, and later France and Belgium (this process is described in detail in chapters five and six). However, the army's high command went to considerable lengths to ensure that troops from each regiment were placed together and that command structureswere maintained. The author identifiesa number of motives for this. Initially, it seems likely that General Wrangel and his colleagues hoped for some kind of renewal of the militarystruggleagainst Soviet Russia. They also hoped to keep alive the values they associatedwith the army dutyand honour and to preservea 'moral 6lite', to fill the moral vacuum they believed would exist following the anticipated collapse of the Soviet regime. The preservation of the military structure also had a valuable dimension when it came to the distributionof aid to those in need. In order to consolidate all these functions, an umbrella organization, the RusskiiObshcheVoinskii Soiuz(ROVS Russian General MilitaryUnion) was founded in I924. Much of the second halfof the book concentrateson the activitiesof ROVS. These included the sponsorshipof undergroundoperations within the Soviet Union operationswhich were closely monitored, and more often than not controlled, by the Soviet authorities. The later chapters outline the scandals andparanoiawhich weakenedthe organizationin...

The Undeliverable Vision: Problems and Prospects of Motorisation in Asia

In the emerging economies of Asia, urban areas face a seemingly insurmountable challenge: the accommodation of rapid population growth while providing sufficient infrastructure to serve as hubs for the national economy competing in an increasingly global market. Transport infrastructure in such cities has typically been unable to keep up with freight and passenger traffic growth, as both national and local politicians have increasingly become enmeshed in a globalised vision of motorisation provided by the motor vehicle industry. Caught in this vision, despite its increasing unaffordability and some minimal opposition, cities in Asia have too often pursued road-building projects to service their development needs and relieve traffic congestion. This has resulted in a transport system catering to the needs of an affluent minority while reducing the public space available to the poorer majority. Aggravating the situation, past currency devaluation in the region has led to many governments providing fuel at subsidised costs with much of this subsidy being enjoyed by the transportation industry and middle/higher income groups. Within these developments has emerged a new conflict as the paradigm of sustainable development is increasingly promoted world-wide by international development agencies and national and city governments as a basis for future urban development. This paradigm focuses on environmental enhancement, poverty alleviation, equity improvement and good governance, providing a critical counter-voice to the vision of motorisation proponents. As a result of these parallel developments, we are now witnessing in Asia (and elsewhere), a collision of two globalised visions: motorisation and sustainable development. There is, consequently, an urgent need for the development of a new vision by (and for) the motor vehicle industry that assigns motorisation to a more constructive role in an integrated future for transport use and sustainable urban development, jointly arrived at by key stakeholders of development. It is the belief of the authors that this new vision can and will provide exciting new technological and commercial opportunities for the global transportation industry and urban inhabitants alike.

Where the Earth Touches the Sky: The Xavante Indians' Struggle for Land in Brazil, 1951-1979

Where the Earth Touches the Sky: The Xavante Indians' Struggle for Land in Brazil, 1951-1979

Mulholland Highway and the Engineering Culture of Los Angeles in the 1920s

Mulholland Highway and the Engineering Culture of Los Angeles in the 1920s Matthew W. Roth (bio) Mulholland Highway, a twisting 22-mile roadway along the ridgetops of the Hollywood Hills (fig. 1), meant different things to the real estate investors who first promoted it, to the engineers who designed it and supervised its construction, and to the property owners who encountered the environmental effects of its completion. 1 “The property in the district is owned by a small group of capitalists who expect to be rewarded for their enterprise by the subdivision of the frontage on the highway into building sites,” wrote the trade journal for the region’s construction industry. 2 But Mulholland Highway did not raise property values and development opportunities in the hills and the adjacent San Fernando Valley until a generation later than anticipated, when its original advocates were no longer in a position to benefit. The reasons are apparent in retrospect: the highway created a cul-de-sac rather than a connection with the principal roads of the growing city, and the threat of fire and landslide in the chaparral environment of the hills discouraged development and settlement. Despite the known fire threat and the city’s established practice of integrating the construction of highways and underground utilities, the roadbuilding project did not incorporate [End Page 545] provision for water mains. The fire hazard only surfaced in the proceedings when the city engineering staff sought a pretext for accelerated administrative procedures, and it still did not cause modification of the design or construction. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. For the motorcade celebrating the opening of Mulholland Highway, the participants traveled from the western terminus to Laurel Canyon. The highway extended further east from there, but because it dead-ended at a cliff the celebrants were diverted to Laurel Canyon. (Automobile Club of Southern California Archives.) The disjunction between the expectations of its promoters and what the engineers produced was so extreme that the promoters petitioned to close the road barely five years after raising a million dollars to complete it. 3 This disparity cannot be explained away as unanticipated consequences because, for one thing, the engineers knew the consequences even as they conducted the work. For another, they pursued the project with uncommon fervor, even making successful requests for dispensation from standard administrative practices. What did the engineers want? If they were not simply compliant technicians leashed to the aims of business and political elites, how did they decide what to build? During the approval process and the construction itself, the city engineers left a record of their aspirations in testimony to the city council, in departmental reports, and in naming the highway after William Mulholland, the principal figure in the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct and the founder of municipal engineering practice in the city. As John A. Griffin, head of the city’s engineering department, wrote: “It is named as a tribute and to be built as a monument to a great engineer, ‘Our Bill,’ Bill Mulholland, the builder of the Los Angeles Aqueduct and the one man among all others who put our beloved City of Los Angeles on the map.” 4 They also left the record of the road itself, an expressive if not articulated statement by engineers who, for the most part, spoke with their shovels. To the city engineering department, Mulholland Highway was a massive reordering of the natural environment that followed in several ways the pattern of the engineers’ greatest triumph, the Los Angeles (or Owens Valley) Aqueduct, which opened in 1913 and carried water 233 miles to the city from the eastern Sierras. The highway accorded with the engineers’ sense of beauty in the landscape, an aspect of engineering that historian David Nye has described as the “technological sublime.” 5 Its construction engineer, Dewitt Reaburn, described one aspect of this aesthetic when he extolled the vantage points that the road would afford: “In driving over the completed portion of the highway, one is charmed and amazed at the wonderful view of the surrounding country, which is continually changing as the vision sweeps from one side of the summit to the other. The...

THE EFFECT OF WEATHER ON ROAD CONSTRUCTION: APPLICATIONS OF A SIMULATION MODEL1

Abstract A simulation model is applied to a long series (1918–65) of daily rainfall observations to produce an experimental series of operational records on the weather-sensitive portion of a road building project. These records are analyzed statistically for various periods of time within the normal construction season and the resulting statistics are examined for their potential usefulness in the management of road construction.

Road-Building Projects with Federal Aid

Road-Building Projects with Federal Aid