Day: 2011-08-01

High-speed eastern rail link to cost $100 billion

| David Levinson

Australia is looking at HSR too, Sydney Herald writes: High-speed eastern rail link to cost $100 billion:

A FEDERAL government report into high-speed rail along Australia’s eastern seaboard has identified a route between Brisbane and Melbourne, via Sydney and Canberra, that would cost almost $100 billion.
…
The Melbourne Greens MP, Adam Bandt, who has been pushing the project, said the government should make the Sydney-Melbourne route, which is already the fourth-busiest air corridor in the world, the first priority, rather than starting on a shorter, but more complex and expensive, leg between Sydney and Newcastle. ”I am concerned that the government is thinking small … when they need to be thinking big,” Mr Bandt said.

According to the article, no opposition yet.

Fallen slab is concrete proof Montreal’s crumbling

| David Levinson
Fallen Slab, Montreal Quebec
Fallen Slab, Montreal Quebec

Toronto Star:Fallen slab is concrete proof Montreal’s crumbling

MONTREAL—A huge concrete slab fell Sunday on a major expressway that runs under downtown Montreal, the latest in a series of incidents that point to the city’s crumbling infrastructure.
No one was injured in the collapse in the Ville-Marie tunnel, but the incident could have had disastrous consequences if it had occurred on Monday at the same time, during rush hour traffic, police said.
“Our officers arrived at the scene and we verified and made sure that no one was stuck underneath the rubble,” Daniel Thibaudeau, spokesman for Quebec provincial police, told reporters Sunday.
About 100,000 vehicles use the expressway during an average weekday, according to Transport Quebec.

It is somehow reassuring when infrastructure in other countries is falling apart too.