John LattaHomeThe Other Side of the Glass DoorI had a dog once that loved to sunbath indoors, resting beside a sliding glass patio door. Outside would come strolling the neighborhood tortoiseshell cat, flop herself down on the other side of the glass and languidly do her own sunbathing. My dog went nuts, barking, scratching, clawing and demonstrating 50 ways of tearing a […]July 2, 2012RoadbuildingReauthorization — first glimpses, second guessesSo compromise wins. So it should; that’s what a Senate/House conference committees does. But looking at the first details of the new reauthorization bill, it’s impossible not to feel that this is a compromise that could have happened way sooner. Much of it is simply dumping Senate clauses. Not too much discussion needed here because […]June 28, 2012BusinessYou got a ‘D’? Well, that’s okay, school’s hard.If your children come home with ‘D’ on their report cards, do you ignore it,accept it, because, hey, they look like they’re doing okay? Or do you hit the roof?” Our transportation infrastructure is not falling apart at the seams, ready to collapse around our ears. And that may be part of the problem. Trying […]June 19, 2012RoadbuildingPut these bridge guys to workInside the Convention Center downtown Pittsburgh some really impressive American bridge technology. Outside, old bridges. Its frustrating, to put it mildly,to see so much know-how and capabiity being underused. I know, I know, I bleed reauthorization. But America’s bridges keep aging and we are far too slow to address the problem on the job. This […]June 19, 2012TechnologyPut these bridge guys to workInside the Convention Center downtown Pittsburgh some really impressive American bridge technology. Outside, old bridges. Its frustrating, to put it mildly,to see so much know-how and capabiity being underused. I know, I know, I bleed reauthorization. But America’s bridges keep aging and we are far too slow to address the problem on the job. This […]June 11, 2012Construction EquipmentLet’s say reauthorization was a simple thingIt could be a really interesting week in the surface transportation reauthorization debate in the Congressional conference committee. If you step way, way back from it, it’s possible to argue that the basics of an agreement are there on the one hand for a clean, sensible, no frills, hard-working bill — and a series of […]June 10, 2012RoadbuildingRemembering Bill SwisherOne of the things about the construction industry, and road construction in particular because that’s where I live, is the people. There are some true characters in this business, originals, old school make-a-difference types. Maybe it was a different world, maybe it required different people. Either way, we just lost one, Bill Swisher, the founder […]June 7, 2012Construction EquipmentFY13 funding for DOT released. Ouch!The House Appropriations Committee has released the fiscal year 2013 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development funding bill. Apparently the old adage that the first cut is the deepest isn’t always true. All of the proposed cuts hurt. But there is 39.1B from the Highway Trust Fund for the Federal Highway program (until a reauthorization bill […]June 6, 2012RoadbuildingRemembering Bill SwisherOne of the things about the construction industry, and road construction in particular because that’s where I live, is the people. There are some true characters in this business, originals, old school make-a-difference types. Maybe it was a different world, maybe it required different people. Either way, we just lost one, Bill Swisher, the founder […]June 6, 2012BusinessDrive Now, Pay Later.Interesting, basic approach to the argument for borrowing to build/maintain/repair our transportation infrastructure in the New York Times. Written by a Cornell University economics professor, Robert H. Frank. Agree or disagree he makes a fairly basic argument. And clarity from any point of view in this debate is actually quite refreshing. May we regress to […]June 5, 2012Previous PagePage 23 of 43Next PageTop StoriesSafety & ComplianceContractor Faces $394K in Fines After Worker Dies in TrenchThe worker was buried at the bottom of a 12-foot-deep trench, and his employer had been cited for similar violations in the past.Wheel LoadersLiebherr Debuts World's First Large Wheel Loader with a Hydrogen EngineDozersHyundai Breaks into the Dozer Market with HD100The DirtTest Run & Review: The Market's First Electric Mini Excavator, JCB’s 19C-1ECompact equipmentTakeuchi's TCR50-2 Crawler Dumper is Coming to North America